What the Hail

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I swallowed thickly, feeling way out of place.

  I’d never once been in a jail before.

  I was a good girl. I got good grades. I didn’t sneak out. I’d also never done anything illegal—for the most part.

  I’d stolen a pack of watermelon gum when I was in fourth grade, and I’d cheated off my classmate’s test accidentally during college. But it’d only been because she refused to sit where I couldn’t see her paper, and I’d glanced at her almost out of habit, and seen her answers on the last page of the test. The same page that I’d been struggling with.

  “In. Now.”

  I winced at the guard’s angry voice and realized that I’d been standing there, frozen in shock, as I stared at the room beyond.

  There were no bars like I’d expected. There was only one large room.

  The room was quite spacious, and as I stared at the beds against the walls, I realized that there was a reason it was spacious.

  There were no cells to be found, and instead, everyone was shoved into the one room.

  I guess I should be happy that they didn’t eat in the same room where they shit.

  They did it behind a wall. There was a corner of the room where there were five toilets lining one wall. The toilets were partially shielded by a mini wall that only reached far enough that when one was sitting on said toilet, they couldn’t see anything but the wall. I could see the top of one woman’s head, however.

  Embarrassment started to flood through me.

  Oh, God. I was now living in a real-life hell, and all because I didn’t pay my parking tickets.

  My eyes connected with the woman standing up after finishing the bathroom, and I looked down. Not quick enough, however.

  Thirty seconds later, she was standing beside me.

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  I shook my head frantically. “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be.”

  “I really should be.”

  “What are you in for?” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared.

  I licked my dry lips. “Unpaid parking tickets.”

  Her mouth quirked up into a small semblance of a grin. “I shot my boyfriend in the dick because he was fucking the babysitter.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “Is his dick…okay?”

  She shook her head. “Shot him with a forty-five hollow point. His favorite gun ever. Not only doesn’t he have a dick anymore, but they also had no way to reattach it—so I hear.”

  My eyes were wide.

  “That’s kind of prolific…karma is a bitch and all.”

  Her grin was more pronounced this time.

  “I like you.”

  “I l-like you, too,” I managed to say.

  After all, one needed a friend in the slammer, right?

  However, before I could so much as tell this woman who I was, my name was called, and I was being led to a room that was known as the ‘holding room’ for the delinquents like me who had to meet with the judge.

  Twenty minutes later, I was standing where I never thought I’d be.

  ***

  “You have a parking ticket from last year for the amount of one hundred dollars,” the judge said, tilting up his glasses so he could read the papers in his hand. “You have one from four weeks ago, for another hundred dollars.”

  And so it went as he continued to read my list of transgressions.

  “Is there a reason you think you don’t have to pay when everyone else in the city does?”

  I bit my lip, wondering if that was a rhetorical question, or if it was one that he actually expected an answer to. There wasn’t a reason good enough in his eyes.

  That much, I knew.

  The judge looked mean, unapproachable and unforgiving.

  “I don’t have the money,” I told him honestly. “I have enough to pay my rent and gas in my car. Rent is sometimes paid on time, but the majority of the time it is not.” I paused. “And as for the other tickets? Well, those I didn’t know about.”

  I pointed to the ones in his left hand.

  The one in his right hand I did know about.

  “These you did know about?”

  I nodded.

  “Did you get it registered in your name?”

  “The tickets?” I questioned in confusion.

  He lifted his eyes to me and glared. “No, the car. It’s possible that some of these are from the previous owner.”

  My eyes went wide.

  Did Krisney have unpaid parking tickets?

  “No,” I said. “The car isn’t mine. I’m only borrowing it until I can afford to buy a car again.”

  “What happened to your last car?”

  I bit my lip.

  “The last time I had a car note, I defaulted and they took it back.” I shrugged like I wasn’t still affected by it.

  Which was a total and complete lie. I was affected by it. Immensely.

  Baylor had just been doing his job, but I knew he’d seen the need in my eyes. Yet, he’d ignored it.

  Which still stung if I was being truthful.

  Baylor was a good guy. I loved him—even though I hadn’t admitted it to myself, let alone him. But still, in the back of my mind, I wondered if he hadn’t seen me fighting with Harold, would he even be paying attention to me at this point? He’d looked straight through me when he’d been taking my car. People that were nice didn’t do that, did they?

  Because I was shit at picking men, obviously.

  Which led me to another problem.

  My fingerprints.

  They were now in the system in Hostel, Texas.

  It’d take Sal less than a day to make arrangements to come get me.

  He lived in Dallas. He was a police officer who knew what to do when it came to missing persons.

  Seriously, I gave him eighteen hours, tops, before he was here looking for me.

  And I’d hopefully be gone before that happened.

  “So, these five, totaling five hundred and twenty-two dollars,” he paused, looking at me. “Can you pay for them today?”

  I shook my head.

  “I have three hundred on me,” I told him honestly.

  Three hundred dollars was my entire paycheck from the Taco Shop. That’d take me another week of working to get that again, and that included what little tips I got, plus overtime.

  I made even less than that at the grocery store, but since it was my second job, it was to be expected.

  That three hundred dollars was going to go to gas and food this week, but I guess that I could raid the grocery store’s ‘old food’ bin. Normally employees only looked through it, taking out a few things of the entire bin that was set to be emptied once a week.

  I’d looked in there myself a time or two, and though there were a few things in there that could be useful, most wasn’t.

  A smashed tomato, a rotten potato. Milk that expired three days before. A box of Fruit Loops that exploded when it was shipped. Old meat that had expired.

  But I could make do for two weeks.

  I could do it.

  “Will that leave you without any money?”

  I shrugged.

  “Not really.”

  The lie tasted bitter on my tongue, but there was no way I was telling this man that.

  But then another thought occurred to me.

  I didn’t have the possibility to raid the expired bin. I had to leave. Immediately.

  I shivered.

  “Would two hundred leave you with enough to make your bills?”

  Something on my face must’ve conveyed that it wouldn’t because he sighed. “I’m going to charge you a hundred dollars. You’ll serve community service for the rest. Ten hours at a place of your choice. Deal?”

  I hated lying to him.

  “Yes,” I breathed. “Deal.”

  It wasn’t a deal.

  I wouldn’t even be he
re in twenty-four hours.

  I smiled and lied, anyway.

  I’d do anything not to return to Sal again.

  And, as an idea formed in my head, I realized anything included stealing from the man I was starting to fall in love with.

  ***

  “Come on, jailbird. I’m ready to take you home and fuck you.”

  I gave him a small smile, but I knew it didn’t reach my eyes.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I swallowed, wondering if I should tell him everything and decided that he’d done a lot for me.

  But that only reinforced the knowledge that I wouldn’t be able to do this to him.

  Baylor was a good guy. He’d done a lot for me over the short time that I’d known him. He’d fed me, made me laugh, saved me from the crazy vegan who tried to get me fired.

  That was why I made the decision to leave. To take off and not say another word to him about it.

  “I want to go home and shower,” I said. “I’m…I will talk to you tomorrow.”

  I started walking in the opposite direction of where he’d started to his truck.

  When I felt his hand curl around my elbow, I flinched.

  “Please?”

  He looked at me, read my eyes, knew that pushing me might break me at that point.

  And he proved to be a smart motherfucker, because he let my hand drop, and backed away.

  “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I shook my head. “I have to work at the grocery store in the morning.”

  Lie.

  Well, not totally, anyway.

  I did have to work but I wouldn’t be there. Hopefully I’d be halfway across the country at that point.

  “Afternoon, then.”

  I shook my head again. “I work at the Taco Shop until nine.”

  He growled. “Then when you get off.”

  I swallowed thickly and then nodded my head.

  His eyes narrowed, but he waved me away without another word.

  And, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I started to half run/half walk down the road.

  Luckily the house where I now lived was fairly centralized in the town because it took me less than twenty-five minutes to get home.

  But it wouldn’t have mattered.

  I knew I’d get home safely.

  Baylor shadowed me the entire way.

  Chapter 16

  I am not responsible for what my face does when you talk.

  -things not to say to your alpha badass

  Lark

  I tiptoed to the door and pulled it open, thankful that he left it unlocked.

  The neighborhood was quiet, late and safe meant that Baylor never locked the door. Which was good for me because I knew where he kept a spare key to the truck.

  Which I retrieved moments later and used it to start the truck up.

  Putting it into reverse, I immediately started to wince at the sound.

  The tow truck made a beeping bleep that indicated it was backing up, and I cursed as it only seemed to get louder.

  Which happened to be why I reversed a whole lot faster into the road than I would’ve normally, and hit a trash can.

  I groaned and put it into drive, carefully adjusting my mirrors as I started to accelerate down the road.

  I’d made it two blocks, turning onto the street that led to the exit from the neighborhood, when I saw the figure in the road.

  I slammed on my brakes and came face-to-face with a very upset Baylor.

  He was illuminated by the headlights, and what I could see wasn’t very happy.

  In fact, it was safe to say that he was enraged.

  Stalking around the truck, he came to the driver’s side and yanked it open.

  “Move.”

  I started to scramble out of the truck completely, but he blocked me with his body.

  “Move as in scoot the fuck over. Not get out,” he ordered, gritting his teeth.

  I did as he asked, and probably should’ve gone straight out the other side.

  However, his next words halted me in my tracks.

  “You so much as think about throwing that door open and running for it, you’ll regret it.”

  I swallowed the saliva that was quickly gathering in my mouth and tossed him a wary look.

  He got into the truck and slammed the door shut.

  He was sweating…badly.

  He’d obviously been on the final leg of a run, because his shirt was tucked into his waistband, and there was so much sweat dripping off of him that it was collecting in his shorts. Making them look more of a dark gray rather than the light gray I’d seen him wearing earlier in the night.

  “You have two choices.”

  I knew I wouldn’t want to do either of them.

  Which I told him.

  “No.”

  “One,” he ignored my outburst. “You can either tell me what the fuck is going on then I’ll fuck you.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, knowing where this was going.

  “Or,” I interrupted again. “You can take me to the bus station.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Or two, you can let me fuck you, and then you’ll talk.”

  I was already shaking my head. “That’s not how any of this works, Baylor.”

  “This is exactly how it works!” he bellowed.

  I froze as he pulled over, yanked me into his lap, and put both hands on either side of my face. Then he pulled me so close that I was breathing in the air he exhaled.

  He was sweaty, angry, and on the verge of cussing.

  At me.

  I could tell.

  His body was practically vibrating underneath mine, and not only could I tell that it wasn’t just in arousal, but I could also hear it in the tone of his voice.

  He was frustrated with me.

  I’d never seen him so mad before.

  “I’m sorry I stole your truck,” I blurted.

  His eyes narrowed. “You think that’s why I’m mad?”

  I nodded self-consciously. “Yes.”

  He threw the truck into drive and started to motor back down the street toward his house.

  I stayed silent the entire way.

  The moment he pulled into the driveway, my heart started to pound.

  Wasn’t it just my luck that he’d see me driving his stupid truck out of the neighborhood. Wasn’t it just my luck that he’d be running? Fuck my life.

  “Start talking,” he ordered, me still firmly on his lap. “Tell me why I shouldn’t be reporting your ass for theft.” He paused. “You do know that this truck is about five hundred grand, right? That’s more than just a petty, little misdemeanor.”

  I swallowed thickly and looked at the floorboard of the truck, knowing in my heart that he was mad at me past the point of caring right then.

  I had a responsibility, though. He needed to know.

  Likely he’d be one of the first people who Sal questioned.

  He’d stood up for me with those cops. He’d protected me. He’d picked me up from jail.

  It was time.

  “I have a lot to tell you,” I told him, closing my eyes. “It might take a while.” I paused. “You have to make me a promise, though.”

  He looked directly at me. “Anything.”

  I smiled sadly. “You have to promise, once you know everything, that you’ll not step in when this all goes south.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I opened my eyes, and let him see everything that I held back over the last couple of weeks we’d been seeing each other. The fear. The uncertainty. The knowing that Sal was going to ruin this for me like he’d ruined everything else.

  I knew that this man was going to try to protect me from Sal, but I couldn’t let him. Sal was going to ruin Baylor, and he would stop at nothing to get me back.

  “Promise.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll promise t
o listen to you, but I’m not going to promise something when I don’t know what kind of trouble you’re in. I l-like you.”

  I looked away. There was no way that he didn’t know I’d heard what he almost said. None.

  “I guess that’ll have to be enough,” I muttered.

  And I prayed that the words I thought he was about to say weren’t his true feelings. Maybe, just maybe, I’d get a second chance.

  “Sal is…was my husband. We got divorced.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “We got divorced while I was in a halfway house for women who were abused.”

  His eyes narrowed even more. They were nothing more than slits at this point.

  I inhaled, trying to gain the courage to tell him the rest.

  It’d be better if the truck was dark. I reached forward and took the keys from the truck, tossing them on the dashboard.

  The truck plunged into darkness, and now all I could see was the light shining on one side of his face from the streetlight across the street.

  He waited.

  I looked up, drew a deep breath of air into my lungs, and continued.

  “I married Sal when I was young. Too young to be making such decisions. But I’d found out that I was pregnant within weeks of meeting him—and sleeping with him. The choice was obvious in my mind. Marry the man with the money, have him help me with the baby and school.” I shook my head. “I was in college with a full load of classes on my plate and student loans piling up. It was a stupid, rash decision, and not a day has gone by that I haven’t fully regretted the choice I made.”

  I licked my lips. “See, what I didn’t know when I met Sal for the first time, was that it was me who didn’t know anything about him. Not the other way around. Sal knew everything about me from the day he’d seen me walk out of my college dorm room. He’d followed me for weeks, watching…stalking. Then, the day I graduated college, he made his move.”

  “Only I hadn’t realized he’d made a move. I’d just thought he was a blood donor. Turns out, Sal had never donated blood before in his life. He’d come to the donation center to ask me on the date, but I had no doubt in my mind that had I said no to his offer of a date, he’d have gotten me to go out with him some other way.” I closed my eyes. “That date was the date I got pregnant.”

  I closed my eyes, feeling sick to my stomach.

  “The first time he beat me was the first day of our honeymoon while we were in the Bahamas,” I continued. “I miscarried.”