Page 66 of Ordinary Girl

“He’s not going to be happy.”

“Better you tell him the truth than lie to him. He’ll respect that far more.”

“He warned me off. Told me never to touch her again–”

“And he had no right to say that.”

Both Dag and I look up at the sound of her voice. Ana.

“I’ll leave you both to it,” Dag says, getting up and heading inside.

“I thought you’d gone out with Freja?”

She sits down next to me. “I had. And now I’m back.”

Freja throws us both a reassuring smile, gently squeezing my shoulder as she passes me before following Dag inside, closing the door behind her.

“So, Skip doesn’t approve, huh?”

I look at her, every fucking emotion it’s possible to feel vying for space in my head. “He’s thinking of leaving the club. Starting a new life.” And I know he doesn’t want me telling anyone about that, but this is necessary. Ana deserves to be able to make her own decisions. Her own choices. We took so much of that away from her, now it’s time to pay her back. Respect her. Treat her like a fucking human being.

“Okay. But, what’s that got to do with you and me?”

Our eyes lock. “Isthere a you and me?”

“Do you want there to be?”

I don’t know… Yes. I do. But she’s like no other woman I’ve been with before. She’s younger. She doesn’t know this life. She’s a fighter, she’s stubborn; confrontational. She smiles at me andmy head’s fucked for hours. We broke her world in two and she still wants to be with me. “Doyou?”

The corner of her mouth inches upward. “Do you think one of us should, you know, actually try answering that question?”

I laugh, dragging a hand back through my hair. “Maybe.”

“I want there to be an us.”

I look at her. And I smile. And I should tell her there’s no way it could happen, no way itshouldhappen, but I’m tired of living by rules I don’t always agree with. It’s time I started making some of my own.

“Skip has no place telling us what to do, Joel.”

“It isn’t that simple, Ana. It’s complicated.”

“Is it?”

I sigh quietly, shifting my gaze out front. “If he’s serious about leaving this life, he’s taking you with him.”

“He doesn’t have any right to decide what happens to me. Where I go. Who I see.”

Her confidence is back. The fight is there, in her eyes, but I don’t know if this fight is one she can win.

“He wants you to live a life that’s safe. One that your mama would want you to live, not this life.Thisisn’t safe.”

“My mama would want me to be happy, Joel. That’s all my mama would want.”

“This life killed her, Ana.”

“I know that.” Her eyes are cold now. Hard. There’s an edge to her that I haven’t seen before. Hell, this kid has done a shit load of growing up in such a small amount of time. “I was there.”

I drop my gaze, but I still feel her eyes on me.

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