TRIGGER: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel Read Online Free

used to say
those things to me, too. I wasn’t jealous of Jennie – not by a wide margin. I
was terrified for her. Pop loved little
kids, always had. But once you got to about nine or ten…well, that’s when
“Thank Heaven for Little Girls” turned into “Bitches Ain’t Shit”. At eight, Jennie was fast rounding that awful corner. And I prayed for
her every day. Prayed for her to never look her age. Maybe…

 
    “Hungry!” Pop yelled, and it
snapped me out of my reverie again. No wonder he thought I was stupid; I had to
dive so deep into my own mind whenever I dealt with him, to keep myself safe
from his drunken rants, that I was always a little slow on the uptake.

 
    The bag held one portion of
mashed potatoes and one portion of macaroni and cheese. For whatever reason
eight-year-olds have for anything, Jennie refused to eat macaroni and cheese.
She said it looked like little worms to her. I plopped the mashed potatoes onto
her place, the macaroni and cheese onto mine, divvying up the chicken and peas
as well, giving myself the lion’s share.

 
    Conjuring up all my weekend
waitressing skills, I hurried out of the kitchen holding the three plates and
the two glasses of milk and deftly set them down on the fold out-tables. I took
a few bites of the macaroni and cheese, under my father’s watchful eyes. He
nodded and grunted as I took my fourth bite. The potatoes tasted like nothing,
like buttery cardboard.

 
    “Star’ wi ’
the chick’n ,” he said, turning to Jennie.   She looked up at him, a forkful of peas
halfway to her chin, eyes wide and confused and nervous. “Star’… wi ’… chick’n .”

 
    “I think you should have
some chicken first, Jennie. Don’t you agree? Good idea, Pop,” I said, startling
her with the clarity of my voice in contrast to his slurring.

 
    I had no idea why Pop was demanding that Jennie eat
her chicken first, but then again I could count on one hand the things that I
really understood about him. Mostly, he was a confusing mess, but it was better
just to go along with it. Jennie nodded and put down her fork, picking up a
wing in her two tiny hands and taking a nibble that looked to be mostly
breading. I smiled down at her, nodding, and glancing up saw Pop doing the
same.

 
    “Protein ‘s good f’r ya ,” he slurred, patting her
heavily on the head, blind to the way she winced at his touch. I ate some more
macaroni and cheese. It tasted a bit strange, but it was better than the
chicken.

 
    Just as I’d thought, Sabrina was just starting, a re-run. Pop
stabbed into his pot pie, must have burned his damn tongue shoveling in those
first few spoonfuls . Serves him right, I thought, thinking of all the horrible trash
that spewed from that mouth. He guffawed at some joke. Bits of food flew across
the air, landing just shy of the TV. I ate a few mouthfuls of peas, feeling
sick from eating so much after already having had dinner.

 
    I looked over at Jennie; her
mouth was working slowly, some small piece of meat or vegetable being chewed
and chewed. Her eyes drifted back and forth from our father to the television
screen. I wanted to eat, to make him happy enough to shut up about it for a
while, but each time I raised the fork to my mouth it was like some invisible
force clamped my lips shut. I felt sick. The world was starting to seem too
bright and too dull all at the same time, my head pounding, my stomach
churning. Pop looked over at me, chewing with his mouth open, eyes angry for
all their drunkenness.

 
    “Eat,” he said. On the TV,
Salem the talking cat was wearing a pinstripe suit and a fedora, playing poker,
or something. My father was finding this insanely funny; his laughter, though,
seemed demonic. The plot line of the show was, strangely, becoming impossible
to follow.

 
    Hemingway’s way of
describing bankruptcy was to say it happened gradually, then suddenly. That was
how it felt when the long, slow, disconnected moments of