Shuffled Hearts (The Aces Motorcycle Club Book 9) by Ralston T

Author:Ralston, T.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Anna

Our school is taking part in the winter parade, and it’ll be my first time ever being involved in something like that. Some of the schools have groups that are going to be riding in the backs of parent’s pick-up trucks, but our school is going to jam all the students onto two parade floats that were decorated by the fourth and fifth graders over the last month. It sounds risky, and I’m still not sure I’m going to do it.

​It’s incredibly cold out, so when I see a sign for $3 hot cocoas at Shake Palace while I’m stuck in the stand-still traffic of people trying to get to the parade line-up, it grabs my attention. It’s the biker cut and little princess standing at the order window that make me pull into the parking lot.

​I shouldn’t stop, but the way he’s standing there, with one leg bent in a way that makes his ass even more evident in his jeans, hand reaching back for the wallet in his back pocket, is impossible to ignore.

​I’m impulsive and stupid, and so gut-wrenchingly lonely. He's the only person who's shown me any humanity. The capacity to be alive- to experience emotions and make mistakes and own up for them.

He's not all bad. The club doesn’t make him completely evil, I don’t think. We haven’t talked much since Macey forced us to talk. He doesn’t make an effort to speak to me, and I haven’t either.

I step up in line behind them, and Macey swings her head around to see whose footsteps were crunching the sand.

“Miss Dubie!” she shouts, pulling on Ridley’s arm to get his attention.

He peeks back at me then turns back to the window. “Make that three.”

“Are you going to ride in the parade?” she asks. “I’ve been practicing my princess wave.” She lifts her hand and turns it side to side, showing me her new move.

“I’m not sure. I think there might not be any room left for me on the float.” I don’t particularly want to go anyway, but that’s the best excuse I’ve come up with short of faking sickness.

“Macey will be waving from the front porch,” Ridley says definitively. “I don’t trust that thing to carry her and two other classes worth of kids.”

“That might be smart.” A bunch of kids can get heavy very quickly.

“You’re welcome to join us, if you decide you don’t want to risk it. The parade goes right by our house. We’ll sit on the porch and watch it.”

"We have a swing!" Macey chimes in excitedly. “You can sit right next to me on the swing and wave with me. We could be two princesses.”

“Oh, I…”

Ridley pushes a cup of hot cocoa into my hands and another into Macey’s little gloved hands. “It’s up to you. Not a big deal. Just an offer.”

“Come on, Miss Dubie. You don’t want to ride on that float,” Macey tells me, wrapping both hands around her warm cup. “I felt it, and it’s super itchy.

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