Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 105398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 527(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 527(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
She opened her mouth to say something, but then thought better of it. Yanking open her door, she folded inside and slammed it behind her. She did a pretty impressive burn out once she was in the street, and I wondered if I could ever do one of those in my POS car. Probably not.
I turned around and startled to see the men of Free lined up behind me. Every last one of them was wearing a shit-eating grin on their face, too.
“Excuse me while I finish my hash brown.” I said squeezing in between James and Sam.
Sam ruffled my hair as I walked past. Everyone came back in except for Gabe, who I saw walk into the direction of his house. I’d go check on him in a few minutes, but my guess was that he needed a few minutes to calm down.
“I gotta say, Ember. It is completely awesome when you do that hair-dragging thing. Last year with Sam’s psycho, and then again with Gabe’s, it is just truly a pleasure to witness.” Elliott said.
We shot the breeze for another twenty minutes before I deemed it safe to go in search of my soon to be hubby. Ditching the boys, I walked into the garage and stopped dead when I saw the bike that was going up for auction. It was absolutely stunning. The motorcycle was polished. The wheels gleamed. The paint job was an American flag. It looked like it’d been through one hell of a war with tatters swaying in the wind. A hand reached up from beneath the ground as if seeking the flag to lie with him in his final resting place. Written on the side in a beautiful script the words: For Kayla.
My heart squeezed.
At the one-year mark to Dougie’s death, we went to the Arlington cemetery and decorated his headstone with flowers and flags. Kayla drew a picture of her daddy in the sky with a stick figure Kayla blowing kisses at him. She was a very intelligent at the age of four, although very quiet when you compared her to Janie. We had a memorial service/wake for him at a local pub since that is what he would have wanted.
Everyone was drinking and having a good time when the idea to make a bike and auction it off at one of the biggest motorcycle rallies in the South came about. Although, never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed it would look like this! It was magnificent. Fat tears splashed down my eyes when I thought about the reason this bike was made in the first place.
At first, I was skeptical that a bike would be able to portray a person as fine as Dougie, but this bike resembled everything that he believed in and more.
Two strong arms wrapped around my waist, and I sank back against the chest of the man I loved.
“It’s beautiful.” I said to him.
“I think it turned out nice. No one knew what we all planned. Everyone just built off the previous man’s work. When I got it, it was already a piece of art. I just polished it up a bit.” Gabe whispered against my hair.
We stood like that for a long while. We stopped only when my side started to protest.
“I think I’m gonna go take a nap. I’m exhausted. I’m not going to do any laundry today, by the way.” I supplied before blowing him a kiss and walking towards the back door.
His laughter followed me out the door.
Cheyenne intercepted me on the way to Gabe’s, and she ended up coming over to keep me company. Nevertheless, what we really did was both fall asleep in Gabe’s bed, and sleep the afternoon and evening away.
I woke disoriented. I heard the murmur of men’s voices, but was too comfy to move. I had my arms wrapped around Gabe’s pillow, and my face buried in it breathing deep before I felt movement at my back. Looking down I noticed a skinny arm wrapped around my stomach, and snoring happening right behind my head.
“This is hilarious.” Gabe whispered.
A soft chuckle followed this statement and Sam said, “Cheyenne is drooling on Ember’s hair.”
That wasn’t the first time it’d happened, and probably wouldn’t be the last. I slept over at Cheyenne’s place at least once a week since we were sixteen. Only recently had that slowed down. Every single one of those times, I would wake up in this position.
“It’s like the snoring wars, Texas edition.”
Indignation flooded my body and I raised my finger and flipped both of them the bird.
Chuckles escaped them as I untangled myself from Cheyenne’s death clutch. Gabe reached down and hefted me to my feet, and I made my way groggily into the bathroom. I made quick work and zombie walked into the living room to find them both playing Call of Duty. Rolling my eyes, I walked up beside Gabe and plopped down next to him. I curled into his body, making it hard for him to work the controller.
He didn’t shrug me off though. I stayed like this for ten minutes before they set the controllers down and started talking about dinner.
“Pizza.” I muttered into Gabe’s arm.
Just then, Cheyenne walked into the room and made herself comfortable in Sam’s lap.
I must have fallen asleep again but I woke when the front door closed quietly, and the lovely aroma of Italian spices and pizza sauce filled the air.
Sitting up, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and glanced at the clock. Yikes. It was already eight at night. We’d slept the day away. Cheyenne was still knocked out on the couch so I threw a pillow at her and hit her in the face.
Grinning when she threw the pillow back at me blindly I said, “Wake up, homie. Pizzas here.”
Walking into the kitchen, I sat at the table and started eating pizza directly from the box. I had no clue where Sam and Gabe were, but it wasn’t long before Cheyenne joined me. She grabbed us both a coke and we devoured an entire pizza between the two of us. I let out a large belch that was followed shortly by Cheyenne’s slightly shorter one. I beat her by at least three points.