Boys Like You by Jaye Pratt

 

I hate coming home to this freaking house; the sound of classical music my mother insists on plays lightly in the background, and the fresh scent of lemon and bleach is in the air. I try to cover myself in as much grease and dirt as I possibly can because I know how much it pisses her off. It’s the reason I took up riding in the first place.

I feel like a terrible person, being jealous of my friends because they all got new amazing parents and I was sent back to my biological ones. While they were all beaten, starved, raped and tormented by the age of six, I was an over privileged rich kid whose father was and is never home. He is always jetting around the world, dragging the girlfriend he thinks no one knows about with him, while Mum carries on with the pool boy. The first time she found out my father had a side piece I was maybe five. That was when she turned to prescription meds. The next time she mixed them with booze and spiralled. The cops found me lost with my dirt bike at six years old. When they asked to call my parents to come get me, I laughed and told them my dad loved hookers. I didn’t know what a hooker was, I was just repeating my mother’s words. I told them my mum took handfuls of pills and washed them down with vodka. That’s when I met a nice lady from child services. She couldn’t understand why my parents didn’t just hire a nanny to help out, and my mother’s excuse was that she didn’t need a nanny hanging around for her husband to fuck. She proceeded to tell her to, “Get the hell out of my house, he is my son and I can do what I want”, and she punched the lady. Well, she now knows that you can’t, in fact, do what you want with your kids. The judge ordered my mother to attend a psych ward for six weeks, and when my father refused to come home from his “business trip”, they placed me with Mumma B. It was the best six weeks of my life. How stupid is that? I had friends, not play dates with people to make my mother look good. We had home cooked meals, I could play in the dirt, climb trees and get my clothes dirty. I could actually be a child and not a damn minion.

Rocky crashed at mine last night; I couldn’t stand the thought of coming home alone again.

I take the stairs two at a time, not even bothering to go up to the main floor to see if my mother is home. I spent years checking on her, now I have given up. She will either be up there passed out from the mountain of cocktails she consumed last night, or at her latest fling’s house, or she could even be away on holiday. She never bothers to tell me where she is anymore.

I look at my phone, it’s barely even six in the morning. I take a shower, throw on a pair of black jeans and a long sleeve Fox shirt and my boots. I only have to change into my gear when I get home anyway. I open the door to my walk-in closet and check to make sure Amelia had them cleaned like I asked. Our house keeper is the only real person I can talk to here. She’s more like a parent to me than my own, making sure she checks in to see how I am and if I need anything.

All my gear is hung up neatly, all my boots lined up and my helmets on the top shelf.

I find the old box of phones I stash in my closet. I don’t know why I haven’t gotten rid of them already, but it’s worked in our favour. I grab out the Samsung S10 and a charger.

I stopped on my way home last night and grabbed a sim card from the servo. I even called and linked her to my plan, which I don’t plan on telling her. I won’t miss an extra twenty bucks a month for a BYO sim plan.

The old phone still has some charge, so I set it back to factory setting, ready for JD to use.

“What are you doing?” Rocky asks, walking from the bathroom in nothing but a towel.

“Setting up the phone for JD, it’s asking for details.” He comes to sit by my side and takes the phone from me.

He types away, and every time I try to look, he slaps my hand away.

“Name, hmmm JD, surname, let’s use Cole, because if anyone would ever pretend to be her dad it would be Carson,” he jokes.

“Date of birth. We found her on July first, and the doc said she was about seventeen, so July 1st, 2004,” Rocky mumbles. Once Rocky has the phone running, I add all our numbers, including our parents’ and Mumma B’s mobile and home phone. I add all our home addresses into her maps.

I set her a few private accounts on social media, the less attention we attract to her the better. I add the ones we use so she can see what we share and she can snap us pics if she wants to. I use a cute puppy picture as hers and send the guys a request, texting them to let them know. I want her to be able to contact us all at any time.

I grab the phone along with mine and make my way down to the kitchen while Rocky finishes getting ready. I swear he can spend more time on his hair than a girl. My phone buzzes halfway down the stairs. It’s my dad. He rarely calls, mainly because he never wants to talk to me.

“Hey, Dad,” I answer reluctantly.

“Rory, where is your mother? I have been trying to call her since last night.”

“How should I know? Neither of you are ever around,” I snap.

He curses under his breath, mumbling about the damn pool boy. I think she’s moved on from him to some lawyer or doctor, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“I can’t believe her.” He is still going on.

“Really, Dad, how’s Chelsea?”

That gets him to stop. “Mind your own business.”

“Mind my business? It’s the whole world’s business when your side whore puts your pictures all over the internet. Try joining social media, Dad.” I hang up on him and storm off to the kitchen. I can’t believe this crap.

My mother is sitting on the kitchen counter in nothing but a sheer night gown with a man dressed in an expensive suit standing between her legs. He looks to be about her age which is a one up from the pool boy at least.

“Fuck, Mum, can’t you keep your affairs at their houses? Or have you forgotten you have a son here who doesn’t need to see all that?”

“This is my house—” she starts, but I interrupt.

“Technically, it’s Dad’s house until I turn eighteen.”

She huffs. There’s nothing she can say because she knows I’m right. It was my grandfather’s house, and he left it to me. My father was supposed to find another house for Mum before my birthday. “And at least he has the decency to keep his whores out of the house,” I snap, walking behind the bench and opening the fridge to grab a plate of bacon and eggs and some Orange juice.

“Young man—”

“Don’t even talk to me,” I seethe. “If you’re here, that means you probably have a wife and kids, so unless you want me to figure out who you are and tell your wife, I suggest you fork out for a half-decent hotel to screw my mother.”

“You’re such a brat,” my mum snaps.

“Yeah, well go have a good hard look in the mirror, Mother, before you judge me.”

Her hands fly up in the air like she doesn’t understand why I’m so disrespectful. She starts ranting about something and her male friend consoles her. When the microwave beeps, I grab my plate of food and load it on a tray from under the bench, walking away without so much as a second glance.