He can feel himself wakes up slowly at the loud music playing from somewhere. He grunts in discomfort as he tries to move under the bed covers, his whole body heavy and his mind disoriented from the intense drinking the night before. When he opens his eyes, he groans in pain and closes them once more, an headaches peeking its nose at the back of his head. If it weren't for the loud noise torturing him, he would go back to sleep. Slowly, however, he wakes up and his brain registers what the phone is chirping. He blinks awake promptly and urgently, he straightens up in bed and tries to find the diabolical machine that sings so vehemently. He finds his Samsung in the back pocket of the dark jeans lying on the floor. He grabs it and answer the call in a soft grumble;
-Yes, honey ?
He yawns into the receiver and looks back at the bed, where someone else is seemingly starting to wake up. Thomas grabs the briefs stuck inside the pants and starts putting them back on while diligently listening to the voice talking to him on the phone.
-Dad, where are you ?! You said you were going to come pick me up from Jessica's at nine!
He pulls the phone away from his ear to look at the hour and curses silently when he sees that it's past nine, nearly eleven o'clock.
-Sorry pumpkin, I slept too long. I'm coming for you in a minute. Wait for me with Jessica and her mother. He puts his pants and searches for his shirt and his jacket. He finds them on his night partner's side, carelessly thrown the night before. While picking them up, he catches the blue gaze of the woman hiding from the world under the covers, face pressed on the pillow. He grins at her, all pearly teeth lining up in a mocking or taunting grin. She groans, looking as much as a mess as he is, and shove her head under the pillows to escape the lights coming from the windows.
-You better come back quick or I'm not forgiving you!
He laughs into the receiver, making his daughter huff angrily. Before he can apologize for laughing at her threat, the girl has hung up. He shrugs it off but he knows he can't make her wait for too long or she will come back home on her own. Teenagers, a pain in the neck, really.
He put his white shirt back on but not his leather jacket, simply throwing it on his right shoulder before walking out of the bedroom. He walks down the stairs and meets a young boy on his way. He salutes him haphazardly before exiting the house.
His black, covered in mud and barely standing on its wheels, truck is waiting for him in the driveway. He opens the driver door that wasn't even locked and start up the engine, not even taking the time to put his seatbelt on.
In a short time, he's driving away from the nice neighborhood and away from the house of his latest conquest.
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He arrives in front of an apartment's block, where a blonde girl is sitting on the steps, looking bored. She seems to not have noticed him. He honks the horn, making the young girl jump and looks in his direction. He lowers his window with the crank handle and shout at her;
-Come on kid ! Wake up and jump on ! You're making me wait !
He's being a smartass and he knows it and he knows that his daughter knows that he knows that he's being a jerk, so he's not surprised when he sees the girl frown angrily, throw her backpack on her shoulders and walks determinedly away from the entrance of the apartment but also away from his truck. He wheezes, peals of laughter coming easily to him, and follow her closely with his truck, at a turtle's speed. She doesn't even acknowledge him and looks pointedly away. He honks again and she looks at him, with a frustrated look on her face.
-I'm walking home, go away, you jerk !
He whistles in an appreciative tone and he knows that it gets under her skin immediately by the way she grabs her backpack's handles in a death grip. Damn, he's so proud of her for holding her anger at bay.
-You sure you want to walk home ?
She hisses a ''YES'' in a venomous tone.
-Your pancakes will grow cold, though... He fakely muses out loud.
She stops walking and looks at him with wide eyes. He breaks an inch away from her and wiggles his eyebrows in her direction. He doesn't wait for long before she opens the passenger's door and climbs on her seat. He waits for her to buckle her seatbelt before driving away.
He hums silently, ignoring the fidgeting of his daughter. Like he predicted, she cannot wait anymore and asks him;
-Where are the pancakes ? What did you do with the bag ?
Home 
