It’s weird for me. I never thought any girl would ever want to bring me home to meet her parents, but here I am, eating pasta and talking about Triumphs with Colt Calloway. And it feels okay.
When dinner is over, I help clear the table, and Kylie and I load the dishwasher together. That, too, feels strangely and wonderfully domestic.
Colt catches my eye, gestures for me to follow him. “I’m stealing your boyfriend, Kylie. We’re gonna go look at the bike.”
“Be nice,” Kylie says, a note of warning in her voice.
I don’t know what to expect, but I follow him out into the garage. He opens the garage door, throws the cover off his Triumph. I squat and examine the engine. I hear him rummaging in a drawer, and then I hear the distinctive scrape-click of a lighter, and smell cigarette smoke. He holds out a pack of Camels, and I take one, light it.
A few moments pass, and then he leans back against the workbench. “You get my daughter hooked on these, I’ll kick your ass.” He lifts the cigarette.
“That’s what I told her. I don’t let her smoke, and I try not to smoke around her.”
He nods. “Good.” He narrows his eyes at me. “Listen, I’m not gonna give some big speech to you, or try to scare you. I don’t need to, I don’t think.”
I shake my head. “No, sir, you don’t.”
“There are a few things I do need to address, though. One, those scars on your arms. Is that going to be a problem?”
I turn my forearm so the underside is facing up and stare at the scars. “No, sir.” I swallow hard. “I’m not gonna lie—it used to be a pretty big problem. And sometimes I do still get the urge. But I don’t burn anymore. I’m not saying your daughter was the reason I stopped, because she’s not. She helps, though. I don’t want to be that guy. She’s…she deserves better than that.”
“Fucking right she does.” Colt’s eyes are all-knowing. “You quit burning on your own? Or did you see someone?”
I debate what to say. In the end, I go for the truth. “I spent two months in a psychiatric hospital a while back. Just before I graduated high school. Burning myself was becoming…a habit. It got pretty bad. Things were really shitty. I was always in trouble at school. Um. There were these kids, bullies. No one stopped them, and no one even tried. They ran the school. I wouldn’t put up with their bullshit, to the point that I almost got expelled for beating the shit out of a couple of them. It just kept getting worse. It wasn’t physical bullying. It was…psychological. It was a very socially and economically segregated school, and I didn’t fit in with any of the groups. I was failing all my classes, my mom was riding my ass, the principal was about to expel me, and I just—there was no good answer. That was when I really started burning. My mom noticed. Freaked out. I kept doing it, and by the time the year was over, Mom was seriously on the verge of a nervous breakdown about it. So she took me to a shrink. I wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t cooperate.” I hesitate, not wanting to share the next part. “The burning got bad. Really bad. Mom couldn’t handle it, thought I’d, like, try to kill myself. So she had me involuntarily committed to a psych hospital. At first, I treated it like I did everything else. Uncooperative, all that. But then I realized that maybe they could help me out with the urge to burn. See, I never wanted to. It was this…compulsion. I couldn’t stop it. My hands would do it without the rest of me agreeing. I don’t know if that makes any sense to you, but that’s how it was. I hated the hospital, but they did help me understand a bit.”
“Did you think about suicide?”
I shake my head. “No, sir. It wasn’t about wanting to die or end my life. It was just…the burning pushed away the other things I was feeling, things I didn’t know how to deal with.”
“What about hard drugs?”
I shake my head again. “No way. Seen that shit kill people. No.”
Colt sighs. “Word is you still smoke pot.”
“‘Word is’?” I lift an eyebrow. “Whose word?”
“Ben.”
I grimace. “Ben. He hates me.”
“I know. But answer the question. Do you?”
I nod. “Sometimes. Not often.” My heart is hammering.
“Has Kylie?”
“Not with me.”
“Quit that shit, Oz. It’s not doing you any favors. I’ve been there, and that’s the only reason I’m this calm about it. I don’t want it around my daughter. If I catch even a whiff of that shit on my daughter, bad things will happen.” He points at me with his cigarette. “My daughter likes you. You and I have a lot in common, Oz, and that scares me. But I turned out okay, so I’m taking a chance on you, letting you around Kylie.”
I nod. “I hear you. And thank you.”
“Yeah, well, I’d rather know you and know where my daughter is when she’s with you than have her running off to elope with you or some bullshit because I tried to keep you apart.” He says this with a trace of bitterness.
“I want good things for Kylie, sir. I know you and Nell are important to her, and there’s no way I’d try to take her away from ya’ll like that.”
“Good.” He eyes me speculatively. “You got any experience working on engines?”
I bobble my head back and forth. “A little. I’d like to learn.”
Colt digs through a small box on the workbench, comes up with a business card. “This is a buddy of mine. He needs an extra hand in his garage. Go see him tomorrow. I’ll tell him to expect you. He’ll pay you good if you work hard.”
I take the card. “That’s legit, Colt. Thanks.”
“You can do better than changing oil.” He jerks his head at the house. “Go on. She’s waiting.” I head toward the door, and he calls me back. “Oz? One last thing. You knock up my baby girl, you and I are gonna have problems. Very serious problems.”
I freeze with my hand on the knob. “That won’t happen, sir. You have my word.”
“Better not.”
Kylie is waiting for me, and as soon as I come in from the garage, she’s dragging me back out to her car. I wave at her mom and thank her for the dinner, and then Kylie and I are flying out of her sub, toward my apartment.
“What did my dad say?” Kylie asks.
I shrug. “Wanted to make sure the burning wasn’t an issue. Wanted to know about what Ben said about me smoking pot. Wanted to make sure I don’t get you pregnant.”