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“Because I wanted to. He wanted me. It was…exciting to be doing something I knew I shouldn’t.”
Okay, so now I guess I am openly flirting with a man old enough to be my father.
Whatever I was expecting him to say, it wasn’t “Now I’m fucking pissed at your parents.”
“Why?”
“Because their abandonment and neglect turned you into a bad influence on my daughter.”
“I’m a freaking preschool teacher!” I yell at him as I shove my plate away, my blood boiling. “I’m not a bad influence just because I like sex and you’re apparently a prude. Or maybe you just expect your daughters to be little virgin saints. Well, they aren’t! At least Laurel isn’t. There’s nothing wrong with that either! I’m so sick of the double standard for women.”
With that, and with every eye in the place on me, I slide out of the booth and storm off out the door. To where, I’m not entirely sure.
“Holly!” Mr. Perry yells after me.
I’m halfway back to the comedy club when he catches up to me. He’s faster than I was expecting since he still had to pay the bill. “I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You’re sorry you said it, but you believe it’s true, so that doesn’t really count as an apology.”
There’s no sound but the stomping of our footsteps on the grass shoulder, crunching the occasional leaf, until he says, “At least you’re sober enough to walk without stumbling all over the damn place.”
I don’t respond.
“Maybe your anger will burn off some more of that alcohol.”
“I don’t go around getting drunk every night!” I yell to him without turning around. “It was just a really shitty night, and I didn’t have anything else to do while I waited for someone to save me from my mess.”
His hand grips my elbow hard enough to pull me to a stop. I refuse to look at his face, even when he steps in front of me.
“What happened tonight wasn’t your fault. And that fucker is going to pay for what he did to you when I find him.”
That’s why he was asking about him, his name, where I met him.
“You’ll never find him or my car,” I say with a bitter snort.
“Wanna bet?”
Now I do look up at his face. It’s mostly shadows illuminated only by what little moonlight is shining down on us on the road in the middle of nowhere.
“Yes.”
“Name the stakes,” he says.
“If you can’t find him, you have to take me to work and pick me up every weekday until I can afford another car.”
“Deal.”
“And if you somehow magically find him and my car?”
“If I find him and your car, then you do whatever it takes to keep Lyla at school.”
“But –” I start before he interrupts me. “Whatever it takes, Holly.”
While I can sympathize with Lyla’s struggles, I also know she’ll regret it if she gives up now when she’s so close to a degree.
“Fine,” I agree with a sigh. “Maybe I should tell her to sleep with her professors to raise her grades.”
Grabbing my shoulders, Mr. Perry spins me around toward the comedy club and then slaps his hand on my lower back to shove me forward. “Walk, troublemaker.”
