We’d started to get attention from other people now, and I could feel their stares on us, which only made the situation ten times worse. Not only had he caught me at the party I wasn’t supposed to be at, but he’d grabbed my ass—disgusting us both—and now we were seconds away from ripping each other apart.
“Eat shit!” I screamed, and grabbed the nearest thing to me and threw it at him, and suddenly thirty empty burger buns—and the tray they were on—were raining down on Gauge’s head.
Gauge roared in anger and stepped forward, but Hardy came over and dived in-between us both.
He placed a hand on Gauge’s chest. “Gauge! Enough, she’s just a fucking kid!” Hardy bellowed, pushing Gauge away from me.
“I am not a fucking kid!” I screamed at Hardy.
He turned and glared at me, one hand staying on Gauge’s chest. “Yeah? Then stop fucking acting like one.”
Gauge glared at me over Hardy’s shoulder. “Should have fucking left you to go into care,” he snarled out darkly.
“I wish you would have!” I screamed at the top of my voice.
“Bitch, just like your goddamn mother,” he snarled nastily, and I clamped a hand over my mouth to stop myself from crying out as his words cut me.
Suddenly no one was laughing. This wasn’t just a father and daughter arguing; this was worse than that, and I couldn’t help the tight knot that wrapped itself around my heart and squeezed. He didn’t even look like he regretted his words, so I lifted my chin and narrowed my eyes, refusing to acknowledge the pain his words had caused me.
“I wish she would never have met you, because you’re a piece of shit man and an even shittier dad,” I snarled back, not feeling any satisfaction from saying that despite the hurt I watched flare to life in his own eyes.
“Yeah?” he goaded.
“Yeah!” I snarled.
“Good, because I’m hoping you’ll get the fuck out of my life soon then!”
I opened my mouth to say something but realized that for once my temper had given up, and all it had left behind was a hole in my chest. Tears blurred my vision but I refused to let them fall.
“Silvie, get her the fuck out of here,” Hardy yelled, and I felt someone grab my arm and start to pull me away.
“I’ve got her,” Silvie said.
“Crazy bitches everywhere,” Hardy muttered as Silvie pulled me away.
Gauge called me something else as I was leaving, but I drowned him out, refusing to hear anything else he had to say. He’d said and done enough damage for one night. We both had.
Silvie’s grip was firm, but not tight, and when we were far enough away she let go of me completely, trusting me to follow her and not run back to Gauge for round two. We walked toward the exit. A couple of prospects were standing by the bikes, and they looked between themselves as we got closer.
“One of you needs to take Laney home, please,” Silvie said firmly. She looked down at me apologetically. “You need anything, you call me. Okay?”
I nodded okay and looked back down at my feet, knowing that no matter how much I cared about Silvie, I wouldn’t call her. I could handle it on my own, just like I always had.
“I’m fine,” I mumbled.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” she said softly, her hand reaching down to tug my chin upwards.
“I said I’m fine! Stop treating me like a kid. I’m practically eighteen, Silvie,” I said, pulling my face free. “I just want to go home.”
And I did want to go home. But not to Gauges house. I wanted to go back to Cali, back to my mom. I wanted to be home with her, not there in that shit-hole town, or that shit-hole club, with my shit-hole dad. But I could never go back home again, and that killed me the most.
“Well all right then,” she said, and I knew that I’d offended her, again. “Which of you can take her?”
“I’ll take her,” a deep voice said from close by.
I looked up, recognizing the voice instantly. My face was still puckered in anger and frustration, and I looked straight into the eyes of the blue-eyed boy that had stalked my dreams for so long. No,boywas the wrong word. He wasn’t a boy anymore, he was a man now. And damn, what a man he was. His hair was shoulder length and dirty blond, and he had a short rough beard that just begged me to run my fingers over it. His arms were thick and roped with muscles and tattoos, and his shoulders were wide and strong.
“You sure, Jesse?” Silvie asked. “You been drinking?”
