Madeline Sheehan - Unattainable

“Although,” Tegen continued as she descended the stairs. “A beer diet would explain a lot.”

Cage hadn’t even realized he’d started after her until he felt his back hit the wall. He blinked, seeing Ripper’s scarred-up face mere inches from his own.

“Brother,” Ripper said, his voice low. “Let it slide. The bitch is tryin’ to get you riled up and you’re lettin’ her.”

“Fuck her,” he growled, shoving Ripper off him even as his battle lust began to ease. “She’s still fuckin’ pissed at me over somethin’ that happened years ago, somethin’ I don’t even fuckin’ remember!”

“You are an idiot!” Danny snapped, sticking a manicured pink fingernail in his face.

“I was drunk!” he shot back defensively.

Danny shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You really are an idiot.”

He grabbed his sister’s finger and shoved it back in her face. “You got Hello Kitty fingernails, little sister, and you’re callin’ me an idiot? Fuck off.”

Their father’s face appeared between them and—

“DINNER!”

He and Danny jumped apart.

“Daddy!” Danny yelled. “What the—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Deuce growled. “Get your ass and your sorry-ass man’s ass down those fuckin’ stairs.”

Laughing, Ripper grabbed Danny’s hand and pulled her away from Deuce, who turned toward Cage.

“Tegen’s back here for five fuckin’ minutes and you already got her goin’? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Her?” he yelled. “I just got in and you’re givin’ a fuck about her? You didn’t even ask me how the job went! Fuck you!”

Deuce’s eyes narrowed into slits. “I need to ask you ’bout every little fuckin’ thing now? I’m guessin’ the job went just fuckin’ fine seein’ as how your stupid ass is standin’ right in front of me, not bleedin’. So I ain’t too sure what your fuckin’ problem is but since we’re sharin’ shit right now, how about I tell you what my fuckin’ problem is?”

Cage glared at him, torn between feeling like the piece of shit his father was treating him like and punching the son of a bitch in his big fat mouth.

“My problem,” he continued, “is your worthless fuckin’ ass ain’t downstairs at the motherfuckin’—”

Cage shut it out. Just shut down, shut it out, shoved his father out of his way, and headed down the stairs.

Family fucking dinners, his ass.

• • •

This was the very worst part of coming home. Deuce and Eva and their stupid family dinners and…seeing Cage.

Everything had been fine up until five minutes ago when I’d exited the upstairs bathroom and ran smack into the asshole.

It didn’t even matter that Miles City was a small town full of small-minded religious freaks who took one look, a second, a third, and a fourth at my colorfully tattooed body, numerous body piercings, my dreadlocks, and instantly decided I was a freak of nature.

And maybe I was. But that was beside the point.

Even Danny, with her perfect body, her perfect hair, her perfect face—she probably turned girls into lesbians, she was so damn perfect—I was actually getting along with for a change. True, I had to shade my eyes against her ridiculously bright blaring pink getup, but still.

And then I’d gone to pee and…Cage.

Boom.

Every single time, without fail, one look and I was a teenager again, feeling awkward and insignificant. And now I was praying to keep my sanity.

But sanity and Miles City, Montana, were not friendly neighbors. In fact, I was pretty sure they lived on opposite ends of the universe.

Bad mood, here I come.

From her seat on his sofa, curled up in one corner, her knees pulled to her chest, Ellie watched from across two rooms as Dirty popped open his microwave door and pulled out a partially blackened bag of popcorn, waving away the smoke that followed it.

If she weren’t so terrified of what the future held, she would have laughed at how ridiculous he looked. It was his third attempt at making her something to eat; his third failed attempt. The first had been microwavable macaroni and cheese, which he also burned, the second had been two slices of bread, which the toaster had burned, and now the popcorn had burned.

No bones about it, Dirty was no chef. Not that it mattered, she was too wound up and too sick to her stomach with nerves to ingest anything without it coming right back up.

Deuce had come by yesterday, taken one look at her battered face, and started cursing up a storm. Then he’d taken Dirty into the bedroom and closed the door behind them. They were in there for nearly forty-five minutes, quiet for the most part, but she managed to catch a few words here and there.

Drop off.

Deal gone bad.

We need him.

She had no idea what was going on except that something important was going to happen and Daniel Mooresville was involved, and quite frankly it made her even more afraid. Deuce might love his family and his club, but she was neither. If a man like Deuce considered her nothing more than collateral damage, then things didn’t bode well for her.

She’d been so consumed by her foreboding thoughts that she hadn’t even heard them exit the bedroom, didn’t know they were standing right in front of her until Deuce cleared his throat. Startled, she screamed, nearly fell off the couch, and embarrassingly enough when Deuce had reached for her to help her up, she’d scrambled away from him and burst into tears.

He’d immediately retreated, his hands in the air and looked to Dirty, as if seeking help from him. It wasn’t as if Dirty was going to be much help; the poor man looked as terrified as she felt.

Really, the entire scene would have been quite laughable if she hadn’t been so scared out of her mind.

Then Deuce had hesitantly suggested she come to the club until he was able to “figure out” what he was going to do about the situation. Ellie didn’t want to know what he meant by that and therefore didn’t ask, but she wasn’t exactly thrilled about staying at the club with a group of men who’d never been very good at keeping it in their pants. In fact, the very last place she wanted to be was around anyone with a penis and a blatant disregard for the law. She’d vowed never to set foot inside of the club again after she’d learned of the shooting that had happened a few years earlier. The last thing she wanted to get caught in the middle of was some cheating biker and his enraged old lady.

Her ideal would be to hightail it out of Miles City, back to her apartment in her city, and forget that this had ever happened. Only, judging by the look on Deuce’s face, it didn’t appear that would be happening anytime soon.

But she was most definitely not going to that clubhouse. She didn’t care how much security it had. So, where did that leave her?

She glanced at Dirty, who shifted from foot to foot, looking like he might bolt from the room at any second. He also refused to look at her.

He might be a filthy mess of a man, he certainly didn’t smell very good, but his apartment was clean to the point of overkill and he seemed more than happy to continue keeping his distance from her.

“I’ll just stay here,” she said to Deuce, then glanced at Dirty. “If that’s okay with you?”

Dirty’s reaction was unexpected, to say the least. His head shot up and his dark, bewildered gaze met hers.

“No!”

Her mouth fell open. He’d saved her life, brought her to his place, had called Deuce over to help with her situation, but was telling her she couldn’t stay at his place?

“Not gonna happen,” Deuce said firmly. “It’s the club or you can figure this shit out on your own.”

Ellie felt tears welling in her eyes. What had she ever done to them? It wasn’t her fault that the police chief in this awful little town had tried to rape her, something that was obviously interfering with MC business.

“Ah, shit,” Dirty said as he ran his hands through his greasy hair. “Don’t fuckin’ cry. You can stay here.”

Deuce’s head whipped in Dirty’s direction. “No,” he growled.

Dirty shook his head. “No, Prez, it’s fine. It’s…I…just…just stay with her, lemme go to the club for…uh, something.”

Deuce glared at Dirty and Ellie wondered how Dirty wasn’t withering and dying in the face of that terrifying stare, but instead was meeting Deuce glare for glare.

“I got this,” Dirty said firmly. “Just lemme go take care of some shit.”

Ellie watched, more confused than anything else as the two man stared at each other, deeply engaged in a private conversation that only the two of them were privy to. Ellie couldn’t even comprehend how deeply connected two people had to be to reach that level of communication.

It was Deuce who looked away first and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Go,” he barked. “You got two hours, max. I gotta be home for fuckin’ dinner.”

Dirty didn’t hesitate; whatever it was that he had to do was obviously of the utmost importance to him. After he tore out the front door, Deuce stormed into the kitchen, grabbed a six-pack out of the refrigerator, took a seat on Dirty’s lone recliner, and switched the television on.

That was yesterday. Dirty had since returned, Deuce was long gone, and Dirty was…

Well, Dirty was holding up the bag of burnt popcorn, looking quite hapless.

Ellie couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing.

• • •

Dirty stared at Ellie. Why the fuck was she laughing? He glanced at the bag of popcorn in his hand. Oh. She was laughing at him. Normally if someone laughed at him, he’d pull out his piece and maybe, if he felt like it, blow their fucking skull to bits.