Page 110 of Dozer

I perked up. “Anything.”

“Anything?”

“Maybe mostly anything,” I clarified. Although, at the moment, I was ready to give him whatever he wanted. I didn’t care how my heart hurt, about the words that he said in anger, words I wanted to believe he didn’t mean. I had to believe he didn’t mean them because not believing would mean everything I’d felt with him didn’t count.

He slid his palm under mine. Those thick tattooed fingers curled around my hand.

“Are we good?” he asked.

“I want to be.”

Dozer

Opening up about my past felt like a sharp, cutting knife to my windpipe. Words didn’t come easy when they told a shit story about a shit childhood. Cracking open my chest and bleeding out my truth meant trusting her.

Fuck, but I needed her.

Pippa held my hand in hers. “I know she cheats on your dad.”

“Nah, she’s not cheating if she’s not going behind his back.” I untangled my fingers from hers and pulled a cigarette from my pack. The flick of the lighter had the flame to the tip, and the first hot inhale filling my lungs.

She crawled over my lap for the schnapps. “Keep talking,” she said, then smiled and sat a little closer to me.

“Fuck, Pip, how far back do you want to go? I remember getting locked in my room because she’d had a few guys over. They’d been partying all night. I banged on the door to be let out so I could use the bathroom. She’d gotten so angry because the guys had found out she had a kid in the house. It was my fault they left.

“Everything with my mom is still my fault. That night, she beat me with a wooden spoon. Next time, I pissed in my bed because I was too afraid to make her mad. Instead, I got the spoon in the morning for wetting the bed.”

Somehow, she was holding my hand again. This time our fingers were laced and in her lap. Her gentle fingertips traced the ink on my knuckles. “How old were you?”

“Five, maybe six. Being locked in my room was better than the nights I slept in the backseat of the car outside of motels, freezing my ass off while she hooked up with another random. She’d give me a candy bar and a soda and tell me to keep my head down.”

I sank my cigarette into the can of sand next to the bench. “I told my dad. She’d promise to do better. He’d believe her. Then he’d be gone again. Sometimes, for a couple weeks, sometimes several months, but nothing changed.”

“Dozer, that’s child neglect.”

Neglect was the least of my mommy issues. I couldn’t recall a time I wasn’t scared and insecure. “I couldn’t sleep when she had a guy over. I’d lie in bed and listen to her cries, not realizing they were her getting off. I’d be terrified of what was happening to her.

“I vividly remember the first time I snuck out of my room.” I closed my eyes, just the memory of how I felt punching me in the gut. “I watched my mom blow a guy while he sat in my dad’s recliner, watching my dad’s television. In my fucked up head, I thought my mom was getting me a new dad. I think that was the first time I hated her.”

And it wasn’t the only time I watched her. “Somehow, I knew it was my fault. If I was a better kid, my dad would be around. Every fucking day I was the reason she was stressed, that he’d left her to raise me alone. I guess I should be glad I’m an only child, so she couldn’t fuck up anyone else.”

She leaned against my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

I hugged her close to me. “By the time I was fourteen, I was running with Blade, Vance, and the girls. I didn’t care if my mom fucked her way through life. My dad was deep in the MC. You’ve been around. There is no shortage of pussy. It isn’t always behind closed doors.”

I never actually saw my dad fucking any of the Heller whores, but after my conversation with him in county, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tapped a few. Not that I wanted to know, but my dad and I had probably fucked a few of the same girls.

“Is that why you like to watch?”

“Nah, I’m not that fucked up.” But she wasn’t far from my truth.

Watching kept me from getting emotionally involved. But that’s what I’d done with Pippa. Seeing her today with the professor, and after my anger over the notes, I’d only proved to myself we couldn’t go back to the way we were.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I said.

She stiffened beside me.

“I can’t watch, not you.” I chased the shit emotions—fear, jealousy, anger. I savored the sadistic twist of sliding into the dark, dangerous thoughts. I wanted to be clawed and gutted by my feelings so that I had a reason to push away anything good.

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