Under Locke

by Mariana Zapata

I was going to puke. And it wasn't going to be a pretty puke like when you're a baby and even farting can be considered cute. It was going to be nasty—nasty projectile vomiting straight out of a horror movie.

Notorious, yes. Bad, yes. Reformed like they made it seem? I doubted it.

a face that made my ovaries scream “glory hallelujah.”

I was going to ask Santa for his good identical twin for Christmas.

For some reason, dealing with an impatient, unattractive person seemed easier to swallow than a smoking-hot one.

all my fleshly valuables.

I always wanted to cry. I cried when I was happy, sad, excited, and frustrated with life. And I hated it.

Life was hard sometimes, and there was no book or movie that could prepare you for how harsh it could be.

My pride wasn't going to pay my bills.

I only kind of, sort of hoped came down with an infectious illness in his private parts. But you know, something he could get medicine for.

Maybe he wouldn't be so mad at the world if his pubic hair wasn’t longer than his full-blown erection.

Being pissed off took way too much effort and stressed me out, and I had no business stressing if I could avoid it. Plus, there weren’t that many things in life really worth being mad about.

I wasn’t going to argue with him, I wasn’t going to care enough about the fact he didn’t remember my name, and I definitely wasn’t going to let him know how shitty he'd made me feel.

Fuck him. Not screw him or damn him. Fuck him. He deserved the f-bomb for being such a dick, and heaven knew I saved that word for special occasions.

the Harry Potter lightning bolt he had tattooed right smack behind his ear,

Some families passed on traits like bad eyesight, receding hairlines, stuff like that. My mom's side of the family passed on diarrhea of the mouth.

Rule number one in working at a tattoo parlor, according to Blake—don’t talk customers out of services unless they were a really, really bad idea.

It should be a standard that attractive men be just as nice on the inside as they were on the outside.

Was it unfair to judge him when the majority of single men did the same thing? Yes. Did I care about being fair? No.

I’d never seen so many tattoos, leather, and facial hair in my life—and that was just the men.

He was also either on his way to Shit-Facedville based on the glazed look in his eyes or already there.

"I'll beat the dumbfuck out of him."

some girls don’t care if a man’s old enough to be their daddy as long as he’s the Prez.”

"Being in a better place at a better time, boss, you still would've said what you did, only I wouldn't have heard you,"

Should I have stopped? Yes. Did I? No.

I loved words. I’d always loved words. I loved the freedom you could find in them. I loved manipulating them. I loved the way they sounded and the power they held. But sometimes, sometimes, they weren’t enough. Sometimes strings of letters were meaningless in comparison to actions. Actions held the power of a choir versus the strength of a solitary singer. My bones recognized that this was all I would get, this one-person a cappella.

we’d both gotten up well after noon, but since it was the first meal of the day, I figured it was still considered breakfast.

Handling Dex Locke would be like handling a scorpion. You were gonna get that poisonous sting at some point.

Damn it, I hated it when reasonable people had reasonable points.

He’s got a big mouth and a short temper.”

As long as I hadn't peed on myself, then I could still be fine.

It was a historical romance novel, so I’d rather tell him that detail in, oh, a million years.

“No one’s going to tattoo a peen on my forehead when I’m sleeping, right?”

that’ll make guys think I like to give hugs with my mouth, you know what I mean?”

“Hey, girl, wanna give me a hug with that sweet mouth?”

I’d been ogling a stranger’s penis—and requesting one just like it from Santa—when the man behind me had what I was sitting there admiring. The man behind me being Dex.

For all the things about him I disliked that he could fix with a different attitude, the man breathed in oxygen and breathed out sexual masculinity at its finest when he was being a dick and even more when he wasn’t.

I had a whole list of things I should fix about myself, but I'd never bothered

If I went too long without eating, everything annoyed me.

Big, bad Dex with his inked-up arms, black bike, the f-bomb-dropping dick in a motorcycle club liked superheroes? Unreal.

"Your kids will probably come out of the womb saying the f-bomb."

"You walk out, and I'll go get you."

Telling me not to worry was the equivalent of telling me not to have my period.

sons of biscuit-eating bastards

I'd rather have pit stains than pitiful looks.

"I don't like feeling this angry," I admitted to him, feeling incredibly vulnerable. Like all things Dex, his response was so simple I wanted to laugh. "Then don't."

He looked at me for a long moment, a moment that stretched light years and galaxies. Time-wrinkled centuries and possibly eons. Generations.

that laugh coming from that man… So worth it.

You couldn’t control or anticipate a person who didn’t care. They were wildcards.

dumb-bum.”