Once upon a time, there was a boy named Marlon who fell in love with a girl named Cat. Like her name suggests, she had claws --- sharp ones. But the thing about cats with sharp claws is that as much as they hiss and scratch, they still enjoy being s...
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15 Years Earlier
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"When we get older and your boobs have grown," said Marlon, "I'm gonna marry you."
"And that's why you gave him a black eye, Cat?" my best friend, Eve, blurted out, her voice laced with disbelief. "Because he proposed?"
"Evie," I began slowly, nursing my second cup of beer that evening, "that was not a proposal. You read too much Mills and Boon. I hit him because he implied I'd only be marriage material if I wasn't so flat-chested. The asshole."
It was worth detention, too. I would've gotten suspended for God-knows-how-long if Marlon hadn't insisted to Principal Gardner that we were practicing self-defense moves during recess. Gardner was dumb enough to believe it and I was pissed off enough not to thank Marlon.
Eve sighed loudly, probably thinking it was so romantic or some such ѕhit. Her gaze wandered off to where Marlon Phillips was laughing with a fawning group of guys out on the lawn where Eve and I were currently standing. The music had died down a while ago – technical difficulties – but the party was still going on in full force.
Marlon's the only guy at school who can throw parties and actually provide decent beer to indecent underage schoolkids. That's only because every cop in Sallow County, Florida (and neighboring areas) is either ѕhit-scared of his father, the president of the Phantoms Motorcycle Club, or happily in his pocket. The Phillips family – what little is left of them – is pretty much untouchable and Marlon gets to take advantage of that.
The insufferable prick.
"If you're so mad at him, why'd you come to his birthday party?" Eve suddenly wanted to know, innocently blinking her wide blue eyes at me.
Eve posed a good question. She'd probably even noticed that I'd dressed up more than usual and left my wavy brown hair loose around my face instead of up in my usual ponytail. I'd just figured it looked better that way with the lavender A-line summer dress I was wearing.
Catalina Thomas didn't do dresses – unless it was a Sunday. Or a funeral. Or a Sunday funeral.
"I'm only here because of my dad," I muttered, finishing off my beer.
I crushed the empty red cup in my hand when I was done and tossed it onto the lawn. Marlon could clean up.
Mar's dad was President, while my father was VP, and since I was his daughter, that made me part of the Phantom family. It just wouldn't do if the Vice-President's daughter was a no-show at the future President's eighteenth birthday party.
Yeah. Even lawless biker gangs know their etiquette.
I gave Marlon my hundredth death stare that night, kind of hoping that looks would finally be able to kill and he'd end up fatally wounded by my eyeballs. Instead, he probably just felt my eyes on him, because he met my stare with one of his own.
