Dozer’s jaw tightens as he nods. “It’s the safest place for us now that we know for sure they’re actively looking for you.”
“But… your dad’s? Really?” It’s the last place in the world I thought Dozer would willingly go.
To my surprise, Dozer offers me a short but brilliant smile. “I’ll suffer his presence to keep you, Thea, and your mom safe until we can figure things out.”
I absorb the welcome lighthearted moment—I need it right now. “You must love me a lot to suffer your dad’s presence.”
It was a glib statement, not meant to be anything but jest. I mean, obviously, Dozer loves me as I love him.
As friends.
But Dozer’s smile falters just a bit before he replies, “I like you all right. And we’ll only be staying briefly until we can figure out somewhere better to go.”
I don’t respond but instead call my mom to have her head to Key Biscayne where Dozer’s dad lives.
CHAPTER 4
Dozer
I was born in Miami during my dad’s first year playing professional football. While he bounced around a few teams over his eight-year career as an all-pro linebacker, he returned to Miami for his retirement, and that is where we stayed. As a boy born and raised in Minnesota’s extreme cold, he said he was never going back there.
He met my mom in Miami when she was eighteen and got her pregnant—by mistake—before she turned nineteen. They never married, but they stayed together throughout his career and until I graduated from high school. She was a great beauty, coveted by my dad, but he would never fully commit and put a ring on her finger. It’s probably why I had harsh feelings toward Chase when he wouldn’t commit to Jess after she got pregnant.
Regardless, my mom was one of those women who felt it was best to maintain the family unit for the “sake of the child,” even though I could tell from a young age that they didn’t truly love each other. They sort of led separate lives—my mother was devoted to me and my success, and my father was devoted to himself.
Dad was a linebacker, one of the best. He could power over someone like a bulldozer and thus earned that very nickname. He loved that moniker so much, when I was born, I was named James Dozer Burney, and he saw a future in professional football from the time I opened my eyes.
While I’m extremely athletic and was a star football player in high school, my real power was in my brain. Most parents would be thrilled with a kid who’s a genius, but my father lamented my desire to study over any love of football. It was a source of friction between my parents when choices had to be made between football and science camps, but my mother always won those arguments and I’m grateful for it. I liked playing football well enough, but I loved math and science much more.
By the time I graduated, my parents had separated, and Mom moved into a lovely home in Coral Gables, paid for by my father. This wasn’t done so much out of the goodness of his heart for the commitment she kept to him all those years, but rather as a show of conscience because my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer my senior year. I moved in with her and visited my father on occasion.
With offers to attend Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and UC Berkeley, the door was open for me to expand and exercise my genius among other elite kids.
Instead, I chose the University of Miami to stay close to my mom, and I stayed there after she died my sophomore year, committing to finishing my bachelor’s degree in my hometown. It’s where I met Jess and Chase during freshman orientation, and they were as much responsible for my desire to stay there as anything.
My relationship with my father is hard to define. Deep down, I know he’s disappointed I didn’t follow in his footsteps. But I was young when he played—only nine when he retired—so he wasn’t what I would call a solid role model. I don’t remember much of his time playing, so there was no influence there. After football for him came a stint as a broadcaster, and some small movie roles and commercials.
But gradually, he turned away from legitimate means of employment and things got shady. While I’m not quite sure what exactly he’s got his fingers in, I know his lifestyle is beyond lavish, and he always has “security” around him.
I don’t ask questions, and he doesn’t offer answers.
My mom instilled in me enough of a moral compass that I kept things cool with my father because I didn’t want to be dragged into anything that could thwart my career as a NASA scientist. It’s what I’d wanted to be since attending my first space camp.