Unbeautifully (Undeniable, #2)(3)
“Evie.” Kami laughed. “Big, sexy, and scary is staring again.”
We all turned to find my father watching Eva the way he always watched Eva. Intense. Wholly possessive. Sexual to the nth degree.
Grossed out, I turned away.
“Watch this,” Eva whispered, and bent over to pick up Kami’s one-year-old son, Diesel. Her jeans pulled down, her shirt pulled up, and deuce, tattooed above her ass in large scrolling script, was front and center in my father’s line of sight.
I didn’t have to look to know my father was ten seconds away from stalking across the lawn and throwing her over his shoulder. That he was a caveman, when it came to Eva, was putting it mildly. As happy as I was that they were happy, the ick factor at watching my father always groping my stepmother was off the charts.
But all that said, my father and Eva had come a long way. A few years back, right before my eighteenth birthday, Eva’s now deceased husband, Frankie “Crazy” Deluva, had brutalized her in front of my father. The whole ordeal had ended with Eva forced to kill her husband, all of which had left her relationship with my father terribly damaged. It had been a hard road back, and seeing them like this, happy and still very much in love, was truly a blessing.
“You’re terrible,” Adriana scolded Eva, laughing.
Adriana’s husband, Mick, my father’s VP and best friend, pulled her close and kissed her cheek.
“Babe,” he growled. “I’m thinkin’ you need to start bein’ more terrible.”
Adriana giggled.
“Be right back, babe,” ZZ whispered, kissing my lips as he squeezed my backside. Grabbing Mick, he flashed me a shit-eating grin and took off across the lawn just as a blaze of pink and pigtails came streaking by.
“Get back here, you crazy little shit!” Cage bellowed, running after Ivy. “And give me my keys!”
Laughing like a maniac, Ivy kept running. Cage ran faster, shooting past her, and Ivy tried to go left, but Cage was quicker and grabbed her.
“Gotcha!” he said as she shrieked and giggled until he set her down.
“Ivy Olivia West!” Eva yelled. “Give your brother his keys!”
“Here,” Ivy muttered, slapping the keys into his outstretched hand. Cage’s hand closed around hers and he pulled her forward into a bear hug.
“Love you, you crazy little shit,” he growled. “Couldn’t have asked for a better sister. ’Cause, ya know, Danny’s kinda bitchy.”
Rolling my eyes, I flipped them off and in return received two grins identical to my own.
I shook my head. Ivy was learning all of her life lessons from our arrogant, womanizing, prankster of a brother. The arrogance I couldn’t fault him for. He was a great-looking guy, a younger, less harsh version of our father. Tall and muscular with long blond hair and dark chocolate eyes, the girls loved him. And he loved them back. However, the womanizing and constant pranks I could fault him for, and Ivy was following in his footsteps. She knew just the right thing to say to get her way, putting on the perfect pouty face and batting her wide blue eyes…ugh. And Eva, always keeping her in pigtails and Chucks, making both my father’s and brother’s hearts melt every time they laid eyes on her. Blech. Blargh. Blah. I had no doubt when she was older, she would be giving our elderly father several dozen heart attacks.
“She is such a little monster,” Eva said, smiling fondly at Ivy.
“An adorable monster,” Kami added.
“Ha,” Eva scoffed. “You only think she’s adorable because you don’t h—”
Done with the conversation, I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked off, weaving my way through the groups of bikers, women, and children who were talking, laughing, dancing. It was serene. Picture-perfect.
Well, almost picture-perfect.
“Danny!”
Cringing, I spun around ready to hurry in the opposite direction but wasn’t fast enough. My longtime friend Anabeth snatched my bicep and yanked me sideways. I stumbled to a stop and faced her. Like me, Anabeth was blonde, blue-eyed, and pretty. We were both in shape but whereas Anabeth was thin, I was more muscular. Ten years of gymnastics and four years of cheerleading will do that to you. I kept my hair long, highlighted, and styled, and Anabeth had hers short, cut into a smooth bob with razor-straight bangs. Currently she was wearing a deep blue mini dress and chunky blue espadrilles. In her ears were giant blue hoops, much like the fifty-plus she had on each of her arms. A few years ago I would have complimented her outfit, would have been wearing something similar myself, most likely pink. But that wasn’t the case anymore. Anabeth and I were worlds apart. Actually, everyone and I were worlds apart…
I’d lost something inside of me, something important, something special that had made me who I’d been, and slowly the color had seeped out of my world.
Anabeth gave my dark-washed jeans and black V-neck tee a once-over. Her gaze landed on my feet and she narrowed her eyes. “Are you wearing green…Converse sneakers?”
Sighing, I looked down at my feet. I was. Chucks were all Eva wore aside from a few pairs of flip-flops, so in turn, Chucks were all Ivy and I got when Eva went shoe shopping. Combined, I would say the three of us had about a hundred pairs in a wide variety of colors.
“I kinda like them,” I said and shrugged.
“I dig ’em,” Freebird said. Freebird was an old biker who’d left his brain back in nineteen sixty-five. He had his old lady with him today, Apple Dumplin’, who, like him, had long gray hair and more wrinkles then a crinkled-up piece of paper.