But I think of that tent she picked for me. All the guys got one, but I can imagine her putting extra thought into mine. I’m the guy she wants. I’m the one who put a baby in her. Yomp, she took her time picking mine.
I can’t remember anyone putting that much effort into what I might want. Becklyn never got me anything that wasn’t a gift meant to guilt me into getting her something. Jaymes bought me shit she liked for me to wear, not anything I’d want. Neither of them ever seemed to think I was a real person. I get that now. I was just this big, tatted man, who made them feel a certain way. I was never real to them.
Like a fucking idiot, I end up sleeping in the tent despite the chill and light rain. Something got fucked up in me on that trip. Nomp, it’s pretty simple why I’m restless.
My head is full of big ideas now—being respected in the Reapers, having Shelby as my woman, raising my kid. But those are things I figured I’d have back in the day. Becklyn with her many fake pregnancies. Jaymes, though, was never going to give me a kid. She talked about how I’d be a bad father since I was a criminal.
“Quit, and then we can make a family,” she’d say whenever I mentioned some guy in the club was expecting a kid.
I wasn’t quitting the Skullz for her. Come to think of it now, she wouldn’t have made a good mother anyway. She nagged too much. Nothing was good enough. She was always upset by how I failed something or another. I wouldn’t want my kid listening to her bullshit all day and night. The fucked-up thing is she ended up having a kid with some guy in the town over. Poor little shit is gonna grow up miserable.
My kid won’t. I might be a terrible father, but Shelby will do a good job. She’s got experience, and I hear she takes good care of her ugly dogs.
Resting in the tent, I imagine Shelby holding our kid. In my head, our baby looks weird. I can’t picture a kid that looks like me. I remember seeing Shane’s son and decide to imagine my kid looking like that. Shane and Shelby share a lot of features. If my kid’s lucky, it’ll look like its mom.
Now I can picture Shelby with my kid, but there’s no way to force me into that fantasy. I know too well what I am and where I belong. I’m not daddy or husband material. That’s why I’m nearly forty with no wife or kids. I always knew I shouldn’t do the family thing. Just like my mother shouldn’t have. Some people ain’t meant for it. She forced herself to keep me. That’s why she was miserable and made me miserable. I’m not gonna do that to an innocent kid.
My fantasy dies as soon as it starts, but I stay in that tent all night as a way to keep a tiny part of the lie alive.
THE WEIRDO
Goliath opens the door of his trailer as I walk toward it. He wears a frown as if annoyed to see me. I scowl right back, irritated by the thought that he doesn’t want me here. I imagine the next few minutes going one of two ways—we fuck, or he’s such an asshole that I bolt.
“What?” he says, leaning out of the door and showing off his bare chest.
“I’m here for my booty call.”
“What makes you think I'm in the mood?”
I stop in my tracks, zip open my jacket, yank up my shirt, and flash my coconuts. “These are leaving if I don’t get a compliment.”
“You have great tits. Now get inside on the bed,” he says, disappearing inside.
Pushing down my shirt, I walk the rest of the way to where the door stands open. “A girl needs a little fucking romance, you fapsock.”
“You’re such drama,” he says, having somehow stripped naked in the thirty seconds it took me to walk inside his trailer. I’m almost shocked into silence by so much bare, muscled flesh. “I better find a way to keep your mouth busy.”
“Well, damn, I forgot how big your dick is. I might want a rain check.”
Gray eyes narrowing, he hisses, “Don’t make me tackle you, Campbell.”
“That wouldn’t be good for the baby,” I say, kicking off my tennis shoes and yanking