Page 32 of Property of Fang
A trio of swallows darts and dives across the field. “Is this job going to become a regular thing?”
She exhales, pausing before saying softly. “I don’t know.”
“Tell me what you’re doing for the weekend, Reno. And no lies or bullshit. If you want my help today, I need your honesty.”
She pauses again, and I picture her teasing the corner of her mouth with the tip of her tongue like she does when deciding what to say. I used to think it was cute. Now I know better. “Escorting.”
Explains why she has to fly out of state to do it, then. “It can’t be any more than a one-off,” I warn. “That shit becomes regular, and you’ll be in and out all the goddamn time. Molly doesn’t need that.”
“Need what, Fang? And be real careful with what you say here.”
So I am. “Molly doesn’t need to wonder why her momma leaves her every weekend to go sell her body to strange men.”
She draws a deep breath. “Like she’d understand what I’m doing.”
“She already asks which one of the brothers here is your boyfriend, Reno. Even asked me if the goddamn doctor was one of your ‘special friends’ because you saw him so damn much last year.”
“Because she kept getting bronchitis,” she retorts. “Not for anything else.”
“Not the point of the conversation, Reno.”
The line falls quiet for a while. “Are you coming to get her or what?”
I run a hand through my hair and glance up to the sky.Am I?There’s a lot of shit going down at the moment. A lot of shit I don’t want messing up Molly’s head. But, for once, maybe Reno was right. Maybe Vanessa or Kyra would agree to look after her.
For a while. Just until I can get things better sorted for her.
“On one condition.”
“Here we go,” she says with a sigh. “What?”
“We talk boundaries when you get back.” It’s a conversation we’ve avoided long enough. If Molly’s to have the best chance in her future, her parents need to be on the same page. “We need to set down some rules around what she’s exposed to, create comfortable routines for her. She needs stability, Reno.”
“What goddamn parenting column have you been reading?” Her throaty laugh peppers the line. “You think you can give her that?”
“Better than a mom who constantly offloads her to a stranger’s house so she can go out drinking for the night.”
“I’m allowed a life, Fang. My needs don’t change just because I’ve got a goddamn kid running around the house.”
“They should.”
She scoffs “Like yours did?”
I grimace when her words hit the intended mark. “You knew what my life entailed when you got yourself knocked up.”
“And you knew what I was like when you stuck your dick in there to do it.”
Yeah, I did. But I never fucked Reno for the express purpose of creating a Band-Aid baby. That’s where we differ. “You know,” I say with a mock laugh. “I can never really figure it out. Why the fuck would you want a kid to lock me down if family life is so fucking against everything you are?”
“Because I thought it would change me,” she growls. “Change us.”
“And yet all it did was highlight how different we are. Ain’t fuck all changed about either of us, baby.”
“So you think,” she snips.
“So I know,” I grit back. “Don’t bullshit me and say you don’t wish you’d done things different. That you’d return to a life without her in a heartbeat.”
The line goes quiet. I watch a swallow dart back across the field, separating itself from the others.
