Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
I don't. Because I didn't.
Eleanor. I thought about her all fuckin' day after she left. Something wasn't right about her, and it's bugging me, but I can't put my finger on what, exactly, it was.
"All right," Sturgis Shirt says. "It's all here."
"Told you it was," I mumble. But he doesn't hear me.
The paperwork to trade in the Honda takes another hour, but when that hour's over, so is my life.
My old life, that is.
Because the Dyna Fat Bob is my ticket in to Badlands.
It's comin'. I can feel it.
The bike is special in that it's a real fuckin' Harley, it's a Fat Bob, and it's black. But other than that, it's pretty average.
But it won't be average forever. And when I throw my leg over it and feel the engine rumble to life beneath me, there it is. The something that's coming roars up inside me and I leave the dealership a different person than when I walked in.
I ride a hundred and eighty-three miles without stoppin', picturing how I will customize the bike. New paint, tank art, replace the dented chrome with matte-black powder coat, ape-hangers, staggered short shots…
It will change over time, and I'll change with it.
The wind tears at my clothes, the sun beats down on my arms, and for the first time in months, I feel alive.
When I finally stop, it's on a ridge overlooking the Badlands compound. From up here, I can see men moving around the property—loading bikes, smokin', passing bottles.
One of them looks up, seems to notice me silhouetted against the sky. But he doesn't point. Doesn't raise an alarm. Just goes back to what he was doin' like I'm not even there.
I'm still invisible to them.
Still nothin'.
But not for long.
These outlaws are my future.
Two years later, the truck stop pavement burns through the soles of my boots, hot enough to fry an egg. Savannah leans over the hood of her Range Rover, spreading out a paper map like we're living in some time before cell phones existed.
Her prairie dress—shorter than anything she'd wear back home where her brothers might see—flutters around her thighs every time a semi roars past.
She bites her bottom lip, concentrating on the blue lines that will take her away from here. Away from me.
I shift my weight, adjusting myself as I watch her. Those legs. That ass. The way her hair falls forward when she bends over the map. I picture walking up behind her, sliding my hands under that dress, bending her over the hood right here in broad daylight. Holding her down with one hand between her shoulder blades while I work her panties down with the other. I'd make her grip the edges of the hood while I spread her legs with my knee. Take my time getting my belt undone, making her wait for it, making her beg for it. I'd fuck her hard enough to leave marks on those perfect hips, her ass slapping against me while truckers honk and her fancy car rocks on its suspension. I'd make her come screaming my name with her cheek pressed against that map, smearing the ink with her sweat, so every time she looked at it, she'd remember whose she really was.
But I don't move. Just stand there with my thumbs hooked in my belt loops, watching her trace highways with her finger.
Two years of barely seeing each other, and now she's leaving for good. The girl standing in front of me isn't the same one who used to ride double on my dirt bike. Her hair's got those expensive-looking highlights now. Her nails are perfect—no more dirt under them from the barn. Even her clothes scream money. Designer shit I don't really understand.
"So I'll go through Denver," she says, tapping the map. "A girl from prep-school lives there and she's gonna ride with me. We'll head east to Virginia. Emory and Henry is here." She points to a spot I don't bother looking at.
It's over. Whatever this thing between us was—if it ever really was anything at all.
"I'll be riding for all their teams," she continues, excitement making her voice higher than normal. "IHSA, IDA, ANRC—"
I don't know what any of those letters mean. Horse shit, that's all I know. Rich-girl shit. The kind of life where you worry about ribbons and trophies instead of whether your little sister ate today.
"Cassia will be delivered to the college stable next week," she adds, glancing at me like she's waiting for me to care about her fucking horse. "They have the most beautiful facility—indoor and outdoor arenas, trails through the forests..."
I try to picture her there. In that world. With those people. I can't make the image form in my head. These past two years, we'd hook up whenever she came home from that fancy boarding school. Hard, desperate sex in the silo. On my bike. Once in an old barn while a storm raged outside.