Page 27 of Clap Back (Carter Brothers)

It’d been the one I bought and paid for using my own babysitting money the summer of my senior year.

Of course, when he’d asked/demanded, I’d told him no. I mean, I had to get to my own job at a bakery at five in the morning. So when I’d walked out of the house at five that morning, with Dorsey in tow because she worked with me, to find my car gone, I’d called my dad.

And that was when my dad told me he’d given Scott permission to take it because ‘what did I need it for?’

Needless to say, I had hundreds of stories of the asshole ruining my childhood—and now my freakin’ adult life come to think of it—and I didn’t want anything to do with him at any time.

And there he was, coming our way, a sneer on his face.

“Son of a bitch,” Athena snarled underneath her breath.

My sentiments exactly.

“What’s that look for?” Scott asked as he and Sheldon came to a stop at our table, looming over us as he did.

I wished I’d taken the booth seat against the window, but then he might have had the audacity to sit down and act like we were one big, happy family.

“She hates you, remember?” Sheldon snickered.

He wasn’t lying.

I didn’t respond.

Which he hated.

“I’m talking to you, Maven Amalia.” He placed both hands on the table and pushed his way into my space.

I narrowed my eyes as I said, “I realize that, but I’m trying to eat breakfast with my friend. I’d appreciate it if you gave us some space.”

When I shifted, though, my book fell to the ground on the other side of me, skittering across the floor and stopping somewhere in the vicinity of his feet.

His mouth turned up into a sneering smirk as he bent down and picked it up, his eyes lit with glee at the book.

“Oh, look!” he called out. “The reason you could never compare, Sheldon.”

I gritted my teeth.

What was so wrong with reading romance novels, and dreaming about a man who was exactly like the hero?

I mean, Jesus Christ, was it wrong to want a man who treated you right, that could lick you to completion, and you actually wanted to be around?

I didn’t think so.

But Scott and my dad had seen my reading romance novels as a slight to all of mankind and had given me so much shit for it that I’d had to hide my reading from them.

It never worked. Scott always came into my room and destroyed my secret book stashes.

I’d gotten to the point where I hid my most recent novels in the dog food bags because God forbid Scott actually take care of the animal he’d demanded we get.

My stepmother had adamantly refused. My dad had allowed it.

Neither my dad nor Scott took care of the dog.

That always fell on the women—because apparently that was a woman’s job.

And to make matters worse, the freakin’ dog liked Scott and Dad more than us.

“Please give it back,” I said, holding out my hand.

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