Pretty Reckless

“You heard me. I’m not interested in eating somewhere the waitress is parking her ass on customers. I think you got it all mixed up. This is not your night shift at your local strip club, sweetie.”

“Burn!” Colin cups his mouth with his fist and coughs.

“Daria,” Knight warns. Normally, he’d drag my ass out and give me a piece of his mind. Not today. He and I both know he can’t be that much of a hypocrite. If he saw someone hitting on Luna, he would rip them to shreds and dump whatever’s left of them on the side of the road. I’ve seen him screw people up for less than looking at her. The only problem is, Penn is not my Luna. We don’t have some long, elaborate, angsty childhood friendship that’s dancing on the edge of more.

“Get the hell out of here.” Adriana bares her teeth, and they are white, pearly, and a tad smaller than most people’s. An imperfection I’m sure he admires. She is no longer chewing her gum. It’s just hanging there, stuck to her bottom teeth. I yawn provocatively, staying put. Everyone is salivating over our exchange. Everyone other than her boyfriend, who just stares at me from across the diner with murder in his eyes.

Busted, jerk. I would tell her how good her boyfriend’s tongue felt in my mouth if I didn’t have my reputation to keep.

“I’m a paying customer. You’re a cum dumpster. Who do you think should leave again?” I flip my hair.

She lifts her arm to take a swing at me. I think this will be the day I finally get slapped for being a bitch. But before she can follow through, Penn is standing behind her, holding her wrist in his hand. He lowers it slowly, his eyes hard on mine.

“Get your ass out of the booth, Followhill.” He flips the menu on my cell phone, which I’m pretending to study with interest.

“Sorry, I don’t take orders from lowlifes.” I suck the milkshake out of my straw, batting my eyelashes. My nose is probably red from the sun, and my hair is wild and wavy from the braid I had today. His pupils dilate when he sees my messy, disheveled version.

Penn grabs me by the elbow and hauls me out of the booth. My skin rubs against the vinyl and creates a funny noise that makes me even angrier.

I shake him off. “I don’t want to talk to you.” I’d spit in his face, but I don’t want to make a scene.

“Should have thought of that before you acted like a brat. Whoever follows us gets punched in the face. Guys. Girls. Wildlife. Don’t fucking care.” He hoists me over one shoulder and carries me out.

“Penn! Wait!” Adriana lets out a shriek.

I lift my head from his triangle back and watch Adriana jogging behind us before stopping, like she knows she shouldn’t. Gus and Colin stand to interfere, but Knight yanks them both down by the back of their collars. “Sit.”

“Are they, like, happening?” Esme whisper-shouts, her mouth agape.

Knight snorts and throws a french fry at her. “Nah. Just an old childhood beef.”

He doesn’t know anything—he is just covering for me—but he nailed it.

Penn throws the door to the diner open and stalks me into the alleyway behind it, sandwiched between an auto shop and Lenny’s. He puts me down and takes a step back, like he, too, can’t control himself. I lean against a huge Smock Test sign with coffee stains all over it and fold my arms.

He paces back and forth, waiting for me to say something. But I shouldn’t be the one explaining myself.

“You need to apologize to Adriana,” he clips.

“You need to apologize to me,” I say, still tucked firmly in the role of the cold-ass bitch. “You put your hands on me when you had a girlfriend. I’m not that kind of girl.”

“You’re definitely that kind of girl.” He stops, staring at me through hooded eyes. A vicious smirk twists his lips as he sticks it to me.

“You’re the type of girl who would fuck a married man without batting an eyelash just to prove she can. You let me put my hands and tongue on you, already knowing that I have a girlfriend, so don’t play the fucking saint.”

For the first time since I learned how to talk, I’m at a loss for words. I know he actually believes that. He would always think the worst of me. He is slowly morphing into my mother, losing faith in me, too.

I turn around and stomp my way back into the diner to get my phone and call an Uber. He clasps my wrist and jerks me back. I twist toward him and slap him in the face. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, and he doesn’t see it coming. He stumbles back—not from the slap but from the shock. His eyes burn my face as they drink me in. There’s a current dancing between us, and I’m afraid to move, knowing it could electrify me.

“I will never touch someone who isn’t mine to touch. But you did. Don’t turn this around on me, Scully. You screwed around behind your baby momma’s back with the ice princess because you wanted to prove you could. But you know what? You are right about one thing. I’m selling myself short. Kissing you. Stripping for you. Humoring you. I’m done ghosting my wake-up calls.”

With that, I try to dart back to Lenny’s, but he scoops me up from the ground like I’m a toddler, and this time, my back crashes against the wall. He grabs my throat and squeezes, kissing me so hard my lips bruise. I ball my fists and rain them on his chest, ripping his holey shirt farther and dragging my fingernails across his exposed skin.