Page 44 of Severed Heart

“Sorry, man”—he nods towards Dom—“his idea. It’s all still there.” He pats my shoulder. “Thanks for letting me in on this.”

Before I can tell him I had nothing to do with it, he runs back over to help Russell.

“Shit,” I whisper, utterly shocked at how he managed to pickpocket me. “I didn’t feel a thing. How the fuck did he even get close enough?”

“Talent,” Dom quips with a pleased grin before he lowers his voice, canting his head toward me. “He’s been surfing from dumpsters to sidewalks, sleeping in any hole he can climb into, and robbing only when he has to, to try and keep from getting picked up again. He’ll do anything to avoid being tossed back into the system. He came to the garage a month ago asking Russell if we needed help, but has no experience. Russell’s been talking to him since, and he’s been hanging around King’s for a few weeks now.”

Dom crosses his arms, leaning against the door before turning to me.

“I’ve checked him out, bro. I swear I vetted him thoroughly. He’s had it rough”—he stares back at Jeremy—“really fucking rough, but he’s willing to put in the time to learn to be a mechanic. I thought”—he shrugs—“if it works out, we could consider putting him on payroll. We need another full-timer anyway, and he can work every day. What do you think?”

I eye Jeremy. “Yeah, I mean, I want to talk to him first, feel him out myself, but yeah, I trust your judgment.”

“It’s time to build our nest, and what better way to induct him than have him incriminating himself with us?” Dom chuckles.

Sensing our conversation, Jeremy lifts his eyes, volleying them back and forth between the two of us with what I know is guarded hope. It’s then that I feel the inclination to speak up. “Didn’t Sean just put an old couch in the commercial bay for his hookups?”

Dom turns to me. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Didn’t know if it was too soon.”

I lean over, eyeing Jeremy. “It might balance the scales, right? Maybe enough so Santa won’t cross us off his list before Christmas Eve.”

“Fuck Santa,” Dom snarks, walking backward into the warehouse, his silver eyes dancing, “we’re going to make him look like a stingy, irrelevant fuck.”

I can’t help but chuckle as I trail him to join the rest of our growing nest. Ironically, that night, after committing my first punishable offense and after a thorough tongue-lashing from Mom for breaking curfew—which seemed laughable in contrast—I slept like the dead. But I woke up with a smile, spending my shower replaying the events of last night in detail, realizing Dom made our induction to a life of criminality utterly painless.

Chapter Fifteen

TYLER

WINTER 2004

“TYLER!” DAD BARKSfrom the front door, the jingle of the merry little bundle of bells Mom has hanging on the knob distorted in delivery as he slams it.

In the weeks since both our confrontations, my parents have been avoiding me more and more. Probably because when they do meet my eyes, I never let them forget what they’re doing to each other and to me, refusing to live their lie.

It’s their decision to live with and my punishment to bear witness to the slow, painful desecration of their ideas of one another.

“Tyler!” the man I once knew as my father hollers as he smacks into the wall next to my door before his heavy footfalls resume on the hardwoods. His mud-covered boots come into view before he stumbles inside my bedroom, tripping on nothing but alcoholism and bitterness.

As feared, Dad’s DUI had him discharged from the Corps—though honorably, in consideration of his decades of service. Now seen as a liability, they cut him loose. I wasn’t given any more details than that because I didn’t ask. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no conversation to have. Unapologetically back to his old habits mere weeks after his latest and most detrimental fuckup, he’s more unbearable than ever.

Closing my book, I passively stare up at him, feigning confusion while knowing he’s spoiling for the fight he couldn’t find at the bar. Chances are Brian threw him out after I failed to retrieve him—a call I purposefully ignored.

“Why the fuck didn’t you pick me up?”

“Mom spent half the morning cleaning the floors,” I divert as he charges in further, failing to get the flinch he so desperately wants from me.

“Yeah? Good on her. And what the fuck didyou dotoday that was productive?” His delivery is a mix of spit and slur as he sizes me up.

“I attended school, which is age appropriate considering I’m a senior in high school, and worked my shift at the garage after.You?”

Tension and fury radiate from him as he leers at me from only a foot away.

“Maybe I’ll take the fucking truck away,” he threatens.

“That would be pointless because it’s not running yet, and you can’t take what you don’t own.”

“Yeah? Well, I own the fucking roof currently over your head!”