Madeline Sheehan - Unbeautifully

“Kami’s,” she said softly.

He watched her eyes, waiting for some sort of sign that she was lying. But she kept those big gray soul-suckers trained on him, didn’t so much as blink, and he knew she was telling the truth. Which, for some ungodly reason, pissed him off even more.

“You give a fuck about Danny bein’ home all alone?” he continued, wishing the words back the moment they’d spewed out of his mouth.

“Do you?” she asked, and he internally winced.

“I got shit to do,” he shot back.

She stared at him and he stared back. Fuck, she was beautiful and he wanted her. He wanted to hold her, touch her, he wanted inside her, but the second he thought it, he saw Frankie…inside her…and his stomach cramped.

“Fuck,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his eyes, trying to think of something to say to her, something that didn’t result in her crying and him feeling like an asshole afterward. “Listen, D’s birthday is on Saturday. You gonna be there?”

She nodded.

“You bringin’ Ivy?”

She nodded again.

And, yeah, he was out of shit to say.

“I’m out,” he muttered, sitting up straight. “Got shit to do.”

And he left. Feeling like an asshole.

• • •

Feeling a chill that had nothing at all to do with the weather, Eva walked back to Kami with her arms wrapped around herself.

Things were bad, so very bad, and she didn’t know how to fix them. She wasn’t even sure that this time they could be fixed.

Which wasn’t fair. She and Deuce had gone through hell and they deserved some peace. And she wanted that peace with him. All she’d ever wanted was him.

“Aw, Evie,” Kami whispered after taking one look at her, probably seeing on her face how heartbroken she felt. “What are you going to do?”

For a moment she said nothing, just stared down at her daughter, the spitting image of her father with her white-blonde hair, icy blue eyes, and multi-dimpled smile. She viewed Ivy as a gift, the culmination of her and Deuce’s misspent years, the phoenix rising from the ashes of their devastation, the one good that shone so brightly against all the bad, it made the bad bearable.

She shrugged. “I’m going to wait. I’m just going to wait and hope he comes back to me.”

Because he had to come back.

“He’s a proud man, Evie. Men like him, they don’t…” Kami trailed off and took a deep breath. “What if he doesn’t get over this, what will you do?”

Eva swallowed hard. He had to come back.

There just wasn’t any other option for her. She loved him too much.

I wasn’t sure if Ripper was staring at me or glaring at me. Either way, I could feel his gaze burning holes in the back of my head, and because of it I had broken out in a cold sweat during a perfectly mild afternoon.

“You okay?” Eva asked me, touching her palm to my forehead. “You feel clammy.”

I swallowed hard and nodded. “Fine,” I choked out.

Fine. I was fine. It was a party and I was perfectly fine. I wasn’t freaking out or anything. So I’d had a one-night stand. What was the big deal? But usually when people had one-night stands, they never saw the person again, right? But those people probably hadn’t had one-night stands with a man fourteen years older than them who worked for their father, a father that would probably, no definitely freak out if he ever found out. So, what was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to act like everything between us was the same as it had been before?

Which had virtually been nothing, aside from an occasional random conversation that happened in passing.

Wat up, Danny girl?

Hey, Ripper.

That’s it, that’s all; no flirting, no overly long chats, and then suddenly we’d had sex and now what?

God, was I supposed to talk to him? And with Nikki here, his once-in-a-while girlfriend, hanging all over him, how could I? Suddenly, I couldn’t understand what Ripper had ever seen in her. Why he’d wasted years being with a club whore. She was fake and trashy and wore horrible clothing that did nothing but exacerbate how trashy she really was. And just like that, I suddenly hated a woman I’d never given half a thought to before.

Oh god, I was so uncomfortable, feeling oddly embarrassed and exposed and wishing I were anywhere but at the club and Ripper would stop stare-glaring at me.

Stupidly, I chanced a glance, and of course he was staring at me. Or glaring. I turned away and tried to concentrate on the conversation happening around me.

“Tegen,” Dorothy said, sliding an arm over her daughter’s shoulders and pulling her close. “Tell everyone your news.”

Dorothy’s daughter was a hot mess. Almost sixteen years old and she still hadn’t grown out of her middle school awkwardness. She’d inherited Dorothy’s flaming red hair but hers had more of an orangey tint to it. Whereas Dorothy’s was thick and long with soft waves, Tegen’s was just plain frizzy and usually sticking out all over the place. Her green, almond-shaped eyes were always hidden by a pair of thick black frames, on her teeth were a full set of braces that for some reason she’d decided looked good with bright orange rubber bands. And her clothing…

Despite Dorothy’s best efforts, Tegen refused to dress like a girl. Not that the tomboy look couldn’t be sexy, it was. On women like Eva. Tegen looked like an awkward little girl swimming in ugly clothing two sizes too big for her.

“Tegen?”

Tegen didn’t answer, in fact she hadn’t even heard her mother. She was too busy staring across the lawn at…

I followed her line of sight. Cage.

I would have laughed if I didn’t feel so sick to my stomach. When she wasn’t sitting in a dark corner listening to Dashboard Confessional, she could be found staring at my brother.

It wasn’t any secret Tegen had a serious crush on Cage; she’d never hidden it and in my opinion, her following him around like a sad little puppy dog all the time was just sad. But more so embarrassing. For me.

“Baby?” Dorothy gave her a shake.

Tegen glanced up. “What?”

“Your news,” Dorothy repeated. “Tell everyone.”

Tegen’s cheeks turned pink. “Mom,” she muttered. “Really? It’s not that important.”

Dorothy gaped at her. “Your story was published in a national newspaper and it’s not important?”

Eva tugged on Tegen’s hair and grinned. “That’s so awesome, baby. I’m proud of you.”

Rolling her eyes, Tegen shrugged. “It was just some stupid contest,” she said and went back to not-so-secretly eyeing my brother. Dorothy and Eva continued their conversation and I went back to my cold sweat, because Ripper was still stare-glaring at me.

• • •

“Baby,” Nikki cooed, running her hand up Ripper’s thigh. “What is wrong with you?”

What was wrong with him? He was still waiting to die, that’s what was wrong with him.

Motherfuck, he was a mess. He hadn’t slept in almost a week, unless you counted passing out cold from alcohol poisoning.

Goddamn, what had she said to him?

Ripper, you’re still beautiful. So you’ve got some scars. So what?

She’d fucked him, both literally and figuratively. He’d been done for the moment she’d called him beautiful.

Jesus, he was only human.

With twitching hands, Ripper grabbed his pack of smokes off the picnic table in front of him, shook one out and, as he brought it to his mouth, turned his gaze across the lawn.

What the fuck was her game?

She hated him. She had to. She wanted him to die.

But why would she hate him? He’d never done shit to her. He’d barely had anything to do with her.

Until now.

She hadn’t told on him either.

But why would she? She’d been wholeheartedly into it, if memory served.

Ripper closed his eyes and saw Danny splashing naked in the lake, the water only reaching her waist, her long blonde hair wet and plastered to her body, beads of water clinging to her eyelashes, lips, and breasts.

“Oh my god.” She laughed. “I’m so drunk!”

Yeah, and he had a hard-on from hell that was making it hard to think about anything but grabbing her, throwing her down, and fucking the shit out of her.

“What’s wrong, Mr. Grumpy?” She giggled, slinging her arms around his neck, pressing her tits up against his abdomen and her stomach into his erection. He held his breath, kept his hands fisted at his sides. He wasn’t going to touch her. He was not going to touch her…

“Ripper?”

He glanced down and found her peeking up at him through wet eyelashes. Jesus.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for dancing with me,” she said softly, almost shyly. “And for not taking me home.”

“Yeah,” he said tightly. “Ain’t no big deal.”

Her hand slid from his neck to his chest and he closed his eyes as she traced one of the many scars there. “It was to me,” she murmured.

“Danny,” he growled, refusing to look at her. “You keep touchin’ me like that and I ain’t gonna be responsible for what I end up doin’.”

Then he felt it. Her lips pressed a soft kiss on the center of his chest, over the worst of the scars and lingered there, softly kissing.

And then he heard it. Five little words that shut off his brain and spurred his body into action. “Ripper,” she whispered against his ruined skin. “Make my prom night perfect.”

She’d wham, bam, thank you for your services, Ripper, and they’d gone their separate ways. No need to tell anyone; no need to do it again.

Which brought up another question. Why the fuck had she done it in the first place?

Because she was drunk? To give her father a secret fuck-you?

Between Deuce and Cage constantly breathing down her neck, the girl hadn’t had a whole lot of freedom to do as she pleased. So he supposed in a way it made sense that she’d ended up in bed with a brother, the only human beings with dicks that Deuce had willingly let her associate with.

But lately Deuce had been absent from the world, and Cage was usually buried in women.

If she’d just wanted a fuck, there were other brothers, younger, a lot less fucked-up looking.

Holy shit…had she been a virgin?

Oh god, he was going to throw up.

Why had she done this to him? What the fuck had he ever done to her?

“Hello?” Nikki snapped her fingers in front of his face. “This is a party, remember? Loosen up.”

Yeah. Whatever. There was always a party. Between the club members and their families, it was always someone’s birthday, a wedding, a baby being born. He froze. Birthdays. Holy fuck, how old was Danny?

Ripper scanned his memories, thinking back to the birthdays over the past year and…

His shoulders slumped as he sighed in relief. She was eighteen. Legal. Thank you, God. She’d turned eighteen a few weeks before he’d turned thirty-two.

Shoving Nikki’s hand out of his face, he glanced back across the lawn.

And…she still wasn’t looking at him.

He’d spent an entire week thinking about nothing but her, wondering if she’d spilled the beans, wondering if she was going to show her face at the club, wondering why he gave a shit if she showed her face at the club or not, freaking the fuck out every time he saw Deuce, thinking at any second he was going to get his balls blown off.

He stubbed out his smoke on the picnic table, grabbed his pack, and shook out another.

Was it over with?

Could he just forget the whole fucking deal and move on?

He wished someone would tell him.

That someone being Danny, who, by the way, still wasn’t looking at him.

And fuck him, he was still looking at her.

He couldn’t stop.

Danny was the natural version of Nikki. Naturally blonde, naturally tan, didn’t have to wear a shitload of makeup.

Nine years ago, when he’d first met Nikki, he’d liked her enough to consider her his girl. She was hot as fuck, curvy as hell, and a freak in bed. Only problem was he never got to that point where he’d wanted to give up pussy on the side, and strangely enough, Nikki had been okay with it. Then when he’d come home, all fucked-up from Frankie, she hadn’t even blinked. She hadn’t given a fuck.

That’s when Ripper knew she was just like every other club whore, only in his bed for what the club could give her. But he hadn’t cared. She was just some bitch he threw a couple of bills at once in a while. She got the club and he got pussy whenever he wanted it. It worked.