by Kat Bastion
I got her classic Duh! expression. “As promised ta Shay.”
Right. Obviously, Shay’d talked to Trin. And Kiki. I’d been the one kept in the dark.
None of that mattered. Shay had been brutally betrayed in her life. The people she’d trusted back then, the family that should’ve had her back, had let her down.
I never should have questioned her. I’d betrayed her. I’d let her down too.
Control. What she’d needed. So, she’d taken the uncertainty of us recovering from my fuck-up right out of the equation.
I tipped a nod at Trin, then headed toward the rest of my new weekly Tuesday stops.
“You’re wrong, Shay. We can recover. I won’t ever doubt you again.”
Still standing here. Not going anywhere.
My unspoken thought from Saturday night echoed in my mind.
And I planned to wait however long it took to prove my loyalty...and tell her in person.
After three more dinner deliveries, to Charlene, Lando, and Decker, I began to walk down the alley from that very first night. I shuffled my feet in a coded fast-fast-slow rhythm, exactly as Shay had instructed me on last Tuesday’s food run. The scuffing noise announced the approach of a friendly, she’d explained.
And as I neared the vicinity of the dumpster, a giant shadow appeared in the dim moonlight, right on cue. “Who you?” Bear growled.
“Ben. Shay’s friend. Yours too.”
I held up the last Coke in one hand, the last food bag in the other. When squared off with a grizzly, hand them your food.
To my relieved surprise, the dark giant waved me closer with a tilting sweep of his head, fuzzy dreadlocks swaying. “Come close, Ben.” The same slow and soft words vibrated out, the same hooded eyes stared me down, but thanks to last Tuesday’s feed-and-greet with Shay, I knew Bear tended to be more bark than bite—once he’d had the time to sniff someone like me out.
With eyes that darted beyond my shoulder often, he eventually reached for my offering of food and drink. “No Shay.” More a statement than a question.
“No.” Unfortunately for all of us. “Looks like you’re stuck with me awhile.”
“Shay can’t lose you like I lost...Shay can’t...she can’t...lose you...lose you...” Bear clutched his food bag while he stared vacantly over my shoulder, rocking his massive frame forward and backward. The repetitive speech was a thing for him. The rocking too. Shay had warned me to be patient, to listen. Because even though Bear had social issues, difficulty dealing with emotions, and a patent refusal to assimilate into society, he had a ferocious protective instinct and a genius-level IQ. Asperger’s syndrome.
I sighed, nodding. “I can’t lose Shay either.”
“Love hurts.” He put his Coke on the closed lid of the dumpster, then opened his food bag.
“Yeah, it does.”
“Love hurts.” He grabbed a fistful of fries, then shoved that giant paw in front of me, ends sticking through grimy fingers in every direction. “Blink hurts.”
Not wanting to offend the guy—the one Shay had instinctively run to, the guardian who’d looked after her as she’d grown up—I did my best to choose a fry that wasn’t touching his hand.
I twisted it around and popped the free-air end into my mouth.
“Love hurts,” he repeated.
Yeah, it does. Shay had explained to me that his riddled phrases and repetitions told a story.
“Blink hurts.” Bear rocked forward, then back again. “Love hurts...Blink hurts.”
Shay’s advice flowed into my head: There’s a story to everything from his mind. Be patient. Listen. You’ll puzzle it out.
“Love hurts.” He shoved half the burger into his mouth. Once he swallowed, he repeated once again. “Blink hurts.”
The sequence was important. He was trying to tell me something.
“Love hurts,” I repeated as the meaning dawned on me. “Blink hurts.” My drunken fog cleared enough for it to crystallize. “Shay’s hurting because of love. She...loves me.”
Bear gave a hard nod. “Love hurts.”
Shay…
Warm sunshine kissed my face, the free kind above grass and trees, connected to parks and forests, as far as my running legs and wild imagination could take me.
Eighteen months, to the day.
How long I’d bargained for.
The deal I’d struck.
The sacrifice I’d been willing to make for them all—for Ben.
And I would’ve done so much more.
Blinding glare off a chrome bumper made me shield my eyes as I searched for Kiki’s Prius.
But instead of a silent electronic car, there at the edge of the parking lot rumbled a fern-green classic truck.
And a gorgeous dangerous man leaned against its back fender.
Ben.
My heart leapt at the sight of him.
Dammit. I thought I’d locked my emotions for him down tight.
With a deep scowl, at him and me, I strode right on past him.
But by my next full breath, he appeared beside me.
I slowed my pace.
He matched me, step for step.
“Shay, please.”
I ignored him and kept walking. I figured it’d take me a few hours at a solid clip, but my own two feet would bring me back home to Glenhaven by nightfall.
“Shay,” he kept at it.
Clenching my jaw to prevent my mouth from blurting out any number of things, I focused on a pair of blue-and-white tree swallows that swept through the sky.
“I never should’ve questioned you. Not whether or not you stole the bracelet—whether or not it mattered.” He cleared his throat. “It didn’t matter. And idiot me should’ve said that, right then, without hesitation.”
My chest began to burn at his words. But I kept walking, lasered my attention straight ahead, at the treetops in the near distance.
A heavy sigh sounded out beside me. “I fucked up. Big time. But I got the sense, still feel it now” —he pulled ahead and stared hard at me— “that you wanted me to fuck up.”
Tears misted my eyes at the truth of it. That he got me after all.
“I know you.” He weighted the words with conviction.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
He moved right in front of me, locked gazes with mine. “Still standing here. Not going anywhere.”
My breaths grew ragged. He looked incredible: black hair windblown over his forehead, dark scruff of beard edging his jawline, charcoal eyes doing that penetrating-stare thing.
“Why?” I didn’t get it. Anyone with sense would’ve written me off, run far far away.
“You know why.”
I couldn’t reply, didn’t find the words because I couldn’t think straight, had to suck in great lungfuls of air because I found it hard to breathe. I hadn’t expected him to be there. Didn’t want to face the why of it. Wasn’t ready to admit to what I’d been ignoring. Denial had served me well while I’d done my time. Dealing with him in my first seconds of freedom? Overwhelming.
Prison itself had had a nice set of rules. So had the female inmates who ran the joint. Those who survived in that environment understood them: You have no control. Trust no one.
But I’d already learned those rules years ago.
And yet, Ben had taught me something in one short week. It was okay to count on someone else, sometimes. That I didn’t have to be strong all the time.
Maybe I don’t have to be alone, fighting for everything.
He took a step closer, leaving an inch or so between us as he searched my eyes. “It’s also one of the reasons why I did Mickey D’s every Tuesday with your crew, my crew now too.”
You did? You took care of my family? Your family now too?
My lower lip began to quiver; I bit it into submission.
He slowly raised his hand, brushed gentle fingers over my cheek, into my hair. “Because I love you.”
In the middle of my next shaky breath, he leaned
forward that last inch and kissed me, soft and tender, filled with warmth and passion.
And I shut down my protesting brain and kissed him back, wrapped my arms around his neck, and held on to a man I never saw coming and couldn’t believe still stood there.
As the kiss wound down, when the salt of my tears mingled into our mouths, I pulled back. “I love you too,” I whispered without doubt...uncertain only about admitting it.
His eyes glistened with moisture.
I narrowed mine, stepped back, then dropped my hands onto my hips.
Ben was the man who held the carefully knotted corners of my rug...who’d yanked it out from under me—twice.
Take control. “But that doesn’t mean anything. I’m not snapping right back into us again.”
He blinked in surprise.
My heart sank at my own gut-instinct words too. Because as much as the idea of trusting Ben again scared me, it kinda gave me something to work toward, something to hold on to.
Besides, he’d made an accurate point. I had wanted him to fuck up. I’d needed him to throw believable distance between us for him to buy my inevitable exit—in order to save him.
What I’d been trying to convince my doubting self of for eighteen months.
That I’d made the right move by cutting him out of the decision-making process.
But standing in front of him after all those months, seventy-eight long weeks...five hundred forty-eight lonely nights...I wasn’t so sure.
Still... “I’m not goin’ down that easy.”
He gusted out a held breath, chuckled low, then swept an open arm back toward his truck. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The next moments all unfolded in a surreal blur, him opening his sticking passenger door, me getting inside, him running around the front hood with a hopeful grin like an eager high school kid on his first date—like we’d done a year and a half ago, but as if it was yesterday.
He gripped the steering wheel, then glanced my way. “Where to?”
“Everywhere.” My brain jammed with a billion thoughts at once.
He gave me a stellar Duh! look. One I’d seen on Trin a thousand times. “Where to first?”
My mind blanked again. Everything I’d missed for so long fought for dominance.
But the most important one? I already had, whether or not I let my stubborn-ass self admit it: Ben. By my side. A good foot of safe distance spanned between his body and mine on the truck’s bench seat. But his nearness after all that time apart still charged the air between us. And some elemental part of me ached to move closer, hover exploring fingers over his tribal tattoo, inhale the earthy scent of him, taste the saltiness of his...
His face lit up. “I’ve got an idea.” He put the truck in gear and we rumbled off.
I almost laughed at my near-naughtiness to his oblivious innocence. Instead, I just let go, and let him take control, for a while anyway. I emptied my mind of every ounce of worry and basked in sensations: the crisp wind through my open window as it danced across my face, the brilliant colors of nature and textures of architecture, the metallic scents of the city mixing with the sweetness of her parks, horns honking, birds singing.
After twenty minutes of driving and one pit stop, where we ended up was on a favorite park bench that sat beside a beloved rock outcropping. The white rolled-down bags of three quarter-pounder-with-cheese meals sat between us—one for him, two for me.
After we polished off our food and drink, I made him scrabble up the boulder outcropping with me. I pointed toward the far tree line. “That’s my forest, the place I grew up.”
A place I’d missed terribly. My home. Where I got grounded. Where I became charged.
“Wanna show me?” He arched a brow.
Yeah. Somehow my fears of trusting him began to melt away, little by little. And I wanted him to get to know me again, know more of me than I’d been willing to share before. The most vulnerable part of me sensed it was safe with Ben. Always had been.
“Race ya!” I scrabbled down without waiting for his reply.
Another beautiful chuckle reverberated somewhere above me.
And we ran, together, me taking the lead, him chasing me down, laughing as we both darted around trees, lungs burning, skin tingling.
Through blackberry thickets, hidden by overgrown ferns, past one mossy boulder, then another, I brought him into my secret sunbeam-filled clearing. Eyes falling closed, I drew in a ritual breath of the pure air of my forest that was scented of earth and rain and dreams and possibilities.
Then I glanced at Ben, who instinctively did the same while he wore an expression of childlike wonder.
You get it.
Maybe he’d been one of us, like me and Trin—the dreamers, the adventurers, the heroes willing to risk everything for what we believed in—all along.
“Watch!” I called out as I bounded up my boulder staircase. At the top, I launched into the air and howled my low ahhhwwwhhhooo.
When I landed onto the spongy leaf pile, crumbled bits went flying. I marveled at that; it was spring. Which meant Trin had to have stocked our leaf pile just for her...or for me too—for a freshly sprung jailbird.
I lifted my head.
Ben just stood there, arms folded, watching me exactly like I’d asked.
“Aren’t you gonna take a turn?”
“No.” His dark gaze glittered with fierce emotion. “Be free. I’ll be right here, waiting for you.”
In a wonderful cloud of leaf bits, I jumped up, kissed him, then ran and climbed my staircase and leapt, three more times.
A good hour later, and after a thorough dusting of my hair, T-shirt, and jeans, we were back in his truck again. “Where we goin’?” He’d made some mysterious phone call before we’d gotten back into the truck, where he’d told whoever was on the other end, “Thirty minutes.”
“It’s a surprise. Consider it a belated birthday present. And maybe a little bit more.”
MORE.
That triggering word echoed in my brain to become an important thing I wanted him to know. “There’s something I kept from you that I have to explain.”
He arched a brow at me, amusement sparkling in his eyes. “Just one something?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Listening?”
His expression humbled and he gave a firm nod. “Intently.”
“Before Heart burned the drive, she unlocked hidden evidence that proved your father had committed more crimes: insider trading, conspiracy, fraud. On a much larger scale. And that evidence gave me an opportunity to help you, to help so many others.” Made me have to want you to fuck up. “I hope you understand what I did and why I did it.”
He glanced at me, made a left turn at the light, then nodded. “I do understand. Something to do with that spotlight article, right?”
“Yeah. Some young girl reporter hassled Lando months prior. I lured her away, showed her that the real story wasn’t one homeless guy who guarded a record store, got her to see that an entire parallel city of homeless struggled right in the middle of one of the most celebrated places in our nation. But the reporter felt like that story wasn’t enough for her editors, that they would want more.”
“And in your lap, fell my criminal father.”
“Yep. Everything I’d done, all that I’d stolen and given away to help others was only part of the story. Hardworking folks, most barely making ends meet, were only one step away from suffering an unfortunate incident or becoming victim to a criminal act. They’re the next in line. And your father’s greed could’ve sent any number of them there.”
“Good story.”
“Almost. Providing evidence of the greater crimes was the clincher. With that, the Feds took down an entire ring, some of the Who’s Who of Wall Street. And providing them that info gave me what I needed to cut a deal.”
“But why cut a deal at all? That’s what I still don’t understand. Why did you turn yourself in?”
I nudged his shoulder. “For you, sill
y. I didn’t want the crime you’d committed to hang over you, risk Loading Zone. With me, they got the only perpetrator they know about. To protect you, I told them I stole it from your father’s study. No point in going after anyone else if I’m all there was. I turned myself in, because I needed to give you a clean slate. It gave me one too.”
“You gave us one.”
My muscles tensed at the us part. Even though we’d eaten on a bench and run wild through my forest, played in my hidden clearing, I hadn’t let myself get too much in my head about it. For the last year and a half, I hadn’t planned on seeing him again. And with all the visitation-meetings Kiki and I had had to run our thriving naughty-shirt business, if she had known that he’d planned to pick me up, she’d kept it from me.
“We’ll see. For sure you. And me.”
“Sounds like there’s an us in there somewhere.”
“Don’t know, Bishop. ‘Us’ sounds complicated.”
He gave a hard nod. “Takes a lot of trust to make an us.”
“It’s like you’re making my non-us argument for me.”
“Just sayin’, we could work on it. Commit to work toward the us.”
My brain still couldn’t process the idea. I began to believe my past had programed me to distrust the future with someone, no matter how tempting. But oh, how my heart wanted to say yes. A familiar compromise hit me. “Maybe, we could give it a week. And see.” A week seemed small, safe.
He arched another amused brow at me.
“That one week we shared got me through the last eighteen months,” I mumbled, more to myself than him.
Whenever things got rough, every time my spirits dragged, I relived every heart-stopping moment of our golf-scrambling, movie-watching, and train-jumping. And when my heart ached, I replayed every amazing sensual moment: our clock-struck-midnight first time, the rock-beats-paper wakeup call...our sizzling locker-room shower.
Something else important had gotten me through those endless nights, though: another wrong I’d made sure to right. “One other part of the deal I’d struck? That the authorities investigate my father and mother. Interrogate my sister. Charge them to the fullest extent of the law.” Make sure the infant who slept in that new crib didn’t suffer, remained innocent.