Page 12 of Cocky Jerk

Hound mutters a curse, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of acknowledging him. Blowing out a ragged breath, I tuck my hair behind my ears and take a step toward the door.

“Antonia, where the hell do you think you’re going?” my father barks. “I said—”

I pause mid stride and finally turn to face him. His dark brown eyes soften instantly and for a minute, I’m not a woman asking her dad to let her go. For one single minute, I’m his little girl. The little girl whose hair he’d braid when all the kids at school made fun of her wild curls.

“Tonia,” he murmurs on a sigh, scrubbing a hand over his face.

I don’t know how many times we’re going to have the same conversation. I wish someone would just tell me what it’s going to take, what I’m going to have to say to get him to understand. I love him, but I hate what he stands for and I’m so tired of feeling like I’m stuck.

Swallowing, I force myself to look him in the eye.

“This is your life, your choice and no one can take that from you. All I want is a chance to choose a life that I love too.”

He doesn’t respond, but that’s nothing new.

“Going home,” I say, pausing to swallow the boulder clogging my throat. “Home, Dad, where all our pictures are, and Grandma’s china sits in the cabinet untouched.”

Home, where corruption and chaos don’t live.

“Please don’t follow me.”

* * *

I probably shouldn’t have stormedout of the clubhouse until I persuaded Mouse to hook me up with a license, but no, I had to go all girl and get emotional without pinning the tech guy to the wall. Something I realize as soon as I pull my Harley into the driveway and drop down my kickstand.

Without a license, Penelope won’t be able to process me as a new hire…again. That’s gotta be three strikes against me. Looks like instead of playing with paperclips and Post-its tomorrow I’ll be filing for unemployment.

Feeling discouraged, I rip the helmet from my head and throw my leg over the side of the bike. I dig into my back pocket for the house key and my stomach growls as I start for the door. Another thing I should’ve done was stop for food. Neither me nor dad have been here in over month. If there is anything in the fridge, it’s probably expired.

“Curly Sue.”

No fucking way.

Any moment now the guys with the hidden cameras are going to jump out of the bushes and with any luck I’ll be on one of those shows where they offer you a cash prize for scaring the living shit out of you.

I slowly turn around and sure enough, my eyes connect with Marco’s. I feel a hint of hysteria creep into my being as I shake my head in disbelief.

“Before you go on and say I’m stalking you, I swear that’s not what this is,” he defends, and my eyes widen even more.

At this rate, they may just fall out of my head.

“The fact you’re standing on my front lawn proves otherwise. What are you doing here—better yet, how the hell do you know where I live?”

“Well—”

“No,” I interrupt, raising my hands to my head. I thread my fingers through my curls and take a step closer to him. “Don’t answer that. Of course you know where I live, you probably know my blood type and what color underwear I’m wearing too.”

He quirks an eyebrow.

“I don’t know your blood type but if you want to tell me the color of your underwear, I should probably buy you dinner first.”

It takes a lot to render me speechless—well, at least that’s what I thought. Apparently, all it takes is for a cop to stalk me and offer to buy me dinner.

He is offering, right?

I shake my head again, this time a little firmer as I push the ridiculous notion out of my head.

“Look, I have had a day. A really shitty day and there’s not much more I can take, so if you’re here to give me another ticket or better yet arrest me then do it already,” I tell him.

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