Read Jerk: Delinquent Rebels MC for Free Online

“Totally harmless.”
     
    April almost laughed, and as she struggled on her walk home, the business card burning a hole in her pocket, she decided that while she always appreciated a free drink, nothing was ever harmless with a guy like Van.
     
     

 
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
    It shouldn’t be so intimidating. After all, it was little a slip of paper, a tiny rectangle with some writing on it, yet April hadn’t been able to stop fiddling with it since she slipped it in her pocket. Van hadn’t gotten in touch with her since their market escapade the previous morning, but she knew there was a question hanging between them: Would she take up his offer for a free drink?
     
    Apparently he worked at Cedar Lodge, a bar near the prestigious resort her mom had gotten completely piss drunk in the first night she was reunited with the Palmer family. From what she remembered, it was a fairly upscale place, with cigar lounges and a martini bar on the patio. There was a pretty good chance that if she went, April would run into more old friends, the ones she hadn’t made much of an effort to contact since arriving in Cascade Falls a little over a week ago. Maybe it would be a nice surprise.
     
    Plus, she was getting a little sick and tired of sitting around in her mom’s apartment every night, her butt glued to the couch as the TV blared for hours on end. It was like she was in high school all over again, not a grown woman who had a degree and the potential for a career.
     
    As she spent the day considering Van’s offer, her mind wandered to Johnny. After all, Johnny would have been the safer choice of the two, and she knew there were no underlying… feelings revolving around him. Sure, she’d had a crush on him when she was sixteen, but those days were long over. If they were to meet up for drinks, it would be because April genuinely wanted to hear about what had been happening in his life. His touchy-feely crap from the market would be stopped gently but firmly—and that would be that.
     
    If she went to the bar Van worked at… Well, there was no guarantee things would go so smoothly. As much as she tried to busy herself with apartment renovations and movies and books, April couldn’t stop her mind from drifting to Van. Hell, every time she left the kitchen she recalled the way his muscular arm wrapped around her waist, dragging her to him in the midst of their paint fight. The memory gave her chills, her skin erupting in excited little goose bumps.
     
    But Van brought complications. He brought their history, no matter how fleeting and amazing that had been, and he also brought his dad’s unnerving warning. She and her mother had gone to look at a few wedding dresses the day after James issued his threat, and as much as April had wanted to spill the beans on her mom’s fiancé, she kept her mouth shut. Fear had a way of silencing people. However, she went to bed every night with knots in her stomach thinking that a guy like James would be her stepfather.
     
    There was so much to think about, to dwell on, and by late afternoon on Saturday, April started to feel claustrophobic in her mom’s guest room. Hell, she felt claustrophobic in her own brain. Groaning, she tucked the business card away, using it as a bookmark for her latest read, and flopped back on her bed—which was so hard she woke up with back pain every morning—with a loud groan.
     
    “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
     
    She bolted upright as her mom’s voice floated in, spotting her loitering in the doorway across the room. April had filled her mom in on the details of her market adventures, cautiously excluding the fact that she and Van had a slight sexual history that was tainting all their current interactions.
     
    “I don’t know,” she admitted, shrugging and tucking her hair behind her ear. “I don’t even know if I really feel like it… I’d have to get dressed and put makeup on and…”
     
    They were all lame