I knew she’d come at me with that first, just like the previous week when I’d gone to her school to pick her up in my police car. I’d done it as a warning.
“Why were you out so late? Who was that boy you were with, and where did he take you?” I tried my best to keep my voice under control, but the image of her kissing that guy popped up in my mind and I feared what else she might have done.
“Are you spying on me?” Now her eyes snapped wide and her nostrils flared.
“No, I came home early and I saw you.” That was a roundabout lie because technically I had been laying in wait to see what she was up to. Then Miss Mouth had come along in her piece-of-crap car.
“Dad, this is ridiculous. You treat me like a child—like a child who has no sense.”
“You got on a motorcycle with a boy who thought it was okay to ride around without a helmet.”
“He gave me his helmet,” she pointed out, as if it was supposed to mean something wonderful.
“You both should have had helmets. Also, when did you get a tattoo? And your belly button is pierced?”
Oh she didn’t like that. Her face flushed red and her eyes blazed. “Are you kidding me? The tattoo is fake, Dad, and I can get a piercing if I want to.”
While I was glad to hear the ink was fake and I’d been far away when I saw it, I knew what I’d seen. Only someone with artistic talent could have drawn the little hummingbird on her hip. Having had lots of tattoos myself, I knew that, and the fact that she’d had it done meant she wanted it permanently.
“Aria, who did thefaketattoo for you?”
“Brad,” she snapped.
I balled my fists, and her gaze flew down to my hands.
“Who’s Brad?” I growled.
“My boyfriend.” She knew this was making me crazy, and it was like she loved it.
The doorbell rang before I could give an answer to that. Of course Brad had to be motorcycle guy. At least now I had a name.
“Are you going to get that?” She motioned to the door with her head.
I was too worked up to talk to anybody. My daughter just told me she had a boyfriend—what the hell was I supposed to do with that information besides go on a hunt to skin this Brad person alive?
I stood up and moved over to the door feeling like I’d aged a hundred years since waking up. I didn’t know who the hell it was, but I needed to get rid of them quickly. Aria needed a serious talking to, and here was yet another distraction.
I opened the door to find Mindy Stevens standing before me holding a cake box in her hands—anothercake.
This was fast becoming a weekly thing since I’d foolishly decided to go out with her for dinner. Big mistake. I hadn’t slept with her, and I had no desire to either. That first date was the only one she’d get out of me.
I felt she knew that, too, but this was her trying, and shit…
My eyes dropped straight to her breasts, which looked three times the size they’d been the previous week.
“Hi.” She beamed, tossing her brown hair over her shoulder.
She must have taken my looking at her breasts as a confidence booster. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate a great pair of tits; it was more that she looked ridiculous, and I seriously hoped she was wearing a Wonderbra or something because she was shaped like a bad drawing, like a distorted Jessica Rabbit, except Mindy had a tiny ballerina frame and a mousy look that actually reminded me of a mouse—and not in a cute way either. It was more of a rat-like appearance.
“Mindy.” I forced a smile and tried to calm my racing thoughts.
“I brought you guys some more cake, pumpkin again—you liked that last time,” she babbled, pushing out her chest to enhance the view of her breasts.
Cake, and it was pumpkin, too. I didn’t even like my mother’s pumpkin pies, and everything Mom made tasted like it came from heaven.
I’d fed the last cake Mindy brought to the Johnsons’ dog. It had tasted like shit. I didn’t think the dog deserved shit, but I hadn’t wanted the cake to go to waste.
Other than being used as jack-o’-lanterns for Halloween, pumpkins were no good to me.
