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)
She looks wild. That's the best part about Savannah, no matter the age. She's never been one of 'them'. She's always been one of 'us'.
"You're late," younger me says.
But at the same moment, she blurts, "Oh, my god! Family! They act like they own me, or somethin'."
They both laugh, as she explains the new horse. "Eleanor sold my fuckin' pony while I was away at school," she announces suddenly, accent thickening with anger. "Can you believe her? Nine years I had that pony, and she just—" She makes a slashing motion with her hand. "Gone. Didn't even tell me 'til I got home."
"Fucking bullshit," younger me agrees.
But then something shifts in her expression. The anger bleeds out, replaced by a reluctant smile. "But then she brought me to the south paddock, and..." She turns toward her new horse, pride straightening her spine. "I was gettin' too big for Patches anyway. And now I have a real horse! Not some quarter horse built for barrels. A thoroughbred. Seventeen hands. Eleanor hired a private trainer from Billings to teach me jumpin'."
The boy walks over to the new horse, runs a hand down its neck. He doesn't know shit about horses—not really.
But Savannah made him ride with her. That first summer when she was twelve and I was fourteen, she had the pony. I was already too big for that thing—hell, she was probably too big for that thing. But Savannah said it could hold us both because I was skinny.
That skinny burned me, I remember. Probably why I didn’t mind the feed store work.
This thought makes me laugh. The things teenage boys do for girls. But it worked. Because this year, that year, back when I was fifteen, Savannah looked at me different and she hadn’t called me skinny in a while.
"This is what you meant in your note?" he asks. "About me against your back?"
"Thought we could ride double," she says, suddenly shy. "If ya want."
If I want, I think in my grown-up mind. That offer is a fantasy come true.
Back in time, my smile widens. "Great minds," he says, gesturing toward the dirt bike parked in the tall grass. "Got my own ride now."
Her eyes widen then. "Holy shit, Legion! When and how?" She knew how poor we were. She knew.
"Saved up," he tells her. "Three jobs this past year. Bought it from a guy over in Glendive. Not new, but it runs good."
They stand there grinnin’ at each other, both burstin’ with the same idea.
"Makoshika," they say together. The nearby state park filled with secret trails, and a gift shop where I bought her a handmade leather bracelet that summer, and secret canyons with sandy ground that feels good under your toes.
We went all over that fucking place that summer. To this day, there isn't a chance in hell I'd get lost in Makoshika. You could drop me off anywhere and I'd find my way out.
We hiked every trail, we saw every canyon, we even found a little spring. In the dead of fuckin' summer, we found water in the badlands. The gift shop people even called us by name because I bought Savannah an orange soda every mornin’ when we arrived.
Thinking back now, it was a good way to spend my fifteenth year. I was poor, my family was fucked and about to get fucked harder, and I knew this was all bad for my future.
But she didn't care. Before Savannah Ashby was my woman, she was my best friend.
I wouldn't trade it for anythin’.
"You on your horse, me on my bike," fifteen-year-old me says, bringing me out of the other memory.
"Or both on the horse," she counters.
"Or both on the bike," he says, voice dropping a little.
The way she looked at me that day—eyes bright, cheeks flushed—it was all there. Already there. The love.
That's one thing I never doubted—Savannah Ashby loves me.
"This is our summer," I tell her.
It comes from my mouth.
Right in the here and now.
And it was our summer.
But that summer was something else too.
It was the beginning of my demons.
Because my first contact with Badlands MC happened that fall, and once I knew what a MC really was, it was the only reasonable future I had.
The memory shifts, the silo dissolving around me. Suddenly I'm crouched in the brush at Makoshika, late September chill creeping through my worn jacket. My breath forms small clouds in the morning air as I clutch the secondhand shotgun.
I wasn't legal to carry that shotgun—the second thing I bought with my own money after the dirt bike. But who needs rules when your stepdad's a drunk and your mom's practically incapacitated with postpartum depression?
I left before dawn that day, determined to get us a turkey for dinner. We were dead broke. Deacon, the piece-of-shit asshole who called himself my stepfather, found my money stash under the trailer two weeks earlier and took it.