by Angel Lawson
“Come on,” she said to Curtis. They approached the counter and she introduced herself to the kid.
“I’m Ari Grant. I’m here to meet a—” she pulled the note out of her pocket. “Mr. Davis. We have an appointment at eleven.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the boy replied. “Let me tell him you’re here.” He looked a little older than Curtis, maybe seventeen or so. Broad shouldered and muscular. He had a bandage over his eye and quickly disappeared around the corner, away from the gym floor.
Curtis studied a row of photographs behind the counter. He glanced at Ari. “So you want me to come work out or something? I thought this was a home.”
Before Ari could answer, or not answer since she had no idea, the boy came back followed by a handsome man. His dark hair was shaved close to his head and when his eyes met Ari’s everything went from normal to very, very awkward.
“Ms. Grant, thank you for coming.”
“Of course,” she said, waiting for the moment of recognition.
It never came.
Okay. So only awkward for Ari. Did he not recognize her? She recognized him. And, she realized, squinting a little, she also recognized that hickey under his ear.
His eyes remained friendly but held steady on the boy, ignoring Ari altogether. “I’m Davis,” he said, offering his hand, throwing Curtis off a little. “Welcome to the Glory Youth Center.”
Curtis tentatively took his hand and shook it. Mr. Davis gripped Curtis’s hand so tightly she saw the long muscle flex in his forearm.
This man didn’t play. Ari liked him immediately. Well, obviously.
“Mr. Davis, can you tell us a little more about your facility? This is the first time I’ve had a client accepted into your program,” Ari said. If he could act nonchalant so could she. She looked around the gym. “It’s definitely different.”
“How about a tour?” he asked.
“Sounds great,” she said, thankful to have the buffer of Curtis in this increasingly awkward situation. Unfortunately, Mr. Davis surprised her when he called to the boy by the front counter and waved him over.
“This is Keith,” he said. “I’m going to let him walk Curtis around and give him the resident tour so you and I can talk about his placement. Is that okay?”
Ari gave Curtis a long look. She thought she knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t try to make a run for it or make other trouble, but she didn’t want to risk it. Mr. Davis must have noticed her hesitation.
He said, “Curtis will be in good hands with Keith. There are staff members all over the facility and there are no unalarmed exits.” He turned his attention to Curtis and said, “I can trust that there will be no problems?”
Curtis shifted on his feet. “No.”
“No, sir,” Mr. Davis prompted.
The man and boy held a long stare. Curtis broke first.
“No, sir,” he replied, trying to avoid eye contact. Mr. Davis bent his head a little to make sure they saw eye-to-eye.
“Meet you two back here in thirty minutes,” he said, nodding to Keith. The two boys started the tour in the gym and again, Ari noted how impressed she was with Mr. Davis’s calm, but authoritative demeanor. Did he present that last night? Was that why she was drawn to him? In this business, demanding respect from these kids was the first step toward success. Based on that alone, she understood why his program created results.
Now that the boys were gone, she was alone with this guy. More alone than they had even been the night before. Whatever. If he could pretend, then so could she. Ari surveyed the gym until Mr. Davis held out a hand in the direction of the hallway he’d come from.
“Ready for the tour?”
Ari followed him down the hall, keeping her eyes off his broad shoulders. He pointed out various points of interest along the way. “These are the offices. Besides myself, we have a full-time staff of eight. All men. We take different shifts in the building every two weeks. Four guys are on the gym floor at all times, two back in the dormitory area, and two in the counseling offices.”
“Wow,” Ari said, passing by the well-kept offices. Leather chairs and wood desks. It was a far cry from her state-funded office. “Seems like you have it all together.”
Mr. Davis opened a door at the end of the hallway and they climbed a set of stairs to the second floor. “This is the dormitory. Each boy shares a room with a roommate. No bunks. Individual beds. We assess each child and try to place them with someone who will be a positive influence, although in general, we don’t really have behavior problems here.”
Ari peeked into one of the rooms. Clean and tidy, yet personalized. In her experience, many of the residential facilities prefer the kids to not have their own belongings in the room because it causes problems. This looked more like a college dorm room than a standard group home. “Nice. How do you get them to keep it so clean?” she asked.
He shrugged. “It’s part of the rules, and we take our rules and discipline seriously.” He walked down the hall toward a lounge area between two wings. He gestured for her to sit in a chair and he took the one opposite Ari. “At any time, we house twelve to fifteen boys. Our goal is to teach them respect, accountability and how to uncover their talents. Once we discover their natural gifts, we help them cultivate these to become better members of society. The average stay is until age eighteen. Some end up working for us when they complete their time. Most go to college.”
“So, Curtis could be here for the next three years?” Ari wasn’t sure how he would feel about that when he found out.
Mr. Davis nodded. “This is a long-term program. We look for a specific type of offender and commit ourselves to changing their lives.” He turned his eyes on Ari. Her neck itched under the intensity. “You’ve seen the system fail these kids. You know how hard it can be for them, shuffled back and forth between programs. Pawns in political agendas. That’s not what we do here. We are here to make successes out of these young men and make them productive members of society. Between counseling, education, physical activity, and a close bond with the other residents, the GYC has a very high success rate. ”
“How high?”
“About ninety-five percent. We have the occasional kid who isn’t a right fit for us.”
“Ninety-five percent?” Ari tried to keep her jaw off the ground. In her job, twenty-five percent was successful. “And you think Curtis is the right fit?”
Mr. Davis smiled. “I do. Judge Hatcher thinks so, and I’ve reviewed his file. According to our pre-assessment, I think he’ll do very well here.” He stood up. “Let me show you the rest of the building, and we’ll meet back up with the boys and sign contracts and work out any other information we need.”
Ari followed Mr. Davis through the rest of the facility, more impressed with each passing moment. Even so, there was a tiny knot in her stomach with the odd situation between them. Did he truly not recognize her? Maybe it was the conservative work clothes or the well-lit building? She would have thought she’d made up the whole encounter except she could see the small bruise on his neck created from her over-eager mouth. She also hesitated over the theme here; teaching the kids to fight. She wasn’t sure that was the correct way to go about making more peaceful youth. As they walked back down the stairs to meet in Mr. Davis’s office Ari couldn’t shake the feeling, but realized it wasn’t her place to judge. This was work and another assignment. She should just be happy to have another kid off the street and safe.
* * *
Leaving the day behind her, Ari pushed open the door to the restaurant and searched for Oliver. He’d sent her a text around noon suggesting, no—demanding, they meet for drinks and food. Not looking forward to eating a microwaved dinner anyway, Ari eagerly texted back YES! and bolted from the office the second the clock hit six o’clock.
Oliver was nowhere to be seen, but Nick Sanders waved at her from a booth in the corner. Her phone buzzed in her hand. Stopping in the middle of the restaurant, Ari checked the message.
Workin
g late. Sent a replacement.
“Sneaky,” she muttered, slipping the phone into her back pocket. She approached the table with a semi-faux smile on her face. Nick stood when she came to the table and gave her a genuine grin and a kiss on the cheek in return. While hanging up her coat, she raised an eyebrow at the move but said nothing, sliding into the booth seat across from him.
“Thanks for meeting me, since Oliver stood me up,” she said. Ari un-wedged a menu shoved between the napkin holder and the wall.
“He doesn’t like to disappoint you,” Nick said. She noticed his jacket and tie were off and he’d rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. He’d obviously come straight from work, too. “Plus, he and I both agree you work too hard.”
Ari rolled her eyes. “You both work as much as or more than I do. He’s just hoping that a little flattery will trick me into bringing a cheeseburger back home for him.”
“My only roommate is a seventy-five pound chocolate lab. If I brought him home a burger, he would maul me at the front door for it,” Nick laughed.
“And how is that different from Oliver?”
They ordered drinks and Nick went on to talk about his last roommate, a guy who took baths daily with his girlfriend and read Dr. Seuss aloud.
“They read this in the bathtub? Together?” Ari asked, almost spitting out her beer.
“Daily,” he confirmed, fake shuddering at the thought.
“You deserve an award for that. I do have to live with the constant string of women in Nick’s life, including the occasional nut-job long-term girlfriend.”
“Are they always that bad?”
“Always,” Ari replied. “He has the worst taste in women. There was the one who liked to fight before having sex. I’d come home to broken china and a trail of clothing through the house. Which for him was great. For me? There’s nothing more awkward than finding someone’s panties hanging from the lampshade.”
“How did you end up living together in the first place?”
“Oliver and I have lived together since college. Our roommates dated and moved out together. At the time, it was the easiest and only option. Luckily it worked.” Ari realized they were slipping into first-date territory. Drinks and dinner, sharing background and personal stories. She wasn’t sure if this was a first date or not, but it sure seemed like it.
Ari didn’t know how she felt about that.
“Tell me what you know about the Glory Youth Center,” she said, diverting attention off her personal life and back to work. She was happy to pretend for the moment that Mr. Davis was only work related. Nothing personal.
“I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never been there.”
“I went today. Judge Hatcher placed one of my clients there. It’s pretty nice but it’s like…some kind of referral-only place. We’ve never had another client placed there as far as I can tell,” Ari explained. “I have no idea how Curtis landed on the list.”
Nick rubbed his chin and Ari could see the five o’clock shadow growing in. He had one of those faces that grew more attractive with a little scruff. “I guess the judges may have some pull in that area. Juvenile judges are appointed which means they have a lot of political connections and attend fundraisers and other events. Maybe that’s how she found it.”
“Maybe so. Seems like they have a really high success rate. Mr. Davis was more together than any other program director I’ve met.”
“Davis? I’ve met him before. Tall and kind of bald, right?”
Handsome, amazing kisser and apparently my dirty little secret, Ari wanted to add. She felt her cheeks flush. “Yes, that’s him.”
Nick tipped his beer and finished it off. “Yeah, I’ve met him. Kind of aloof. Seems like he plays by his own rules.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Not necessarily, but you and I both know societal rules are there for a reason.”
“True,” Ari said. The waitress walked up and laid two checks on the table. Ari reached for hers but Nick swiped both before she reacted.
“Dinner’s on me.” He tucked a card in the black padded envelope and handed it back to the waitress as she passed by.
Ari scrunched her nose. “You sure?”
“You did me a favor. I was going to sit at home all night reading case files. This is so much better.”
“Better than me sitting home watching the late-night news to see if any of my clients got arrested,” she said, shaking her head.
The waitress returned and they gathered their coats and squeezed through the tight restaurant to the front door. Ari walked toward her car and Nick followed. Like that, everything went from casual to date-night awkward.
“Oh, by the way,” Nick said, as Ari pulled her keys from her bag, “I did a little digging on Hope’s situation.”
“Really? What did you find out?”
“I talked to a couple of the officers at the courthouse and pulled some records. I thought the details sounded familiar when you told me. Girl kidnapped for prostitution. There have been a couple of girls arrested on Stewart Street with this same story. My gut tells me this is some kind of urban legend they have created in an effort to stay out of jail.”
“That’s kind of how I felt. What did the police say?” Ari leaned against the car.
“Same thing. There’s no evidence of kidnapping or anyone being held against their will. The girls all have a history of prostitution and refuse to give any real information. The police tend to think it’s a cover story, too.”
“I wish that made me feel better,” she said. “Thanks for dinner. I owe you one.”
Nick smiled. “I’m going to hold you to that.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek softly. “Goodnight, Ari.”
Ari grinned and said, “Goodnight.”
FIVE
“How was your date last night?” Oliver asked as they ran up the hill.
“I didn’t have a date, but since we’re asking, how was yours?”
“Me? I had to work late.”
Ari shook her head. “On a Friday night? Plus, you didn’t get in ’til past two.”
“I don’t know if you want to play the ‘What time did you get home?’ game right now.”
Huh, so he knew how late she’d come in the other night. Ari played dumb, because what was she going to tell him? Lie and say that she stayed at the gym for four hours? The truth, that she made out with some guy she never met against a dirty club wall until the bouncer kicked them out? Oh and by the way, he happened to be the director of the program her client just moved into.
She opted to deflect. “Don’t tell me, you hooked up with Veronica from accounting. Again.”
“She’s really hot.”
“So I’ve heard.”
He held up his hands and said, “She and I are like two magnets. The kind that snap together with incredible force. We’re drawn to one another. Typically over a desk or under a desk or somewhere near a desk. We’re on the clock, you know.”
“You’re going to get fired.” They reached the top of the hill and began an easier coast for the last mile. Their goal was in sight. A sweet, delicious, run-worthy goal.
“Possibly, if everyone else in the office wasn’t doing something similar or worse.” He gave Ari a wolfish grin.
“I don’t even want to know.”
“You really don’t.”
At the end of four miles, the roommates raced to their reward. Sticky and delicious doughnuts from a shop near their home. Once purchased they exited the shop and walked back to the house. Weekend runs started as a way to fight off the extra weight and stress being part of the workforce inevitably caused. Plus, it gave them an excuse to get doughnuts afterwards.
“Try this,” Ari said, breaking off a piece of her Nutella cream puff.
Oliver took the doughnut out of her hand and popped it in his mouth. “Ohgodthat’sawesome,” he mumbled.
They reached their street and Ari noticed something weird in the driveway. “Why is my car leaning like that?”
/>
“I don’t know,” Oliver said. He jogged ahead. “Oh shit.”
“What?” she ran up to him but stopped hard when she saw her car up close. “Motherfudger!”
Two of her tires had been slashed and the entire left panel of her car had key scrapes down the side. Ari’s car wasn’t especially nice. Honestly, it was a piece of junk, but she owned it outright and she tried to take care of it. A wave of anger washed over her. “Asshats,” she said, breaking her own non-cursing rule.“They did this while we were running? In broad daylight?”
“Pretty nervy,” Oliver said, looking up and down the street. It was early enough on a Saturday morning that no one else was out. “Probably only took them a couple of minutes.”
“This sucks,” Ari said, leaning against the lopsided car.
“Let me go call the police.”
Since it was a non-emergency, it took the officer almost an hour to get there. She’d sent Oliver inside for a shower since she was able to deal with this herself. As soon as the officer got out of the car Ari, recognized him from the armed robbery at the hardware store.
“Didn’t expect to see you so soon,” Officer Baker said. He kneeled by her car, surveying the damage. “Any idea who did this?”
“Not specifically,” Ari snorted. “But I could probably make a short list.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You have a lot of enemies or something?”
“I’m a juvenile probation officer. I have a caseload of sixty kids. I could narrow it down to about fifteen that hate me at the moment.”
Officer Baker whistled. “Yeah, that could be a problem. Or it could be random. Did they take anything?”
“Nope. Just messed up the car.”
“So, yeah, probably retaliation of some kind. Who’s at the top of your list?”
Ari thought about it. She had two boys on runaway status right now—both with outstanding warrants Ari issued when they’d failed to make curfew. Then there was Hope, but she was in lockup. There wasn’t much she could do from inside. She thought back to Jace Watkins and the armed robbery, but Ari still thought he hadn’t recognized her. If so, he would’ve probably done a lot more than slit her tires.
