Hard Time (Hard as Nails #1)

by Hope Conrad

  “You can’t be in here.”

  “Oh right,” he says, followed by another chuckle. “I forgot you’re a big boy with a big boy job now.”

  He sways back and forth, like he’s having trouble standing up. His hand rises to brush at his nose and he sniffs. I understand what’s going on.

  “What are you on, Trevor?”

  “What are you talking about, Bro?”

  “Coke,” I hiss and shift my eyes to the back, hoping and praying that Katie doesn’t come out and see me standing here with Trevor. “I’m talking about coke. You’re sniffling. You look like a strung out junkie.”

  “Really now?” He pulls away from the counter and straightens himself out. “Is that how it is?”

  “That’s how it is. So either tell me what the hell you want, or get out before I—”

  “Before you what?” He cackles and swipes his finger under his nose. Definitely coke. “Are you going to call security?”

  “This is a bookstore, Trevor. It’s not a fucking bank.”

  “I need help,” he says and bows his head. There’s an instant change in tone, and he slumps as if all his energy was abruptly pulled from his body. “I’m in trouble.”

  “What’s fucking new?” I sigh. “If you’ve got problems, then you need to take them elsewhere. That’s what’s new, Trevor. I can’t let you suck me in. Not again.”

  “They’re going to kill me.” He looks me dead in the eyes when he says it. His eyes are beyond red with spider webs of blood spinning from one edge to the other.

  I want to ask who but does it really matter? Someone’s always trying to kill him. That’s what happens when you’re a druggie and a thief. “You can’t drag me back into that world, Trevor.”

  “I don’t know what else to do.” He pounds his fist against the counter, and his breathing becomes erratic. There’s rage within him, and he’s trying to keep it contained. He’s failing. “You have to help me.” He pounds his fist against the counter again.

  I flinch backwards and scan the aisles once more. I need to get him out of this store before Katie sees him. Just one glance at the two of us socializing will be enough to write a story inside her head. She’ll see me as an associate of Trevor’s. She’ll see me as a druggie, a no-good felon. I’ll be guilty by association, and that’s the last thing I want. I can’t lose her when I’m finally this close to her. When I leave and breathe for her.

  I step around the counter and grab hold of Trevor’s arm to begin directing him to the front door. “You need to get out of here.”

  “Don’t fucking touch me,” he spits and rips his arm away from me.

  I feel my face turn a deep shade of red as I fight to control my own anger. I take a measured step toward him with my chest puffed out like we’re two criminals about to brawl. “I’m going to tell you one more time—”

  “To leave?” He sizes me up and down with his eyes. “What if I don’t? What are you going to do? Shank me like you stabbed that guy in prison?”

  “Go home and sober up. Go home and fix your shit before your shit catches up to you.”

  “Did you not hear me? I said I need your help.”

  “And I’m saying you’re not getting it.” I take a step back, and a long, deep breath. I can feel myself waffling. Feel myself wanting to take the time to listen to what Trevor has to say. But I can’t let him drag me back into that world. I shake my head and shrug like I don’t care, even though I do.

  I care about Trevor. Despite everything, he’s my friend. He protected me in the past, and I’ve tried to do the same for him, but I can’t drown with him. I care about him, but I care about Katie far more.

  “You’ll be fine, just like you always have been and you always will be, but you’re on your own this time.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be my friend? My brother?” He digs his fingers into the back of his head. And then he takes a step toward me like I had stepped toward him earlier, his stride is aggressive. Too aggressive. “And now you’re going to turn your back on me?”

  “It’s not like that, Trevor.”

  “No? Then tell me what it’s like, Bro.” He throws his arms out to the side. “I’m standing here in front of you, begging for your help. Do you have any fucking idea how hard this is for me?”

  “I know,” I say quietly. I know how difficult it is for him to ask for help, because we’re alike in so many damn ways. He’s as stubborn and prideful as I am. He must be in some deep shit to still be asking, because the last time he begged for help like this was the night before I found myself cuffed and in the back of a cruiser.

  Still, he got along just fine when I was locked up, and he’s a big boy. “You can take care of yourself, Trevor.”

  He shakes his head, unable to look me in the eyes any longer. I’ve betrayed him, that’s what he believes anyways, whether or not it’s true. It kind of feels like it’s true. It kind of feels like a punch to my gut, and I imagine the feeling is tenfold for him.

  “You’re really not going to help me… are you?”

  “I can’t.”

  He looks up with a contemptuous smile. “I’ve had your back for all these years but now you turn your back on me. I get it. You don’t need me. You have her.” He jerks his chin toward the back, obviously referring to Katie, and I immediately tense at the confirmation that he even knows about her. How? Has he been watching us?

  But he’s not done talking yet. He shakes his finger at me. “You have her, and you have them. Slate. Jericho. Axel and Davis. They’re your true friends, aren’t they? The ones you started that damn garage and MC with.”

  “Jesus, Trev,” I say, shocked that he’s bringing up all this old you-like-them-better-than-you-like-me bullshit. “I went to fucking prison for you, not for them.”

  He huffs. “Yeah, but you’ve always thought they were better than me. That you were better than me. Because you wanted to go straight and I didn’t. I couldn’t. You all tried so hard. Now look at you. Look at all of you.”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?” His revelation that I hadn’t stayed straight was obviously no surprise. He’d been the one to ruin that for me, after all. But as for the others? As far as I knew, they were fine. Jericho was still running the garage. Slate was a big shot attorney. Axel was a Marine. And Davis…well, I didn’t know what Davis did other than it had something to do with computers.

  They’d tried visiting me in prison but I’d refused to see them. They’d tried calling me off and on, even though I never responded to their messages.

  Fuck, had they somehow needed me, and I’d blown them off?

  “Whatever,” I said to Trevor, hiding my unease because I really couldn’t believe anything he said at this point. If I wanted news on the others, I’d have to go straight to the source.

  “You don’t even know,” he sneered. “You didn’t want their charity, but you have no fucking clue.”

  “So tell me,” I say, no longer wanting to rush him out the door.

  “Ask them yourself.” He whirls, stalks to the door, throws it open, then disappears.

  I’m hit by yet another pang of guilt for sending Trevor away when he needs me and I almost go after him.

  “Who was that?” Katie asks from behind me, and I freeze in place.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Street

  I turn to face Katie. She’s standing in front of me with a small stack of books cradled against the crux of her elbow.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she says with a light laugh. “I was out back signing for a delivery. Was that a customer?” She steps past me and unloads the stack of books onto the counter.

  “Who?” I avert my eyes and force a smile. I thought I was done playing these games with her, but here I am, back at square one and readying myself for a few different scenarios.

  She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “That guy who just stormed out of here.”

  “Right. Him.” I purse my lips, and attempt to come up
with a believable lie. “Maintenance,” I stammer and slap my palm against my leg. My incompetence in telling a simple lie is an astonishing feat.

  “Right.” She nods as she steps toward me and levels a palm on my shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I know he wasn’t a customer by the way you’re lying to me. And I know he wasn’t maintenance, because George is a cheap ass and would never hire someone. He’d jump on YouTube and figure out the problem himself.”

  “I’m not lying,” I lie again. It’s a lying game in a lying world, and I’m totally fucking losing the game. But that’s Katie, you know. Somehow, she always has the upper hand when it comes to me.

  “Whatever. But I get it,” she says with a shrug. “People walk back into our lives all the time.”

  “Yeah.”

  She reaches her arms around the back of my neck and clasps her hands together. The way she holds onto me makes my heart rate speed up—I’m turning into such a woman. She plants a quick kiss on my lips.

  I immediately pull her in for another, which she wholeheartedly returns, but only for a few seconds before she pulls back.

  “So I think you should come to my place for dinner.”

  “Your place?” I furrow my brow and take a step back.

  She’s smiling bright, excitement sparkling in her eyes, and I realize this is the moment I’ve been waiting for.

  She’s inviting me into her world.

  She’s ready for me to meet her daughter.

  I’m thrilled.

  But there’s also a part of me that’s fucking terrified. Not for myself, but for Katie and her daughter. There’s a part of me that wants to tell her not to do it. Not to endanger her daughter by inviting me into their lives.

  I know where it stems from. The look of betrayal I can still see on Trevor’s face. His implication that my other friends were somehow drawn into my shit. The knowledge that I’ve been fooling myself. That I’ll never be anything more than an ex-con.

  “Street, did you hear me? I think you should meet Riley.”

  “Are you sure?” It’s all I can manage to get out, but even as I ask the question, I shake my head. Is this really happening? Is she inviting me to meet her family? Because if she is, that means she’s accepted all of me, and there’s a part of me that just can’t believe it. “Are you sure you’re not going to go home and change your mind?”

  She salutes me with her hand against her forehead. “Scouts honor. I trust you completely, Street. You’re a good man.”

  That’s what does it. Those words hit me in the gut like a freight train going too fast and rapidly approaching a sharp curve.

  I take several steps away from her.

  Am I a good person? After all, I just turned away Trevor, the person who’s stuck by my side since I was eight years old. He needed my help, or thought he needed my help. Either way, the point is that I turned him away.

  Suddenly, I’m suffocating under the weight of my past. My fuck-ups in foster care. The crimes I committed while at Thornbridge Orphanage and how I’d landed in prison in the first place.

  “Street?” Katie waves her hands in front of me. “Are you there?”

  I’m torn between a million different emotions. I want to tell her yes, but I also want to run. My gut is telling me there is no way this will end well.

  “No,” I say dryly. My lips have become chapped in an instant, and I do my best to wet them so I can continue to speak. “No dinner.”

  “What?”

  “What is this?”

  She presses her palm against my chest again. “You’re scaring me.”

  “Good,” I spit and push her hand away. “You should be afraid of me.”

  “No. I shouldn’t.” She’s trying to process my reaction, but that’s an impossible task. I know this, because not even I can make sense of it. “You’re joking, right?”

  “This…” I throw my hands out to her, drawing an imaginary line between us. “This is a joke. It’s always been a joke. It’s all it will ever be.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I laugh and run my fingers through my hair. I’m already frustrated with myself, and I become even more frustrated trying to make sense of whatever the hell it is that I’m feeling. “We’ve been fooling ourselves.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Am I? What do you think? That I’m going to meet your daughter and we’re going to be some kind of perfect American family? No. I mean, we’re good together. You’re a fantastic fuck…”

  She moves away from me quickly, and I tamp down the immediate urge to pull her back. No. I have to let her go. I was stupid to believe we could ever work. I’ve been blinded by my obsession for her, but this is where I draw the line. If I cross this line—if I meet her sister and her daughter—I’ll fall even more in love with her.

  Where will that leave me?

  I’ll do something to fuck it all up and she’ll leave. Even if that’s not true, she’ll graduate, and because of her degree, she’ll find a nice job that can pay all the bills and give her everything she’s ever wanted. She’ll move out of that trailer park and into a nice house. And then over time, she’ll eventually see me as the shackles continuing to hold her down.

  Then she’ll leave.

  Either that, or she won’t leave, and she’ll stay because that’s what she does. Stays with guys who are bad for her for far too long.

  I can’t be the reason she’s locked up. I can’t be the reason she’s stuck in place, when she should be shining and shooting for the stars. She’ll resent me, and she’ll remember what a fucking loser I am and always have been. She’ll leave me for someone better, someone more worthy.

  And I’ll be right back at square fucking one.

  The rational part of me knows my mind is out of control, that my fears are overlapping and tangling. But I can’t stop what comes out of my mouth.

  “You know what this is? You feel sorry for me because I took a knife to the gut for you. And now you want to repay me by letting me into your home. That’s nice, Katie, but it’s not necessary.”

  “You know it’s not like that.” She swallows a lump in her throat and takes a measured step toward me, but I stumble backward. I can’t allow her any closer. I’ve made up my mind, and this is the way it has to be.

  “Just stop,” she demands. “Just stop running and talk to me.”

  “I am talking to you.” I shift past her and reach for the front door of the store. “That’s the problem.”

  “So that’s it?” She throws her hands in the air. “You’re just going to leave? After everything we’ve been through? When we’re this close to being us?”

  I feel the silence at the end of her question in my heartbeat. With each thud, my body tells me to snap out of it. To stop. To let her in and tell her my fears.

  To give us a chance.

  But I can’t.

  “Yeah,” I say and swing the door open. “Yeah, that’s it.”

  I don’t bother shutting the door, and instead walk down the empty city streets in the pouring rain.

  * * *

  Hours later, I’m still walking aimlessly. I can’t wipe her face from my mind. She stood there in that shop, holding it all together while I threw everything in the trash. I’m a royal fuckup, but that’s not much of a surprise to anyone that’s ever known me.

  In my head, I see her break into tears the moment the door shuts behind me. In reality, I’m sure she’s still holding herself together, waiting until she’s alone to try to figure out what went wrong. She won’t be able to put the pieces together though, because I don’t even know why I freaked out so badly.

  Yeah, I got scared. But to throw it all away like that makes me the biggest pussy in the universe. Now there’s a burning hole in my chest and I need to be alone. That’s the only way I’m going to figure this shit out. But there’s one thing I know: I fucked up. Big time.

  We’re broken, we can’t be fixed, and that’s on me and only me.
That’s the part that stings the most—almost as much as the stiches in my gut that burn with each step I take.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Street

  I’m not ready. I told myself I was, but I’m not.

  Doesn’t matter. Once Trevor planted the seed that my friends had sacrificed themselves for me, I had to call a meet.

  Now I stand in front of Nailed Garage.

  The bay doors are up. The radio on one of the workbenches in the back still cranks out classic rock. I’m wearing my old leather vest—my cut, as we used to call it—with an old white t-shirt, tired blue jeans, and my old motorcycle boots.

  For a moment, I envision the five of us: me, Axel, Slate, Jericho, and Davis, dressed the same way. I picture us not as we’d been three years ago, just before I went to prison, but five years before that, when the garage first opened.

  “Street.”

  I look up and see Jericho walking toward me. His hair is a mess of dark waves hanging down to his shoulders. He’s wearing his cut, too. Like mine, it sports the Thornbridge patch worn by the original members of Nailed MC. The patch represents the hard times, the shit we’d seen and done. It’s meant to remind us where we came from, and where we never want to be again.

  Only if Trevor is right, my friend are back there. Because of me.

  For a few seconds, Jericho and I stare at each other. The air is fraught with tension. Awkwardness. Even anger. Me, because of what Trevor told me. Jericho, because I’d cut him and the others out of my life. We’d been tight before prison. We’d been the definition of brothers despite not sharing the same blood. But after I’d gone away, I hadn’t deserved that. Hadn’t wanted to drag them down with me.

  I’d done what I had to. Even so, I know Jericho views it as a betrayal of sorts.

  When he still doesn’t move or say anything, I sigh. “Look—”

  Before I can complete my thought, he strides up to me and hugs me with his strong, muscular arms. “I’m still pissed at the shit you pulled. But it’s good to see you, Brother.”