by Ada Stone
Love? I could almost laugh at the concept now. What a joke.
It was still early enough in the morning that the heat hadn’t started to overtake me, but it was the end of June and fixing to be July in mere days. Already I could feel the coolness of night slipping away as the sun slowly rose higher and higher along the horizon. For one ridiculous moment I longed for the concrete cell that had been home for years now. I shook the thought away forcibly—I wouldn’t be one of those guys, the ones who couldn’t adjust to the real world again—but couldn’t deny that things would be difficult on the outside. Getting back on my feet, well, it would take time and patience, some determination.
Luckily, I had all of those things in spades.
Sinking lower into my chair, I tried to make myself nap. Not because I was tired, but because it was going to be hot soon and because it would be another forty-five minutes before we got anywhere, and I didn’t think I could wait like that for what was to come.
Patience was one of the few—maybe the only—virtues I had, but that didn’t mean I liked waiting. I could be patient when I had to be, and especially when I was actively doing something, but just sitting here on a bus? Not so much.
I didn’t sleep, despite my attempts, and ended up running through the same shit I always did in my cell.
Sal Davis.
There were few men in this world who hated me more than Sal Davis, and thanks to his latest attempt at revenge—successful, I would think—the feeling was more than mutual. If you asked me to pinpoint the moment where Sal and I became enemies, or the catalyst that started it, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. But I could list the moment we butted heads and the times when I was sure I would have to tear him apart or him me just to bring some sort of closure to the anger that was forged so solidly between us.
Sal was the leader of a rival motorcycle club. Not that the idea could have been his own, I was sure, because he’d been a nobody when I first met him. Even more of a nobody than I was.
I shoved him into the fence, anger fueling me. I was too young, too stupid, to think that this was school property and if we got caught fighting, we’d be expelled. And then where would we be?
But Sal knew just how to get to me and the bastard was even grinning as blood gushed from his nose. Some of it dipped onto his lips and it grossed me out when he licked it, though I wouldn’t let him see that. Sal would use anything he could against me.
“The hell’s your problem anyway?” I asked him angrily, my hands still fisted in his shirt, holding him against the chain link fence that separated the currently empty playground from the dilapidated road that would eventually lead to downtown.
Sal attempted a shrug, which looked awkward and sort of dumb since I had him pinned, but his smile was smug. Like this was all part of his plan. Hell, it probably was.
“I ain’t got a problem, Nicky boy,” he taunted. He was grinning, but there was something flashing in his eyes. Like he was pissed off. Like he hadn’t just called my mom a fantastic lay. Okay, step-mom; my birth mom was in prison for the next ten to fifteen. But still, it was the principle of the thing.
I felt my face redden with anger. At sixteen, life was pretty hard in general. At sixteen at a public school where everyone knew you fit into the lowest income bracket and your mom was a psycho drug dealer locked up, well, it got harder.
Which was usually why Sal and I got along. Even when we didn’t, we had some sort of unspoken agreement that we’d, be there for each other or some other dumb shit. But then my step-mom moved in and the world shifted. She wasn’t all that great, kind of a lush actually, but she was something.
But Sal didn’t like it. He was always ragging on her and I felt like it was my job or something to defend her, even though Sal was usually saying something honest about her.
“If you ain’t got a problem, then maybe you should stop letting your mouth make one for you,” I told him, and released one of my hands from his shirt so I could pull it back. And just before the impact of my fist on his face—again—I told him, “And shut the fuck up about my mother!”
The bus came to a stop and I moved to get off. One other guy did, too, but we barely even looked at each other as we single filed our way off that damn bus, both just relieved to be back in the city and away from that damn place.
When the bus rumbled away behind me, I spared a last thought to my boyhood friendship with Sal. Had that been the moment? Had it been my then step-mom who had started this rivalry between us? I didn’t know, and at that point, I decided I didn’t care.
By now, the Florida heat was starting to waft in and I tried to stay cool despite it, heading for the overhang of a bus stop to at least stand in the shade while I decided my next move. I had plans, yes, but the specifics from this point to the next point were a little shaky at the moment.
After all, it was hard to have much of a plan when there was only twenty bucks in your pocket and you weren’t sure which of your steadfast, loyal buddies was still steadfast and loyal.
I frowned. On the corner, I saw a payphone. It was ratty and so old that I half expected someone to just wrap crime scene tape around it and call it dead, but the cord didn’t look cut so I suspected it might still work.
Which meant I needed change.
Up the street was a diner that looked about as ratty as the payphone. I didn’t know how good any of the food would taste, but seeing as how I’d been eating the slop they served us in prison, I reckoned it wouldn’t upset me too much whatever the cost. And it looked cheap.
I could get change and a meal, two birds with one stone.
So I headed over there, hunching my shoulders up, wary of the passing strangers who were probably harmless, probably just on their way to work or school or to catch the bus, but it didn’t matter. I was still in defense mode, determined to protect what was mine up until the end. Whenever that would be.
I wouldn’t throw myself under the bus for anyone; I’d already learned that, in the end, you could only trust yourself.
Jerking open the door to the diner, I headed inside, my nose assaulted with the smells of cooking meat and spices and all the other things that came with real food. My stomach growled and my mouth watered. It didn’t matter if this was complete crap and didn’t live up to the health code; it smelled like a slice of heaven.
Glancing around, I spotted a seat towards the back where there was another exit. I headed over towards it and slid into the booth, grabbing one of the menus stashed at the side of the table.
I’d only just begun scanning through the menu items—everything sounded good, all of it different and familiar all at once—when the waitress came over. She was wearing the most unflattering shade of teal that I’d ever seen, but without it, she was probably pretty. She looked petite, with flared hips and slightly smaller than average breasts. Her heart-shaped face made her cute and her curly up do made her almost retro.
I felt half a hard-on grow in my jeans, though I wasn’t really all that attracted to her. But I hadn’t seen a woman in real life for a while and the prospect of having one…well, you can’t blame a man for a reaction to that.
She popped the gum she was smacking on, pulling out her notepad. When she had a pen poised over it, she finally glanced at me. Her eyebrows rose in surprise and her painted lips broke into a wide grin. “Hey there, cutie,” she greeted with a bat of her long and probably fake eyelashes. “You just get out?”
I froze. Just get out? How the hell did she know that?
Probably in response to my sudden agitation, her smile softened to something like sympathy and she said, “We get a lot in here. We ain’t too expensive and we’re a short walk from the bus stop.” She gave me a wink. “Why don’t you keep on looking through the menu and I’ll get you a nice cold soda. On the house.”
Before I could tell her no or yes one way or the other, she was walking away, sashaying her hips with noticeable exaggeration. I felt a tinge of gratefulness towards her for her kindness, but figured a soda wasn
’t that big of a deal and she probably wanted something. Or at the very least, would throw me under the bus if anything didn’t go her way.
Still, I did as she said and looked through the menu. By the time she came back with my complimentary soda, I had picked out a double cheeseburger with extra bacon and a side of fries. It was morning, breakfast even, but it didn’t matter to me. I wanted something full of grease and junk and real fucking meat.
She laughed. “That’s what I figured,” she explained, smiling almost giddily. “It just seemed like the kind of thing you’d like.”
Turning, she went to place my order and I greedily gulped down my soda. It was better than I would have expected, sugary and too sweet and the bubbles burned my nostrils, but it was like feeding a long missed addiction. I drank half the glass in a single gulp, then breathed a little easier.
I was out.
It seemed impossible almost, surreal somehow, but that gulp of soda settled me into my own skin and got me situated in the real world again. I was out and it was time to start making plans.
The waitress came back with my food and I was scarfing it down eagerly as I thought. She appeared a half a dozen more times, gave me three soda refills, and winked at least five more times at me the entire time, but I mostly didn’t pay attention to her. I watched her ass and legs as she walked away and imagined a few sultry and dirty things I thought we could do together, but I didn’t let my mind wander too far, because every time it did, I thought of her.
Zoe.
I almost choked on my bite of hamburger as her name appeared in my head, a whisper. Instantly, I remembered all of the dark, sweaty nights we had together. I remembered the heat that always flared between us and the heavy flush of desire that would rush through me from only a single, smoldering glance from her.
Zoe Rivers was the kind of girl you gave it all up for. Until she wasn’t.
It had taken some time before I was allowed visitors. Something about being a “danger to society,” which seemed like complete bullshit given that I was twenty-three and already locked up. But they used every trick in the book to keep me from seeing the people I wanted to see most.
The people I loved the most.
But finally they agreed that I was allowed a visit. I had been hoping it would be a conjugal visit, but given that we weren’t married yet, I couldn’t really be surprised when there was a plate of six-inch glass between us. Even so, just seeing Zoe changed my whole fucking world.
She walked in looking every bit as beautiful as I’d ever seen her, even though her full, bruised-looking lips were tugged down in a frown and her large doe eyes looked just shy of tear-filled. I might have asked her what was wrong, but I was stupid and assumed that it was about me. That, like she was to me, I was the center of her world.
When she took a seat across from me, I couldn’t help but glance down at her full breasts. They were round and perky beneath the gray t-shirt she wore, something with a kitten on it that looked like it was pawing at her left tit. I wished she’d worn something a little more revealing since I wasn’t likely to get much in the way of sex for a while, but I appreciated her coming at all.
A lot of women wouldn’t have.
I motioned with my hand for her to pick up the phone so we could talk to one another through the glass, lifting up my own to show her. She nodded gingerly and picked it up, hesitating just before pressing it to her ear.
“Babe,” I said, it coming out almost as a breath, the longing clear in my tone, I knew. There was no hiding how much I wanted her, had always wanted her. “Fuck, it’s good to see you.”
She managed to break a smile across her face, but it was halfhearted and short-lived. Her lips parted, and I imagined the way she looked when she took my length down her throat, when she swallowed me whole until she choked around me. Then they snapped shut a moment later. She licked them—I imagined her licking me—then her eyes batted at me, then lowered. My fantasies were clouding my judgment, changing the way I interpreted her movements, her reactions. Maybe if I hadn’t been so desperate to touch her, I would have noticed how nervous she was and then maybe I would have seen it coming.
Instead, her words, when they finally came, hit me like a freight train and I was winded, wounded.
“I…I won’t be coming back to see you, Nick.” Her voice was just as sweet and airy as I’d ever remembered it. So much so that it took me a moment before I could put the words into context, to make sense of them.
I blinked at her dumbly. “What? Zoe, you don’t mean…what are you talking about?”
She let out a shuddering breath, refusing to look at me. “I’m sorry, Nick. I…I just can’t do it. I can’t…” She shook her head.
“Can’t do what? Can’t fucking do what?” I demanded hotly. I could feel my anger building, compounding on itself with each and every word that escaped her mouth. It came on like a hurricane, great and terrible, but with just enough warning that if you were smart, if you knew the area was prone to hurricanes, you might have time to get the fuck out before it hit.
“Please don’t make me say it, Nick,” she begged me, and I almost laughed.
She was going to beg me? To beg me for what? Should I make it easier on her? The words added insult to injury and it was almost enough that I wanted to stand up and throw my chair at the thick glass. I was sure suddenly that that was why it was there.
Glass to protect the weak and the faithless.
“Do what, Zoe?” I pressed, clenching tightly to the phone, grinding my teeth to try and keep hold of some of my anger before it spilled out all around me and they hauled me back to my cell. A cell where I would never again see the beautiful woman in front of me, apparently.
She clenched her eyes shut and I wanted to yell at her to open them, to not be a chickenshit, but I didn’t. I was too busy trying to keep my cool. She let out a breath and tried again. “I can’t stay with you anymore, Nick.”
I was beginning to hate the way she said my name. The way she kept saying my name. Like it was supposed to be some sort of soothing balm to ease the pain of the words she was throwing in my face.
Before I could say something spiteful and biting, she continued, as though now that she had begun it was all easier.
For her at least.
“I put up with the motorcycles and the leather jackets and the crazy guys you hung out with,” she said in a single breath, her eyes still shut, her cheeks flushing a beautiful shade of red that I only ever saw when she was writhing beneath me in pleasure, demanding dirty, wild things of me. Was this that same woman? “I put up with your late night antics and your drunken bar fights, but I can’t do this anymore.” She finally opened her eyes and gestured with her free hand to the room surrounding us. I thought her eyes looked glassy, shiny, but I didn’t care.
I was beyond caring at that point. What, she thought crying about it took away the sting? Crying about it made her not a shitty, ungrateful bitch? No, crying didn’t do any of that. It just reinforced what I was finally beginning to understand: she was weak and I was a fool.
“Zoe…” I managed to get out, but broke off, unable to say more.
But she was hardly done. “We’re through, Nick. I need stability in my life. How am I supposed to do that with someone who is in prison? I’ll tell you, Nick, I can’t. I just fucking can’t. I can’t and I won’t date a criminal, Nick. I won’t.”
There was a long pause of silence that filled the space between us. A silence that was filled with so much that was unspoken. Unspoken because I couldn’t pry my lips open with a crowbar. I couldn’t tell her that I’d fucked up, even though it wasn’t my fault, and that some part of me believed she deserved better. I couldn’t tell her any of that, though I should have, because I was so goddamned angry that it felt like a bitter black hole had formed in my chest, swallowing up the rest of who I was until even my screams would be sucked back in to the nothingness.
When it was clear that I would say nothing—maybe she was waiting for me
to yell at her, maybe she was waiting for me to beg for her to stay—she finally got up. She opened her mouth once, maybe to say goodbye, but shut it without saying a word and then she turned and walked out of my life.
Forever.
“You gonna finish that cheeseburger, cutie?”
I glanced up from my plate to see the perky young waitress standing there again, batting her made up eyelashes at me. A sudden flash of anger surged through me and it took all I had to not lash out at her.
Damn women.
“I’m gonna take it to go,” I told her in a cool tone, sitting back in the booth. I’d very suddenly lost my appetite, though I knew that once my thoughts of Zoe passed, it’d return with a vengeance.
“I’ll grab you a to-go box and your ticket,” she told me, oblivious to my change in mood, and disappeared around the corner. I still watched her ass, but it was grudgingly and I wouldn’t admit it, but I was imagining that it was someone else’s anyway.
