Page 24 of Caged Bird

He looked a whole lot better than his mother.

But even as unkempt as she was, she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Messy hair didn’t take away from the plump lips I’d spent years dreaming about kissing. Ill-fitting clothes didn’t take away from the curve of her hips and the swell of her tits. Dirt smudged on her cheek didn’t stop me from watching her blow my brother while wishing it were me.

I squeezed my eyes shut tight and leaned back on the truck with a groan of frustration.

Otis stopped playing and peered up at me. “Are you okay, Mister?”

“You can call me Zane. Or…” I shrugged. “Uncle Zane, I guess. If you want to.”

He beamed at me. “I don’t have any aunts or uncles. You can be my first.”

I pressed my lips together. He did. He had an uncle and aunt in Fawn’s older siblings. I wondered why she’d never told him about them, but she had to have her reasons. I wasn’t going to be the one to fill him in if she didn’t want him to know.

I focused on his forehead instead, and how it was turning a little pink from the sun. “You should put a hat on, kid. You’re getting burned.”

Otis’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t. My hat is inside. I forgot it. And Daddy doesn’t like it when I come inside without him saying I can.”

That set a muscle in my jaw twitching but wasn’t entirely unexpected. Eddie had bossed me around as a kid, dictating where I went and when. It was hardly surprising he did the same to his own child.

As much as I wanted Otis to put a hat on, I didn’t want him going in there either.

How long would Eddie fuck Fawn’s mouth before he came? Would they be done yet? Otis didn’t need to see that.

I took the baseball cap from my head and tightened the clasp on the back so it was as small as I could make it. Then put it on his head. “Wear mine while I go get yours for you, okay?”

It was still way too big, but he grinned up at me from beneath the bill, cute as fuck, and nodded.

I trudged back to the house, praying that even though I’d lost track of the minutes in my head, that it had been long enough.

Silently, I chanted a reminder to just open the door and go straight up the stairs. To not even glance in the direction of the living room, where Eddie and Fawn could be going at it like rabbits for all I knew.

I didn’t want that mental image. It was bad enough I’d watched her deliver him a blow job.

That was going to live rent-free in my head.

Minus my brother.

In my head, she’d be on her knees in front of me.

It was hardly a new dream. It was one I’d had a million times before, just without the real-life visual.

God, she’d looked beautiful.

All woman now, no trace of the girl she’d once been.

Despite the warnings I’d repeated in my head, as soon as I opened the front door, I peeked over at where I’d left them.

Eddie was fast asleep in the recliner, snores ripping from him like a chainsaw.

I breathed out a sigh of relief and quickly bypassed the kitchen, not wanting to see her if she was in there cleaning up after lunch. I didn’t know how I was going to look the woman in the eye ever again.

I took the stairs two at a time until I was on the upstairs landing.

There were two bedrooms to my left. Both with neatly made double beds, but one clearly Eddie and Fawn’s room. The clothes laid out on the bed were a dead giveaway, while the other room seemed to be a spare that didn’t get much use if the empty closet was anything to go by.

Otis’s bedroom was clearly the one on my right, a small single bed with a plain blue quilt covering the mattress and a wooden chest for toys or blankets. His floppy green bucket hat sat atop an old, mismatched set of drawers.

I willed myself to walk in the room and grab the hat I’d come up here for.

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