by Cee Bowerman
“I hate pickles.”
“Okay. All pickles or just dill?”
“Let me rephrase that: I hate pickles on a burger, but only if they’re hot.” I shook my head. “Okay, let me explain. I don’t eat cold burgers, therefore I don’t eat pickles on my burger. I’ll eat a pickle on the side, but the pickle has to be cold. If it’s on the burger, it gets warm and that’s just disgusting.”
“Hmm. Maybe that’s why I pick them off my burger but don’t mind them in potato salad or whatever.”
“It’s a valid reason,” I nodded my head seriously. “Warm pickles are just gross.”
“Noted,” Rowdy laughed. “Tell me something else.”
“You go.”
“I’m allergic to evergreen, pine, and fir trees.”
“Like rash allergic or stop breathing allergic?”
“Rash, sneezing, that sort of thing. Not deadly as far as I know.”
“I’m allergic to raspberries. They give me hives.”
“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind. I’m allergic to fresh tomatoes - they give me blisters in my mouth.”
“Ketchup and spaghetti sauce are okay, though?”
“Yes ma’am. And I can eat my own weight in salsa, but it can’t be fresh. Has to be cooked or canned or whatever.”
“Okay, so no tomatoes in salads or on sandwiches and burgers. Good to know.”
“This one may be a game changer.”
“What? Is it horrible?”
“Some people think so. I think it’s delicious.”
“Okay. Sock it to me and I’ll decide.”
“I eat my Chick-fil-A waffle fries dipped in half mayo and half ketchup.”
“No way!”
“I told you it was a game changer.”
“I do that, too!” I yelled. “People think I’m just gross, but it’s so good that way. And on the nuggets, too.”
“Yep. On the nuggets, too.”
“It’s kind of nice to know that I’m not the only one.”
“I think it’s kind of nice to know that when we eat there you won’t give me a ration of shit about it like Leia does. What about Lexi?”
“She thinks I’m disgusting.”
“They’re young. They don’t know shit yet.” Rowdy laughed. “What else?”
“I can’t stand to have the covers tucked in at my feet. I have to pull them out so my feet can be free.”
“What about the monster under your bed? Can’t he get you that way?”
“What are you? Four?”
“No, I just appreciate that there might be creepy crawlies out there, so I make sure I don’t give them the opportunity to join me in bed.” Rowdy tilted his head and added, “Or pull me out of it screaming as they drag me through their portal and eat my soul.”
I laughed so hard at his serious honesty that I had a hard time catching my breath. Here was this big, strong man telling me he was afraid of monsters abducting him while he slept.
“I know. It’s irrational and I’m a grown ass man, but I’ve had that same fear since I could remember. My mom used to make sure and tuck my feet in tight right after she kissed me goodnight.”
“I don’t think my mom ever tucked me into bed,” I shrugged. “I’m not even sure she knew which room was my bedroom, now that I think about it.”
“I can’t imagine that. Not being close to your kid, you know? I live for the talks I have with Leia. I wouldn’t know how to breathe if she was too far away from me.”
“Same.” The mood in the cab of the truck got heavier as we thought of our daughters and how horrible it would be to not have them in our lives. “Is your mom nearby?”
“No.” Rowdy huffed out a breath. “She died in an accident when I was 10. I came home from school and the cops were waiting for me. They stayed with me until we could get in touch with Dad at the rig and he came home. Luckily, he was only an hour or so away.”
“The rig?”
“Dad is a roughneck. Well, he was back then. He’s moved up the food chain and now he works at a desk telling the roughnecks what to do.” Rowdy slowed the truck to wait for a car to pass and then turned us into the diner parking lot. “It was hard without Mom. Dad had to go back to work and I stayed home alone while he was gone.”
“At 10?”
“Yeah.” Rowdy laughed. “I ate a lot of sandwiches and made sure that my sheets were tucked into the foot of the bed every night.”
“I can’t imagine. That had to have been so lonely.”
“Yeah, it was.” Rowdy admitted as he turned the truck off and turned to look at me. “I had some shit happen and I realize now it was probably because I was left alone so much. But we moved here to get a fresh start and Dad took a local job. Less pay, but he could be home with me and Leia every night. It all worked out. While he was local, he took a few classes and when he was able to leave us alone for a while, he went back out in the field and was able to work his way up the ranks to where he is now. We sort of grew up together when Leia was born.”
“How old were you? How old are you now?”
“I just turned 25; I was 13 when she came along. She’ll be 12 in a few months.”
“Holy shit.” I was stunned. “What about her mom? You mentioned that you needed to make sure she didn’t have access to Leia.”
“Well, sweetheart, if that story can’t be told over cold beer, it should be told over Martha’s pecan pie. Let’s head inside and get a booth and I’ll tell you all about how I became a single dad at the ripe old age of 13.”
6.
ROWDY
“What’s your favorite pie?” Sierra asked me as she looked over the menu.
“Pink lemonade pie.”
“What?” Sierra asked as she glanced up at me from the menu in front of her.
“Pink. Lemonade. Pie.”
“I have never heard of that.”
“I’ll make it for you sometime. My mom used to make it all the time for me. I could eat the whole damn thing if she let me. Shit. What am I saying? I can eat the whole damn thing. When we make them, we have to make two - one for Leia and one for me.”
“This I’ve got to taste.”
“Secret family recipe. You’ll have to marry me to find out.”
“Well, there you go, giving me all the right reasons to tie the knot.”
She and I laughed as we went back to our menus and when the waitress brought our coffee out, we both gave her our food choices and then doctored our coffees in silence.
“So, tell me about your plunge into fatherhood.”
“Well, there are a few angles to come at this from, so let me know if I get sidetracked. When I was 13 I had a math teacher who was just smoking hot. All the boys thought she was beautiful and hell, so did all the girls. She was funny and didn’t talk down to us at all, even cracked jokes occasionally. If one of us, especially one of us boys, was falling behind or needed extra help, she made time for us.” I took a deep breath. “I didn’t know at the time that she was giving other boys the same naked math tutorials she was giving me. I was too in awe of the fact that I was 13 years old and banging every teenage boy's wet dream to care.”
“Leia’s mom was your teacher?”
“Yep,” I nodded. “It actually started right before my thirteenth birthday. What I know now was grooming. We had sex a few months after I turned 13 and it went on until she was arrested.”
“Holy shit,” Sierra whispered. “That fucking bitch seduced a child.”
“Yeah, but like I said - at the time, I thought I was the luckiest guy on the planet. I hated the fact that we had to keep it a secret, but was happy that she could sneak over to my house and spend the night while Dad was away on the rig.”
“That’s just so fucking wrong,” Sierra shuddered. “You hear about pedophiles, but you always picture a man, you know?”
“For a long time, I couldn’t accept that she was a child molester.”
“But she was - you know that right?”
“Yeah,�
�� I said, a little bit embarrassed. “I know that now. But then, she was just this pretty woman who paid attention to me. My mom was dead, my dad was never home, we didn’t have any other family I could depend on... I was the perfect target.”
“Wow.”
“But there were more boys than just me. I digress. She seduced me.”
“Molested you,” Sierra interrupted angrily.
“Okay, molested me. Anyway, it went on for months and I didn’t tell a soul. She was about to divorce her husband and didn’t want to lose custody of her kids.”
“No way!”
“And her daughter was one year ahead of me in school, so when Beverly told me about how upset her daughter would be, I knew just what crying little girl to picture and that made her story all the more real.”
“Her kid was older than you?”
“All three of her kids were older than me and she was not in the middle of a divorce.”
“Oh. My. God.”
“Yeah,” I conceded “If some grown man was telling me this shit was happening to him right now - that the woman he was head over heels for was about to leave her old man, they had to keep everything on the down low until she got settled - I’d laugh in his face and tell him he was a sucker.”
“You were just a kid!”
“I was. Not much older than the girls are now. That brings it home, you know? Takes my understanding of how wrong it was to an entirely different level.”
“I would kill someone.” Sierra looked dumbstruck. “What did your dad do?”
“Okay, we’re getting ahead again. She spent the weekend with me and a few days later, I started feeling bad. Downstairs. You know? By Friday, I was in some pain and while I was in gym class, I hurt so bad that the coach took me to the nurse himself. Thought I had a hernia.” I looked up at the ceiling for a second and then blurted out, “My balls were killing me. Had to go to the emergency room. They called my dad in from the field and we found out I had an STD.”
“Holy shit.”
“So, the nurse at the school realized I wasn’t the only kid who had problems lately. There were eight of us.”
“She had a fucking harem? Of boys? Are you kidding me right now?”
“No.”
“That fucking bitch.”
“So, the nurse puts two and two together and gets eight. Principal had a meeting that next Monday with all the parents because none of us students were talking, you know? Told the parents to put the smack down on all of us and find out who we had each been sleeping with. Dad threatened me with my ever-loving life and I wouldn’t tell him.” The waitress came with our pie and I paused until she walked far enough away so that she couldn’t hear me. “One of the other guys wasn’t as stubborn as me and he spilled. Principal lost his fucking mind. Had to call all the parents back in for a meeting, each one alone, and tell them that there was an investigation pending and that detectives would be in touch soon.”
I glanced up from my slice of pie and saw that Sierra was staring at me wide-eyed, waiting on me to continue.
“So, the cops came to my house and asked me a million questions. By that time, I knew the jig was up and I had to tell the truth. I was honestly pissed that I wasn’t the only one. I felt fucking betrayed, as weird as it sounds.”
“Well, yeah, I can see that. You thought that this was all normal and everything, so you probably did feel betrayed.”
“She got fired, the investigation continued, and then the news that she was pregnant filtered down to all of us. That was a kick in the teeth right there.” I sighed, “But since she had all of us on a string and a husband at home, there was no telling who the father was. She was sentenced and at the time, I didn’t know why my dad was so fucking pissed, but she got sentenced to 20 years.”
“For all eight of you, over and over again? And she only got 20 years?”
“Her lawyer played on the fact that she was a woman, she lost her way, and we were horny teenagers who would take what we could get.”
“You. Were. Children!” Sierra was pissed and she wasn’t having any of that bullshit the lawyers tried to sell the jury. “Fuck her, fuck that lawyer, and the fucking jury that sentenced her.”
“Honey, it’s all water under the bridge now.”
“Okay, I’ll shut up. Go ahead.”
“They drew our blood and swabbed our mouths and tried out this new test thing the second the baby was born. She went into foster care until the results came back and you, my beautiful friend, are looking at the lucky winner of the DNA lottery.”
“So, they gave the baby to you?”
“Technically they gave her to my dad, but yeah, she was mine. Dad hired an elderly lady who lived a few blocks over to come and teach us how to take care of a baby. And with that, my childhood was effectively over. She was my daughter and if she was awake, so was I. If she was hungry, I fed her; if she was wet I changed her. You get the picture.”
“Makes sense. I did that with Lexi.”
“It was a small town and this caused major waves, so going back to school that fall sucked. Things got so bad that Dad moved us here to Rojo, where some of his old friends lived. I ended up dropping out of school when I was a sophomore because Leia was sick a lot and I missed too many classes. But all in all, she’s got a pretty good life as far as I can tell. She’s happy, always has food in her belly, and cool shoes on her feet.”
“She’s a great kid. Funny, too. You can tell that she is loved.” Sierra reached across the table and took my hand. “And now her mother is trying to see her? Is that what’s going on?”
“Yeah. She was sentenced to 20 years, but you know how that goes. Model prisoner, worked to help others get their education, volunteered for what the fuck ever, was always a good inmate - all that bullshit. She’s up for parole next month and sent a letter to me saying she had been thinking about me all these years. She sent one to Leia saying that she couldn’t wait to see her.”
“Can she do that?”
“Well, while she was stewing in prison, she furthered her education and got a degree in family law. So, she’s had a lot of time to plot out her case. Add to the fact that I’m a single Dad who works odd hours sometimes, doesn’t even own a fucking house, and has no education to speak of - yeah she might just have a case.”
“I’ll marry you,” Sierra said suddenly. “Even if we don’t find a way to get the money, I’ll marry you. We’ll have a happy family and that woman can kiss my entire fucking ass if she thinks she’s getting her hooks into Leia. Fuck her.”
“Leia says she doesn’t want to talk to her. I even took her to a shrink and had Leia talk to her to make sure I wasn’t making that choice for her. Even the shrink said that Leia wants nothing to do with her.”
“Good.” Sierra had drawn a line in the sand and from the looks of it, I thought I might be married soon, but I was perfectly calm about it. “Either way, we’ll make sure she doesn’t have a leg to stand on. And if she finds one, we’ll have enough money to bury her nasty ass under so much legal bullshit she won’t be able to breathe wrong without someone knowing it.”
“We’re getting married?”
“Yes,” Sierra’s eyes got wide when she realized the magnitude of her decision. “Holy shit, we’re getting married.”
“We’ve still got some things to iron out,” I told her quietly. “I meant it when I said I wouldn’t be married in name only. I want a wife in all aspects of the marriage and I want to be a husband the same way.”
“You’ll take out the trash and mow the lawn?”
“And make love to my wife every chance I get.”
“Oh,” Sierra’s eyes stared into mine and then she glanced away. “I didn’t even think about that.”
“Is that something you can do? I mean, after what happened with…”
“Yeah,” Sierra smiled. “It hurt, it affected me, and sometimes there are things that make me remember the times with him, but I’m not opposed to sex in any way.”
“A
re you seeing someone right now?”
“No.” Sierra shook her head. “It wouldn’t have been fair to me or him, in case I had to run. I wouldn’t even have time to say goodbye, I’d just disappear.”
“You have to promise me that won’t happen, Sierra. I couldn’t take it and I know it would kill Leia if she got used to you two being around and then you left us without so much as a look back.”
“It’s hard for me to promise that, Rowdy.” Sierra sighed and gripped my hand. “I need to make sure that Lexi is safe. I’ve never had to think of anyone else’s feelings when it came to us running away. But if you and I are together, it would make more sense for me to stay. If you had my back, I could put down roots.”
“There’s no ‘if’, sweetheart. I do have your back. So do Marcus and Reagan. And by now, Marcus has talked to his brother who will talk to the men in his club. He’s also talked to the men who run my club, Sam and Zeke, and they’ll also have your back.” I smiled at her and shook my head when it hit me, “My guess is that by the time we’re married, you’ll have met about 30 new people, have been invited to at least a dozen different houses for dinner, offered a job… oh, wait! You work at Grazie’s?”
“Yes. Why?”
“The owner, Maria? Her men, you know John and Mattie right? Well, her men belong to the Texas Kings. You’re already one of them, sweetheart - you just didn’t even know it yet.”
“One of them?”
“One of the family. That’s how my people do things.”
“Your people?”
“Yeah. Now you’re my people.” I glanced up and noticed that the waitress was turning the sign from open to closed, “Are you ready to get out of this place? I think they’re ready to lock up.”
“Where will we go?”
“Well, we’ve still got some things to iron out. Do I pick you up early tomorrow and we talk then or do you want to head back to my house for a while and then I’ll take you home?”
“Your place, I think.”
I had already paid the ticket, so she and I waved at our waitress and headed outside. We were only a few steps away from the door when I heard the lock turn behind us.
“It’s already 10. Are you sure you want to come to my place? We’ve got to be at Marcus and Reagan’s by nine.”
