Page 36 of Ordinary Girl

“Where are we going?”

He doesn’t answer me. He just turns around and starts walking toward the door, and even though the last thing I want to do is follow him: go anywhere with this man, I get up and do just that. I follow him outside.

“Put this on.”

He throws me a helmet and climbs onto his bike, jerking his head back to tell me to get on behind him. But I hesitate. And he looks at me with a slightly irritated expression.

“Get on the bike, Ana.”

I reluctantly pull on the helmet and climb on behind him, reaching back for the grab rail, my fingers tightening around it as he pulls away. And I don’t know where the hell we’re going, but the bigger part of me still ceases to care.

Sixteen

Joel

She’s off the bike the second I pull up outside a small Italian restaurant on the corner of a fairly busy street in a neighboring town where the Vikings aren’t really known. It’s not our territory, neither has it got anything to do with the Blackhawks, we’re on neutral turf. That’s why I brought her here. I’m not in the mood for trouble today.

“I’m not hungry.” She places the helmet on the seat of the bike and leans back against it, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Yeah, well, I am. You should probably drink something, though. Don’t want you dehydrating.”

“Do I get a choice?”

“No. Come on.”

She follows me into the restaurant, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her jeans, her head slightly down. She rarely lifts it, to be honest. Rarely looks up. And I feel for her, I really do, she didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve any of it.

“Sit down. Have a look at the menu.”

She sits down opposite me in a window booth. “I said I wasn’t hungry.”

“Why don’t you just order something and see how you feel?”

“Again, do I get a choice?”

I don’t answer her, and look down at my own menu. “Just order something.”

She sighs quietly, which irritates me no end, but I ignore it.

“I’m really not hungry.”

I look up, and her eyes are almost pleading with me. And now it’s my turn to sigh. “Alright. You can always have some of mine if you change your mind.”

Her shoulders visibly relax, and it’s completely understandable why her appetite’s shot to shit. She’s living a fucking nightmare.

I beckon a server over. “A large steak and onion with extra cheese, thin crust, and two diet Cokes.”

Ana raises an eyebrow. “Diet soda, huh? Doesn’t quite fit in with the whole big bad biker image.”

“That’s because you’ve obviously got a pretty narrow minded view of who we really are.”

“I did my research, when my mama started seeing Skip. I looked your club up. You’ve done your fair share of bad stuff.”

“And not one charge has ever been leveled against us. Did your research tell you that?”

She shifts her gaze to stare out of the window. “Doesn’t mean you’re innocent. Doesn’t mean you didn’t do those things.”

“Maybe not.”

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