Page 12 of Dirty Beasts: Chance

I decline to answer that. “You’ve never had a girlfriend?”

“Nope.” He moves a heavy shoulder in a shrug. “Like I said, not like you’d consider a girlfriend.”

“But there have been women.”

“Yes, there have been women.”

“But only casual.”

He shakes his head. “No. I’m no hookup artist. It’s complicated, okay?”

“How complicated can it be?” I ask. “You’ve been with women, but it’s never been a relationship… Therefore, it’s always been casual.”

“Thereareplaces in between relationship and casual,” he says, sounding defensive.

I shift, resting my head a little further onto his pec than his shoulder. “Oh yeah? Like what? And don’t say friends with benefits. That’s casual sex, just with the same person instead of randoms.”

I’m not letting myself think about how this feels. That I’m doing it at all. It’s just conversation. It means nothing.

“Like when shit is complicated.” He pats my hip. “Your turn.”

“My turn?” Like I don’t know what he means.

“Yeah. Your turn. Share something of equally personal value to why I call you mama. It ain’t my deepest darkest secret, but it ain’t something inane, like my favorite color. Which, by the way, is purple.”

I consider. “Fine. I’ll give you the obvious—what happened to my knee.”

He squeezes my hip. “Nope. Save that.”

“Why?”

“Cause that’s big. Mine wasn’t big. It was personal, but minor. What happened to your knee is personal, and big. Shit like that changes your life. Affects who you are as a person. This ain’t that kinda conversation.”

I huff. “Fine. I guess I just like to get it out of the way. People are always asking.”

He lets out a deep, low hum, the vibration of it rattling through me. “I bet. Notice, not one of those folks out there did?”

“Yeah,” I whisper. “I noticed.”

“We aren’t the prying kind.”

“This cane.” I have it on the edge of the bed beside me, behind me; I lift it over our heads, twisting it in my fingers. “My grandfather made it for me, after the accident. He was a woodworker—as a hobby, not a profession. He could’ve made a living at it, he was that good. He carved this by hand, from a piece of Brazilian Ipe wood. From what he told me at the time, Ipe is the hardest of the hardwoods to come out of Brazil. Very desirable kind of wood, but very hard to work with, I guess.” I examine the cane, as I have countless times; it’s a helix, braided sections twisting upward around each other to the sharp, hooked handle and downward to the tip. A simple style, but fascinating and beautiful. “My grandfather was my favorite human. He, um. He passed away just eight months ago, and this is…to me, this cane ishim. I miss him every day, every hour.I think about him all the fucking time, and I would giveanything, even my other leg, to have him back.”

“Sorry for your loss, Annika.”

“Thanks.”

“So when you saidallmen….?”

I let out a breath. “Asshole,” I mutter, not really meaning it this time. “When Grandpa died, the last trulygoodman on earth died.”

“Tell me about him.” I feel his fingers in my hair, glance sideways to watch him again twirling a curl around his finger, between finger and thumb, his gaze intent, as if my hair is the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen.

I find myself wondering, in turn, if his hair is as silky as it looks.

I clench my hands into fists to stop myself from finding out. “His name was Hezekiah—for real. I called him Grandpa Zeke.” I swallow hard. “He was…fuck. He was everything good in the world. I get my height from him, he was six-six, about the same as your friend Rev. I think I get my hair from him, too, or so Gram used to say. He kept his short, being a guy, but I guess it was red like mine and would have been curly if he’d let it grow. I remember when I was a little girl, he seemed like a giant, and like he was just…hewn from granite. Everything about him was justhard, like literally, physically hard. His hands weresorough, you know? Like, he’d pick me up and it was like his hands were pumice. But he was just…pure light and love. Sweet, gentle, and quiet. I went through a goth phase as a teenager—and yes, it looked every bit as hysterically awful with my hair and coloring as you’d imagine. And Grandpa just…accepted me. When I’d go apeshit and get all angsty and difficult, the only person who could get through to me was him.”

“Sounds like an amazing man.”