Page 39 of Queen of Anarchy (Dirty Broken Savages 2)

I open my mouth, not even sure what I want to say to her, but the story starts coming out before I can even decide if I want to stop it or not.

“I grew up in a real shitty neighborhood,” I tell her, keeping my fingers moving through her hair while I talk.

I feel her startle as my words break through the quiet of the kitchen, and she turns her head to look at me.

“You don’t have to tell me your life story, Ash,” she says, but her words aren’t sharp or cutting. Not like she’s saying she doesn’t want to hear it—just that I don’t have to tell her.

Still, part of me feels like Idohave to tell her. I usually don’t get into this shit with people, except my brothers, who know pretty much everything about me. But with strangers or acquaintances, I’ve never felt any urge to talk about my past. I prefer to leave it far in the rearview mirror usually, something I think about in passing but generally ignore.

But with River, it’s different. I want her to understand who I am and where I come from. So I clear my throat and keep looking straight ahead at the refrigerator across from us.

“It won’t be my whole life story,” I tell her, letting a grin tug at my lips. “For that epic saga, we’ll need a full bottle of whiskey and a whole lot of time. But… I want to tell you this.”

“Okay.” She looks up at me through her long, dark lashes, then nods and settles in even more.

“So, like I said,” I continue, piecing my thoughts together as I go. “Shitty neighborhood. But it was one of those areas where there was a nicer neighborhood right across from it, you know? They probably put it in because there used to be a park or something there, and fuck the poor kids, let em play in the street, I guess. It always felt like they just wanted to make sure we had a really good view of what we would never have, watching these rich assholes coming and going in their fancy cars and shit.”

I can picture it when I talk about it, even though I haven’t been there in years. The way the road curved down from where we lived, leading into a neighborhood not that different from the one we live in now. How shiny BMWs and luxury SUVs went up and down that road, speeding along because they didn’t give a shit if they hit one of the kids from the shit hole neighborhood across the way.

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth just thinking about it, but I keep going.

“There were all these housewives in that nice neighborhood, rich and bored and always drunk on wine at three in the afternoon. Some of them had kids, some of them didn’t. They used to look at me when they’d see me out in my yard, cutting grass or bringing in groceries or whatever. They’d slow down and look before they drove on to their big ass houses. I guess my mom noticed that. Or she just knew how thirsty these bitches were. So she started pimping me out.”

River sucks in a sharp breath at that, but she doesn’t say anything. She just puts a hand on my thigh, and I’m grateful I don’t have to deal with her pity. I don’t want it.

“I was… advanced for my age, I guess. Already muscular and good looking even when I was a teenager. I don’t know if they thought I was older, or if they just didn’t care, but business was fucking booming, so to speak.” I snort dryly. “All these women with more money than I’d ever seen in my fucking life. I’d go to their houses and do whatever they wanted for a couple hours, before they shooed me off. Couldn’t let their husbands find out they were cheating on them with some scum from around the way. That would be like the ultimate slap in the face.”

“I guess so,” River murmurs. “But it would have been better if it was someone ‘on their level,’ right?”

That gets a dry laugh out of me. “Probably. At least then they’d be getting cucked by someone who ‘deserved’ it. But instead, it was just me. I was good at it, too. I learned how to please them, how to keep them coming back for more. That was part of the deal, I guess. It was important that they kept coming back for more because we needed the money. Not that I ever saw a cut of it, but I had to eat, had to keep the lights on. Whatever. It made it really hard to understand how normal relationships worked. Kids my age were going to prom and having dates at the skating rink or whatever, and I was eating out women old enough to be my mom in the middle of the day.”

“That’s why you…” River trails off like she’s not sure how to say it.

I shrug the shoulder she’s not resting against. “Have more sex than the rest of the three Kings combined? Probably. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love a good fuck. It’s not all because of the trauma or whatever. But it definitely screwed up how I see stuff like that. I can admit that to myself.”

She hums thoughtfully and runs her fingers along my thigh. “Did you ever get caught? By one of the husbands?”

“Oh, yeah. One of them came home early while I was fucking his wife from behind on their bed. I don’t know if he knew ahead of time and wanted to catch us in the act or if he just forgot his lunch or something, but he came in and saw us and lost his shit. Chased me out of the house while I was trying to put my pants back on. I managed to lose him on the way back to my mom’s place, and I figured I’d lay low and that would be that. The guy probably wasn’t going to tell anybody what happened because it would make him look bad. But I told my mom, and she kicked me out. Said she didn’t want to deal with the drama.”

“The dramashestarted.”

I shrug again. “Yeah. She wasn’t exactly winning mother of the year awards. I lived on my own for a while after that. I was only good at the one thing, so I was a prostitute for a while. Made enough money to survive on. Then I met the rest of the guys, and we got close and went into business together.”

“And the rest is history?” River asks.

I laugh. “Sure, we can go with that. Until we have a bottle of whiskey and more time to kill.”

She chuckles. “Alright. But I’m gonna hold you to that.”

That’s perfectly fine by me. I like having that hanging over us, a date between the two of us and a bottle of whiskey in the future. It makes River seem more permanent in our lives, somehow, making plans for some future day when we’ll get drunk and spill more of our life stories.

I turn my head to brush my lips over her soft silver hair, inhaling her scent. As I do, something else pops into my mind, and before I can let myself worry that it will scare her away, I add, “You know, you used to give me shit for fucking anything that moved or whatever it was you said, but I haven’t fucked anyone since you came to live with us.”

Even though I can’t see her face, I can feel her eyebrows shoot up. “Really? Are you serious?”

“Yeah.” I huff a little laugh. “Even when I wouldn’t let myself have it, the only pussy I wanted was yours.”

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