Kitabı oku: «Call On Me»
Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in USA by Penguin Group (USA) 2015
First published in Great Britain by Harper 2015
Copyright © Roni Loren 2015
House Call copyright © Roni Loren 2015
Excerpt from Break Me Down copyright © Roni Loren 2015
Excerpt from Off the Clock copyright © Roni Loren 2015
Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Roni Loren asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780425278390
Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN: 9780008108243
Version: 2015-06-03
Dedication
To all those readers who demanded that Pike get his own story, this is for you.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Epilogue
House Call letter
House Call short story
Keep Reading Break Me Down
Keep Reading Off The Clock
Acknowledgments
Praise for Roni Loren
About the Author
Also by Roni Loren
About the Publisher
ONE
“Are you touching yourself?” The voice in Oakley’s ear sounded labored and overeager—like a Saint Bernard attempting phone sex. He was probably drooling, too. Lovely.
“Yes, you make me so hot …”—she quickly checked the sticky note she’d put on the kitchen island—“Stefan.”
Stefan. Literature professor. Single. Six foot five.
That’s the info he’d given her. Which probably meant: Steve, unemployed, married, and five-six on a good day.
He groaned. “You’re so sexy.”
Sexy? Two points off for lack of originality, Mr. Lit Prof. Though, even the suave guys tended to forget their vocabulary when they got to this point in the conversation. Oakley covered the mouthpiece on her headset and turned off the timer on the oven. If nothing else, she was impressed the guy had lasted through the full baking time.
“Thanks, sugar,” she said, letting her tone drop into a lower register.
“God, your voice is so fucking hot.”
That she heard a lot. A record company exec had once deemed her voice “smoky, X-rated perfection” when he’d heard her demo. At the time, she hadn’t considered how inappropriate it had been for a grown man to tell a fifteen-year-old kid that. But her raspy voice had gotten her the gig then, and it had gotten her this one now. Though, admittedly, the bar wasn’t set quite as high for this current one.
“I’m gonna give it to you so hard, Sasha,” Stefan ground out. “I can feel your hot mouth closing around me.”
Oakley donned oven mitts and leaned down to pull out the tray of brownies. The smell of chocolate and the heat of the oven hit her with full force. She inhaled deeply. “Mmm, that’s so good. I could just lick up every last bit.”
“Yeah,” he panted, the sound of his slick, pumping fist obscenely clear through the receiver. “That’s right. Show me how much you want it.”
There you go, Steve, you go on and get your money’s worth. Oakley set the tray of brownies on a trivet and tugged off the mitts. Her stomach rumbled. She’d stayed up late enough that her body was looking for dinner number two. But these weren’t for her.
She glanced toward the darkened hallway and the stairs beyond. Well, maybe one little corner piece wouldn’t be missed. She cut a small square and dipped her fingers in to grab it. But as she lifted the brownie, her knuckles grazed the searing hot pan.
“Ah, shit!” she hissed, jerking her hand back.
“Oh, yeah, let me hear it,” Stefan said on a moan. “Come with me, baby.”
Oakley shook out her hand, sucking air through her teeth, and tried to keep the pain out of her voice. Her phone companion thought she was mid-orgasm. She threw in an oh, oh, oh and ran to the sink to plunge her fist into the dishwater she’d drawn to soak the mixing bowl.
Stefan made choked sounds as he reached his own release. In another world, maybe it could’ve been an erotic moment. She’d talked a guy into an orgasm. He was calling her name. But the name was fake and so was the talk. And though she held nothing against the guys who called—after all, they helped her pay the bills—her libido had long ago crawled into a dark corner to die a quick, peaceful death. Even if she imagined the guy on the other end of the line looked like Johnny Depp or Justin Timberlake or something, she couldn’t drum up one ounce of interest.
Stefan panted heavy, wet breaths right against her ear, resuming his resemblance to a Saint Bernard. Maybe she should offer him a “good boy” or a Milk-Bone.
“That was amazing,” she said, using her husky, after-sex voice as she soaked her hand in the water. “Thank you, Stefan.”
Panting. Panting. That was the only response.
Then a tight, high sound—whistling.
No. Wheezing.
Uh-oh. “Stefan? Are you okay?”
Those squeaking breaths continued for a few seconds then: “Yes … I’m … fine.”
He didn’t sound fine. “Stefan, if you’re having an asthma attack or chest pains or something, you need to call for help.”
“Can’t …” He gave a ragged cough. “My wife … can’t know … I’m down here this late. She’ll know I’m up …”
He coughed again.
Jesus Christ. Oakley shook the water off her hand. “What’s she going to think when she finds you dead in the basement? Hang up the phone and dial 911.”
“I—”
“Stu?” a sharp voice said in the background. “What are you doing down here? Stu?”
“Oh, shit,” Stefan/Stu said between wheezes.
The dial tone buzzed in Oakley’s ear a second later.
She pulled off the wireless headset and sagged against the fridge, exhaling a long breath. Okay. It would be all right. Stu’s wife might kill him when she found him with the phone to his ear and his underwear around his ankles, but at least the guy wouldn’t die of a heart attack on Oakley’s watch.
She could handle a lot of stuff—callers threw all kinds of bizarre shit at her—but she couldn’t be responsible for helping kill one. It was bad enough that she’d just contributed to strife in another marriage.
Gold star for her.
It shouldn’t bother her. The guys who called were grown men making a conscious decision to seek out paid phone sex. She was simply the tool of choice. Another night, they may download porn and watch a dirty movie instead. If she’d learned anything during her years of doing this job, it was that it wasn’t personal. She had a job to do. The callers needed a faceless someone to fill in for their fantasy that night. The relationship was purely transactional. And hell, she’d been used for free by enough people in her past. Now she was at least paid for it and not getting emotionally annihilated in the process. But still, sometimes she felt like the drug dealer, giving addicts easy access to their vice.
She rolled her shoulders, trying to shrug off the stress of the call, and dug a tube of antibiotic ointment out of the junk drawer to slather on her burned knuckles. It was past two and she really needed to get to bed, but there was no way she’d be able to sleep after that burst of adrenaline from the call.
Plus, she’d never gotten her dessert. And right now, she could use a big honking piece of chocolate.
She went back to the brownies. They’d cooled enough by now, so she cut herself a bigger square than the original corner she’d planned and took a bite. She closed her eyes. Yeah, that’s the stuff.
After pouring a big glass of milk, she brought that and the rest of the brownie to the table. She glanced at the walkie-talkie she’d placed on the table, the soft white noise relaxing her, and leaned back in the chair to enjoy the solitude. She was used to pulling the night shift by now, but usually she fell into bed after the last call, grasping for any shreds of sleep she could get before the alarm went off to start her real job. But it was nice to sit for a moment and simply be.
She polished off the last bit of brownie and milk and brought her glass to the sink. The exhaustion was settling in full force now. She braced her hands on the edge of the counter and eyed the soaking dishes. Her mother had always had the rule to never go to bed with a dirty sink—as if a bright, gleaming, empty sink was some sign of how together the household was. Maybe it was.
Oakley turned away from the dishes. They’d have to wait until tomorrow. She didn’t have it in her.
She put foil over the rest of the brownies and grabbed the walkie-talkie and her headset. She should be able to get at least four hours of sleep. But right as she flipped off the light, the walkie-talkie beeped.
“Mom?”
Oakley halted, startled by the sudden break in the quiet. She pressed the button on the side of the device. “Yeah, baby?”
“What’s that smell?” Reagan asked, her voice groggy from sleep.
Oakley shook her head and smiled. She should’ve known the bionic nose would pick up that scent even in her sleep. “It’s just the brownies for your bake sale tomorrow.”
“It’s not my bake sale. It’s the school’s,” Reagan corrected.
“That’s what I meant.”
“But that’s not what you said.”
Oakley leaned against the wall in the hallway. This was an argument she’d never win. Reagan was into exactness. When Oakley told people Rae was eleven, Rae would jump in and specify how many months past eleven she was. “I’m sorry I said it wrong the first time. Now go back to sleep, sweetheart. I don’t want you to be tired in the morning.”
“Did you put nuts or caramel in them?”
“Of course not. I know you’re a brownie purist.”
“Okay. Good,” Reagan said, and Oakley could almost hear her daughter nodding. “Thanks, Mom. Love you.”
Oakley pressed the walkie-talkie to her chest for a moment, warmth filling her. “Love you, too, Rae. Good night.”
Oakley headed to her bedroom, listening to the footfalls upstairs and the flush of the toilet as Reagan made a quick trip to the bathroom. She must’ve really had to go because Rae hated getting out of bed in the middle of the night. And she outright refused to come downstairs after dark—a phobia she’d developed years ago and hadn’t been able to shake yet.
Hence the walkie-talkies. Oakley had gotten tired of Reagan yelling from afar anytime she needed something at night. And leaving every light blazing through the house all evening wasn’t an option either. The electric bill was already high enough.
Bills. No, she wouldn’t think about that now. Even though she could see the stack staring at her from her desk. The gas bill. Rent. The quarterly installment for Reagan’s private school and therapies. She couldn’t face that tonight. Plus, she knew the due dates by heart so she could hold on to her money until the very last minute without being late.
She closed her bedroom door and walked over to her computer to wake the screen. Her sign-in page for the service she used to get her calls was still up. It showed how many minutes she’d logged tonight. Not bad. But she was six minutes shy of hitting the bonus level where she got an extra fifty bucks for the night. Stu’s health scare had cost her more than stress.
She sighed and sagged into her desk chair. Fifty extra dollars could pay for that pair of lime green Chuck Taylors Reagan wanted for her birthday.
Oakley yawned and checked the box that indicated she was available to take a call. Her cell phone rang within seconds and she slipped on the headset again. “Hello, this is Sasha. Ready for a fantasy night?”
“So ready,” said the deep-voiced caller. There was male tittering in the background.
Great. A frat-boy call.
“What are you wearing, Sasha?”
Oakley looked down at her oversized T-shirt and yoga pants. “A sheer robe with nothing underneath.”
“Aw, yeah,” the dude said. “How big are your tits?”
Oakley put her head to her desk. Six minutes. She only needed to keep them on the phone for six more minutes.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Three.
They hung up at two, laughing in the background as the phone went dead, their Truth or Dare game complete.
And she was short.
She lifted her head and checked the Available box again.
“Hello, this is Sasha …”
TWO
The chick in his living room was taking a selfie next to his gold record. Pike leaned back, watching her through his half-open bedroom door. “Fantastic.”
“What’s fantastic?” his friend Gibson asked on the other end of the line. “Did you even hear what I said?”
“No, I didn’t. And what’s fantastic is that I have a seriously hot B-list actress in my living room, who was all kinds of cool after the show tonight but is now snapping duckface selfies in front of my shit.”
Gibson snorted a laugh. “At least she’s not using you just for your body.”
“That I’d be okay with. But this …”
“Hey, if there’s no selfie for proof, the event never happened. At least that’s what my niece tells me. It’s like a tree falling in the woods.”
Pike sighed. “Observation: Duckface is a friend to no one.”
The longer Pike watched, the more he regretted his decision to bring this woman home with him. He’d been buzzing off the energy of the performance tonight and had wanted to keep that feeling going. Darkfall had kicked ass on stage and had impressed the promoters who were putting together some of this summer’s biggest tours. If Darkfall landed a sweet opening spot with some big-time band, they’d have a chance to recapture some of the traction they’d lost when their lead singer had taken extended time off between albums to get surgery on his vocal cords. In some ways, tonight felt like a rebirth of the band, and he wanted to celebrate.
And usually the only thing more exciting than pounding the drums, making thousands of fans scream, was making just one scream. But as he watched his date take another photo of herself, he was losing his enthusiasm for his plan.
Maybe a chill night at home with the dog would’ve been a better idea.
Monty barked from somewhere in the living room, protesting the fact that Pike hadn’t given him his requisite belly rub and dog biscuit when he’d come home. He’d been too busy pouring a drink for his guest.
“What’s her name?” Gib asked.
Pike scrubbed a hand through his damp hair. “Why does that matter?”
“Come on, tell me that you’re not that big of a dick and you remember her name.”
Pike grimaced at Gib’s tone. This is what he got for hanging out with businessman types instead of fellow musicians. The suits had a different code of conduct. With the guys in his band, remembering names was only expected after you slept with someone. Luckily, Pike’s memory was good. “Lark Evans.”
“All right. Hold on a sec.” The clicking of a keyboard sounded on the other end.
“Gib, look, can we talk about whatever you were calling for tomorrow? I’m ignoring my company.” He walked away from the door and dropped the towel from around his waist to pull on a fresh pair of well-worn jeans. “I told her I’d only be in the shower for a minute.”
“Ha! I knew it,” Gibson said, triumph in his voice.
“What?”
“Your girl’s on Instagram. And guess what pics are making their way around the world as we speak?”
Pike sighed.
“Damn, she is hot, though,” Gibson said. “Duck lips notwithstanding.”
“Which is why—”
“Ah, shit. You’re gonna love this. Wait for it … Caption to the pic: Hanging out with Spike, the drummer from Darkfall! Hashtag: hawt.”
“Hold up. Spike?”
Gibson burst into laughter. “Spike! Man, she doesn’t even know your name. How very rock star of her.”
Pike looked to the ceiling, letting that sink in. Karma was a fucking bitch. “You are totally ruining my hard-on here.”
“Now don’t kid. I know my deep, brooding voice makes you hot,” Gib said. “Want me to talk dirty to you, Spikey?”
Pike grinned. “So it’s finally happened. You’re going gay for me. I’m flattered. Of course, it was inevitable. I mean, have you seen me? But I hate to break your heart, Gib, I only play for one team.”
He sniffed. “If I were gay, I’d have way higher standards than you. That record would need to be platinum.”
“Aw, love you, too. I’m even making my duckface for you.” He made a loud kiss sound. “Now I’m letting you go because, unlike you, I’m about to get laid, son.”
“Fine. But call me back in the morning. I have a charity thing I need to run by you.”
Pike tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear and pulled his bedside drawer open to check the condom supply. “The Dine and Donate event? I told you the band’s in again this year, if you need us.”
“No, this is for something different. More of a favor than anything else.”
“Sounds ominous. But yeah, call you tomorrow.”
“Cool. Now go rock her world, Spike.”
Pike snorted and disconnected the call. He tossed his phone on the chair by the window and padded to his closet to grab a T-shirt. But when he stepped out of his room, ready to block out all the information he’d learned—selfies, Instagram, Spike—in order to enjoy his date, he was greeted by a shriek instead.
Lark hadn’t seen him come in because her gaze had zeroed in on a growling Monty.
“Give it back, you stupid mutt!” she yelled and jabbed a closed umbrella at Monty, catching him right in the side. Monty yelped.
“What the fuck?” Pike hurried forward and grabbed her wrist, stopping another poke. “What the hell’s going on?”
She pointed at Monty, rage twisting her pretty face into something ugly. “Look at him! Your idiotic dog is eating my Jimmy Choos!”
She said it like Monty was murdering her kid. Pike glanced at Monty, who was in defense mode, baring teeth, two little paws on one of Lark’s high heels. Pike shrugged. “Well, the brand does say Choo. Maybe he’s just following directions.”
Lark gasped and looked at Pike like he’d lost his mind. “Do you know how much those cost? What is wrong with you? Do something!”
The grating tone of her voice made his teeth clamp together. Being yelled at by anyone pushed his buttons. But messing with his dog pushed the ugliest of them. He took a breath, trying to keep his cool. “Do you know that my dog was abused as a puppy? And that jabbing him with a sharp object is fucking traumatizing to him? I’ll buy you another pair of your goddamned shoes.”
Her head snapped back a bit at that, and she had the decency to look chagrined. She glanced down at the umbrella still clutched in her hand. “Oh. Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
And he didn’t care. Abused or not, you don’t poke an animal with something that could hurt them, especially over something as stupid as a shoe. He could put up with her using him for his fame or whatever. They would’ve both been using each other. They each knew the score. But he wasn’t going to let anyone fuck with his dog.
“Monty, release,” he said in the firm, dominant voice that worked best on the feisty dachshund/schnauzer mix. Monty looked up with big, sad puppy eyes and backed away from the shoe. But just when Pike was about to send him off to his bed, Monty trotted over to Lark and gave her the I’m-sorry look.
Lark’s expression softened, and she reached down to pat his head awkwardly. “It’s okay, buddy …”
Monty lifted his leg and pissed all over her bare foot.
“Monty, no!” Pike said.
But chaos ensued after that. Lark hopping and shrieking. Monty barking and spinning in a circle. And Pike doing his damnedest not to laugh.
He wasn’t entirely successful, and that earned him a glare from Lark and a happy, yipping bark from Monty. Finally, he gathered himself together enough to direct Monty to go to his crate so he could help Lark.
He showed her to the bathroom so she could rinse her leg off in the tub, and he cleaned up the mess in the living room—after sneaking Monty his treat and a belly rub.
He was halfway through a beer when Lark stepped into the kitchen a few minutes later, wearing nothing but a pair of lacy pink panties and a bra that made her breasts look like icing-covered cupcakes. His dick jumped to attention—the response automatic.
She leaned in the doorway, posing like she was at a Victoria’s Secret cover shoot, and gave him the inviting smile she’d given him from the audience tonight. “Sorry about all of that. How about we start over and get back to why we’re here, hmm?”
Pike still had the bottle of beer pressed to his lips. He lowered it and set it on the counter.
Lark’s smile spread wider and she sauntered over with a heavy sway in her hips. She pressed her hand to his chest. “I have all kinds of ways we can apologize to each other. For getting mad at your dog, I was thinking this would make it up to you.”
She dragged her hand down his chest and lowered to her knees. Pike stared down at her. She looked like a fucking porn star at his feet—pouty lips with a fresh coat of pink lipstick, blond hair flowing down her back. A wet dream of a woman. But when she put her painted fingernails to the zipper on his jeans, he put his hand over hers. “Stand up.”
She blinked, the sultry look shifting to a perplexed one. “Huh?”
He helped Lark get to her feet. “Be right back.”
Her smile returned, though it had a confused tilt to it. “O … kay.”
He headed back to his bedroom for a minute then returned to the kitchen. She was drinking his beer, putting lipstick marks on the bottle. He draped her dress on one of the barstools, set a pair of his flip-flops on top of it, and handed her a few hundred-dollar bills. “For the shoes and a cab.”
She stared down at the money in her hand. “What?”
“This isn’t going to happen tonight.”
“Wait, you want me to leave? But I thought—”
“It’s time for you to go.” He was tempted to take a co-selfie with her. Hashtag: HookUpFail.
She stiffened like a rod had been shoved up her back and she made these little sputters of disbelief—like she was trying to come up with a really good insult but couldn’t think of any.
When she obviously couldn’t string anything worthy together, she shoved on his flip-flops, which looked like flippers on her small feet, and yanked her dress over her head. “I can’t fucking believe this.”
He dumped the beer in the sink, bored.
His lack of response brought a new level of hatred glowing in her eyes. “Is this about the dog? Because that’s just stupid. How was I supposed to know he was abused?”
He walked to his front door and pulled it open. “You never know where anyone’s scars are hiding. Doesn’t mean you get a pass to hurt them.”
She reared back like he’d slapped her. Then her lips pressed together, and she flounced out the door, muttering something about hoping that the dumb dog kept him warm tonight.
He shut the door without watching her go and leaned against it, absorbing the quiet of the condo, relief instead of disappointment settling in. Hookup fail, yes. But even he had standards. He’d rather fuck his fist than spend another second with Duckface the Puppy Poker.
A year ago, he might’ve just written it off and taken her to bed anyway. What did it matter if a woman was shallow? It’s not like they’d be seeing each other again. Plus, he’d always hated sleeping alone in a house. But now he couldn’t stomach the thought of spending another moment with a woman like that.
Maybe he was getting used to being by himself. After his roommate, Foster, had moved out to live with his girlfriend last year, Pike had felt that old need to always have people over. Mostly of the naked female variety. But for the last few months, he’d been so busy with band stuff and working at his music studio in between that he hadn’t sought out that brand of companionship very often. He hadn’t even gone to The Ranch, the kink resort he and his friends belonged to, in at least three months. Tonight had been the first night he’d done the hook-up-after-a-show thing in a while.
Now he remembered why he’d backed off from this kind of thing. He had no issue being someone’s one-night stand. Most of the time, he preferred things that way. But now that he’d seen how Foster and Cela were together, how explosive the chemistry could be when two people connected like that, he could see how superficial this other shit was in comparison. Women fucked his type. The bad boy. The drummer. Whatever. They didn’t fuck him.
And he’d been guilty of the same. He’d fuck the groupie, the model, the B actress. If not for Monty chewing Lark’s shoe tonight, he would’ve never known that the woman was capable of hurting a dog for something as inconsequential as a shoe. Because he didn’t know her.
For some reason, that dug into him like a burr, annoying the shit out of him.
He sank onto his bed and Monty jumped up to join him. He scratched behind Monty’s ears. “Good job, Monts. You’re making me grow a goddamned conscience.”
Monty licked his chops. There were pieces of red shoe leather stuck in his teeth.
Pike chuckled and kissed the top of his pup’s scruffy head. Monty rewarded him by releasing some noxious gas and dog-grinning at the effort.
“Jesus, Monts.” He put his hand over his nose and mouth. “Take that stuff somewhere else.”
Monty, of course, took that as his cue to settle next to him on the bed. Pike waved the poisonous fumes away, coughing, and grabbed his cell phone.
Gibson answered on the second ring. “Please tell me you last longer than that because, seriously, any thoughts of going gay for you are definitely out of the question otherwise. I require stamina.”
Pike let his head fall back to the pillow. “Shut the fuck up and stop flirting. It’s not going to work.”
“So you kicked her out?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. You’re better than that,” Gib said, no sarcasm in his voice. “You need to stop dipping into the groupie pool, anyway. You’re too old for that shit. Find yourself some normal women your own age.”
“Normal women have too many expectations.”
“What? Like remembering their names and calling them the next day?”
“Exactly. Plus, I’m best in limited doses. I’d send normal women running for the hills after too long.”
“I don’t know. You haven’t scared off your friends yet. I mean, yes, I thought you were an egotistical douchebag when I first met you, but now you’ve grown on me. Like a fungus.”
“So you’re saying I should try to infect some normal woman with my fungus? Good talk, buddy. Good talk.”
“Dr. Phil gets all his best stuff from me.”
“Just tell me about this charity thing so I can get to bed and think about the sex I won’t be having tonight.”
Gibson paused as if ready to push the topic, but then relented. “Fine. The charity project. It would involve music.”
“Excellent.”
“And would be helping my lovely sister-in-law out.”
“Making sexy Tessa happy. Good.”
“You’d be working with kids.”
“Aaaand … I’m out.”
Gibson scoffed. “You have something against kids?”
“I’m inked up, curse like a convict, and have piercings in questionable places. Parents don’t want me near their children, and kids freak me out.”
“Bullshit. How can you be freaked out? You’re one of them.”
“Sorry, Gib.”
“Are you being serious right now?”
“I’m not a kid person.” He could still smell the stench of the house he’d grown up in. The overstuffed diaper pails. The spoiling government-issued baby formula. His younger siblings seeking him out when their mom had to work or when her boyfriend of the month was in a vengeful mood. That deep, terrifying feeling that lived in Pike that he was in over his head. That he’d never be enough to make it okay for them.
