Love and Lists (Chocoholics)

by Tara Sivec

  A familiar arm slid around my middle and pulled me close.

  “Hey, baby,” ZZ whispered, slipping his fingertips in the waistband of my jeans. With his other hand, he grabbed my beer and took a long swallow.

  I turned into his big, hard body and slipped my arms around his waist. “Hey, you,” I whispered back, kissing his sternum.

  ZZ was another lifer, thirty years old, big and strong, long brown hair, matching brown eyes, squared handsome features, and a perpetual five o’clock shadow. And he was a sweetheart. As far as boyfriends went, I’d hit the jackpot. Kind and thoughtful, educated and well-read, faithful in a club constantly filled with whores, ZZ was everything a girl could hope for in a man.

  “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.

  “Wat up, Danny girl?” Tap said, holding out his fist. I fist-bumped him and smiled.

  Tap was in his late forties, not overly tall but made up for what he lacked in height in muscle. Built like a boxer, his muscles along with his long black hair and goatee were intimidating unless you knew him. He was one of the Horsemen’s most even-tempered boys.

  “Hannah says her hellos. She’s hopin’ you’re comin’ to visit Atlanta again soon.”

  Hannah was Tap’s daughter. When Tap’s wife, Tara, had left him, she’d taken Hannah and moved to Atlanta. Hannah was older than me, but we were both the daughters of Horsemen and had always known each other.

  “I called her last week,” I said, smiling. “She told me the good news.”

  He grinned. “Can’t believe my baby’s havin’ a baby.”

  “Here ya go, babe,” Ripper said, shoving in between Tap and Apple, offering a bottle of beer to Anabeth.

  “Thanks,” Anabeth said, smiling up at him.

  Ripper stared down at Anabeth, his lips curving into a grin, his expression smug, knowing.

  My stomach lurched and I quickly turned away, wanting to make a hasty exit before he noticed I was standing there. Ripper and I were … There just weren’t words for what Ripper and I were.

  I was three years old when my father met Erik “Ripper” Jacobs at a bike rally while on a run through San Antonio. Ripper was only seventeen at the time, having just lost both his parents to a drunk driving accident back home in Los Angeles. He had skipped town two days after the funeral on a stolen motorcycle, just three weeks before his high school graduation.

  The boys liked him immediately, and when the Hell’s Horsemen returned to Montana, he was with them.

  After only three months of doing grunt wor
k around the club, he was unanimously voted and patched in as a brother. A year later, my father promoted him to sergeant at arms and coined him “Ripper” after “Jack the Ripper,” for being as talented with a blade as he was.

  Being so young and new to the club and the life, moving up in the ranks so quickly was virtually unheard of. But Ripper was special and everyone knew it. He always had a smile on his face, a joke on the tip of his tongue. He was good with people, could talk nearly anyone into anything just by flashing a grin.

  “Hey there, Ripper!” Apple said happily. “Danny was just tellin’ us that she talked to Hannah last week. Tell us what else she said, Danny girl.”

  I stopped retreating and turned slowly back around. Ripper’s deep blue gaze found mine.

  He had his glass eye in today, a very realistic copy of the one that had been painfully taken from him, along with his fun-loving personality, by the same man who’d almost ruined my father’s relationship with Eva. Frankie.

  But Ripper didn’t care about how he looked, unless …

  I glanced back at Anabeth.

  Unless he was trying to impress someone.

  I pushed my sunglasses up over my head. “Ripper,” I greeted him evenly.

  We stared at each other.

  Whore, I thought bitterly.

  His expression went cold. Don’t start, Danny, his face said.

  My fists clenched. I hated our silent conversations, but since neither of us could be civil to each other, silent was the only form of communication we had. And even silent we couldn’t keep our emotions from unraveling.

  “Ripper’s going to take me for a ride tonight!” Anabeth said excitedly.

  I glared at him. I just bet you are.

  He glared back. What’s wrong, baby? ZZ not givin’ you the kinda ride you need?

  Shut. Up.

  He raised an eyebrow. Hittin’ a nerve, huh?

  Not. Anabeth, I begged him with my eyes. Please. Not. My. Friends.

  Ripper’s scar-slashed mouth twisted into a mocking smirk. Oh, so now there are rules? You can fuck my friends but I can’t fuck yours? Don’t exactly seem fair, baby.

  Ripper kept his gaze on me while he slid his arm around Anabeth’s shoulders and began tracing her collarbone with the tip of his finger.

  “‘Bout that ride, beautiful girl, where you wanna go?”

  Anabeth, hearing the words “beautiful girl” in reference to her, beamed up at him.

  Me, hearing the words “beautiful girl” come out of Ripper’s mouth directed at anyone who wasn’t me, had my insides roiling. Seeing this, Ripper looked triumphant.

  What’s wrong, Danny? You look upset. Was it somethin’ I said?

  I covered my mouth with my hand and tried to stay calm. Looking anywhere but at Ripper, I caught eyes with Kajika, a young Native American woman from a nearby Indian reservation who Cox and Kami had employed as their nanny.

  She was beautiful, with long black hair and unforgettable, exaggerated features. Her eyes, nearly black and framed with thick, lush lashes, were all too knowing for my comfort.

  Smiling kindly at me, she only made my already combative emotions that much worse. She could see right through me, everything I tried to hide. I hated being around her. She made me doubt every decision I’d made during the past three years. With just one damn look.

  “‘Scuse me,” ZZ said, sidling up next to me and taking my hand in his. “I need my girl.”

  As Ripper stiffened, his arm falling away from Anabeth, I glimpsed the pain he hid beneath the anger.

  Swallowing hard, I turned away from the group and let ZZ lead me out into the center of the lawn, where he pulled me into a bear hug.

  “Don’t hate me,” he whispered. I glanced up at him, confused.

  “What? Why would I hate you?”

  He grinned, then dropped to his knees.

  Correction. He dropped down on one knee. Heart pounding, not breathing, I stared down at ZZ, watching as he pulled a small black box out of his leathers. He looked up at me.

  “You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he said softly. “The sweetest and the kindest, too. You make me so fuckin’ happy, baby, you make life so fuckin’ good. So I’m askin’ you if you’ll marry me and let me spend the rest of my life tryin’ to do the same for you.”

  He flipped the box open and revealed the biggest diamond ring I had ever seen.

  “Oh … my … god,” I whispered hoarsely, putting a shaking, sweating hand over my heart. I realized then that the yard had gone silent. Someone had shut the music off and all conversation had ceased.

  I took a quick look around the yard. Everyone was grinning, smiling, and staring right at me.

  This was bad. Very, very bad.

  “Baby girl!” My head jerked at the sound of my father’s voice.

  “You say the fuckin’ word and I will throw that asshole into next fuckin’ week! Fact, whether you say yes or no, I’m still gonna beat the fuckin’ shit outta him!”

  Eva, who’d joined him, planted her palms in his stomach and playfully shoved at him. He captured her around her neck and pulled her up against him, all the while smiling at me.

  ZZ must have already asked him. There was no way my father would have appreciated this being sprung on him. My father was the sort of man who had to mentally prepare himself for things like his daughter being proposed to.

  Which meant … my father was A-OK with me marrying ZZ.

  In fact, looking around at all the happy faces, everyone was A-OK with me marrying ZZ.

  More than okay. Elated, really.

  Everyone except one.

  I zeroed in on Ripper, whose sun-kissed skin had gone an interesting shade of green.

  Our gazes locked.

  And for a moment … I thought I saw the man I loved.

  Ripper stared at Danny. Stared at ZZ kneeling on the grass in front of her, asking her to marry him.

  He was going to flip his shit.

  These assholes all around him didn’t realize it, but they were about to get sprayed with blood, bone, and brain when his head decided to explode, which was in about five motherfucking seconds.

  Five …

  Four …

  Three …

  Two …

  One …

  Fuck him.

  Married.

  ZZ was asking Danny to marry him.

  Ah, fuck. What was happening to him? Everything inside of him suddenly felt all fucked-up and wrong. His heart started beating faster and his skin began to tingle irritably. The air around him grew thick, stuffy, making it hard to breathe. He felt lightheaded, his nose stung, and his stomach clenched painfully.

  Before he began shredding his own body to pieces, just to make all these damn uncomfortable and unwanted feelings go away, he grabbed Anabeth and yanked her up against him. She responded immediately and curled seductively around his body.

  Feeling like ten times an asshole, he kept his gaze on Danny as he groped Anabeth’s ass.

  Danny’s beautiful blue eyes filled with pain and her gaze dropped back to ZZ.

  He stopped breathing. She was going to say yes.

  Say something, his brain screamed. STOP HER!

  FUCKING STOP HER!

  But he didn’t.

  He never did.

  Because he was a useless pussy, who would never fucking deserve her.

  So he just stood there like an asshole, manhandling her friend, and watching in horrified fascination as her lips parted and—

  FUCK THIS SHIT.

  Fuck the club and the code, and fuck brotherhood.

  He would give it all up for her. For his woman. Because she sure as shit was his, and he’d go to hell and back ten times over before he lost her forever.

  He shoved Anabeth aside, his right foot moved, and …

  “DANNY!” he bellowed. “BABY!”