What He Wants

by Jessie Gussman

  “I’m your sponsor.”

  He skidded to a stop. Turned slowly. “No,” he said drawing the word out even as he racked his brain for where he might be wrong. “I served my whole sentence. Every day of it. I’m out, free and clean. No parole. No stipulations.”

  “It’s a new program. Officially called the Reintegration into Society Sponsorship Program, it’s designed to help people who have been in prison for a while readjust to society, find or keep a job, update on the latest technology, brush up their skill sets, that type of thing. It pairs a professional with a former, uh, inmate.”

  He smirked as she stumbled over the word. Like she didn’t know what to call him. “Ex-con. Pairs a ‘professional,’” he said it in a jeering tone, “with an ex-con.” Then he snorted at the irony. “Do they know they paired this ex-con with the ‘professional’ who should have been in prison in the first place?”

  “No.” Her tone was small, and he felt instant guilt. It had always been his intention to protect her, not hurt her.

  He sighed. “I supposed that’s what the meeting they told me I had to attend tomorrow is about?”

  “Yes. It’s a small program, just starting. There are eight pairs, including us.”

  “So, let me get this straight. You’ve kept up with diesel mechanics over the last ten years, and you’re going to help me catch up and land a job?”

  The last time, her tone had been affected, but now, for the first time, her confident carriage seemed to wilt. “It wasn’t very fair of me to ask to be paired with you, was it?”

  She had asked to be paired with him. To torture him? To rub in his face that he was an ex-con and she wasn’t? Or, worse, out of pity?

  “This isn’t mandatory for me.”

  “No. Not for you, since you’re not out on parole. But,” she tilted her proud head, and her eyes almost seemed to plead. “if you were to ever get in any kind of trouble again, this would look good when you came up before the judge.”

  “Lady, maybe you haven’t figured this out, but when that judge looks at me, all he sees is street trash that’s better off out of society and behind bars.”

  “He’s wrong.”

  He wasn’t going to fall for her lies. Not a second time. Once, he’d believed she’d seen more in him than anyone else, that he could be successful and climb out of the gutter he’d been born into, where no one expected him to do more than get an entry-level position in some kind of manual labor job and keep it until he retired. Nothing wrong with that, but Cassidy had made him think he could be more.

  He could be. He knew it. And he didn’t need her to help.

  “I’m not planning on getting into trouble again.”

  “You didn’t plan this, either.”

  He shrugged. She was right about that.

  “Listen. I might be able to help, but I need you to do this program.”

  “Help?” he said derisively. “Like you helped me ten years ago?”

  “You told me to leave. If you had given any indication that you wanted anything from me, I would have done everything I could to do what you wanted.”

  “Big words. Actions don’t back ’em up.”

  “You wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t accept my mail...”

  He held a hand up. “Enough.”

  “You keep acting like this was my fault.”

  “It was.”

  Her lips pursed together, and she looked away. He should have felt satisfaction, but he only felt the nagging sense of guilt. Guilt for hurting her. Never mind the last ten years. Guess his heart had missed that part. It had always been on her side.

  “You’re the one who stole my truck,” he said roughly.

  “It was hardly stealing.”

  True. He would have given her his truck to go along with his heart, of course. The problem was he should have taught her how to drive it.

  He fingered the money in his pocket. It was all he had in the world. But he wasn’t getting in a car with Cassidy. He could work. He could fight. And he’d never quit. But she was his weakness. Always had been. If he were going to get out of the hole he was in now, he needed to keep his distance. She could derail his good intentions with one small touch of her hand.

  Once more, he turned to go.

  “I’ll give you a ride.”

  “The bus is safer.” It was a slam, and she flinched, which did not make him feel better.

  She lifted her head, like she was ready to take it on the other cheek. “But you’ll come to the meeting tomorrow?”

  He stopped but didn’t turn around. The rumbling of a motor sounded in the distance. His ride was about to arrive. “I’ll think about it.” He shouldn’t go. Should protect himself with everything he had, but chances were he hadn’t learned a thing in the pen, and he’d be there, just because he’d see Cassidy, and he’d never been able to resist that.

  Chapter 2

  The bus bumped down the highway, swaying as the airbags gave with the pressure of the pothole s in the road. Torque would never have guessed that a bus from Philly to Altoona, PA, would be so crowded.

  They hit an exceptionally large hole on the turnpike, and his shoulder brushed the old lady beside him. She’d shrunk up against the window when he’d sat down, but he sat with his boots planted, his hands in his lap in plain sight, and didn’t move. That seemed to settle her down after an hour or so.

  He stared over her head, out the window at fields of corn and beans, planted in rows as straight as a good man’s life. Fields the same now as they were when he’d gone up—a lot younger and a heck of a lot more innocent, despite his rugged upbringing. Part of him resented the time that he’d missed and the innocence that he’d lost. Part of him still wondered if he did the right thing, although he never doubted that he’d do it all over again the same way. His life would never be a straight row, even if what he’d done still felt like the best thing to him. He’d volunteered to take Cassidy’s penalty. There was nothing immoral about that; the price had been paid.

  The elderly bus driver continued to race along at what felt like a reckless pace to Torque, but it’d been a while since he’d gone any faster than running speed. The Jersey barriers lining the edge of the road flew by at an alarming rate. Torque didn’t mind their proximity, though. It was the wide-open spaces that kickstarted the prison-release anxiety.

  A bang exploded through the bus, followed by a long, drawn-out hiss. Torque jumped along with everyone else, his heart jumping and his palms in an instant sweat. Someone screamed. Then silence. The bus swayed and dipped as the driver jerked the wheel to the right, pulling off along the narrow shoulder, squeezing up along the cement barriers.

  Torque wiped his hands on his jeans. Most likely, an airbag had blown out. Not the kind that everyone else would be familiar with, but the kind that had replaced springs as suspension on all commercial vehicles—trucks and busses. Indeed, as they pulled to a stop, the back of the bus leaned a little toward the passenger side.

  The white-haired driver already held his cell phone to his ear. The hissing continued, even after the driver shut the motor off.

  A tractor trailer roared by, inches from the window.

  “Okay, everyone,” the driver announced in a raspy voice. “We have a repairman on his way. Please stay seated as there is no safe place to disembark.”

  “How soon?” someone shouted from the back.

  “Two hours,” the driver answered wearily.

  Murmurs and complaints followed his announcement.

  The driver snapped his seatbelt off. Probably to go put the orange triangles out. Torque debated with himself. Did he really want to draw that kind of attention, by standing up and volunteering to head out? Everyone knew he’d been picked up at the prison, since it had been the last stop.

  He hated the insecurity that plagued him since his release two hours ago. Like he wasn’t as good as everyone else. Even though he hadn’t even done the crime for which he’d served the time. Prison did a good job at beating a man dow
n. Cassidy’s mentor program might actually be a good idea.

  Without allowing himself another thought, he stood. The bus driver met his eyes in the rearview mirror. He kept his hands in sight—a habit he’d picked up in prison—and started slowly down the aisle.

  The driver’s brows puckered, and his mouth opened, like he was going to tell Torque to sit back down. Just a few feet from the driver, Torque spoke, projecting his voice to be heard. “I’ll set the triangles up, and I can take a look at it if you want.”

  “I’ve got people coming. The police will be here soon, too.”

  “I’m guessing it’s a blown airbag. If you’ve got a pair of vice grips somewhere on this thing, I can pinch the airline off, so we can at least get down to the nearest exit and park in a safe spot. Maybe somewhere where everyone can get out and stretch their legs?” Torque stopped by the front seat, trying not to crowd the driver. He held his hands up like it didn’t matter to him if the driver took him up on it or not.

  “What’s vice grips gonna do?” the driver asked slowly.

  “If it’s a blown airbag, the grips won’t fix it, but I can pinch the airline off to stop the leak which will give you brakes to make it to the next exit. Wouldn’t want to run a hundred miles on it, but won’t hurt anything to go a short distance.” Torque put a hand on the pole. “Unless you’ve got eggs in the luggage compartment? Then we’d better stay put.” He meant it as a joke. With the airbag out, the suspension would be compromised, and they’d feel every bump.

  The driver’s lips curved up. “No eggs.”

  Torque allowed his mouth to curve up, too. It had been a while since he’d shared a little clean humor with another human. It made the ten years he’d spent locked up seem to vanish on one hand, and on the other, he felt like an eighteen-year-old in a twenty-eight-year-old body.

  He wasn’t a kid anymore. But he’d missed all those experiences from his twenties that should have helped him ease into his thirties. Now, he felt like he was eighteen going on eighty.

  He held his hand out to the driver. “Torque Baxter.”

  The driver looked at it a minute. Torque almost let his hand drop before the old guy placed his gnarled fingers in his. “Bill Anders.” He jerked his head. “What’d they lock you up for?”

  “Vehicular manslaughter.” He didn’t bother with the protestations of innocence. He’d pled guilty. The time was served. Every minute of it.

  The old man pushed his glasses up on his nose. Another line of tractor trailers whooshed by. His teeth rattled in his mouth. Finally, he wiped a hand down his pants and sighed. “If you can get us off this road, that’ll be great.” He nodded at a black box beside the shifter. “There’s a couple of tools in that box right there.”

  Torque didn’t wait for a second round of permission. He didn’t want to get released from prison, only to be killed along the turnpike on the way home, and the way this bus was sitting, so close to the Jersey barriers with no room to move over more, it was about as dangerous as declining a request from the Aryan Brotherhood. Put in that perspective, Torque figured he’d take the bus.

  There were no vice grips in the box.

  He looked up to see the driver watching him intently. Probably to make sure he didn’t steal anything. Irritation rippled around his neck. He closed the box and lifted his hands again, just enough for the driver to see they were empty.

  “No grips. Where’s the orange triangles?” Every Class A vehicle was required by law to have the triangles and use them in case of a breakdown.

  Bill dug them out from behind the seat and handed them to Torque.

  “Thanks,” Bill said. His face still held a hint of suspicion.

  “When the trooper shows up, I’ll see if they have the grips. Otherwise, they’d better shut that lane down which’ll screw traffic up from here back to Philly.”

  The driver nodded out the window to the big exit sign one hundred yards down the highway. “It’s only two miles to the next exit.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” He stepped out of the bus into the bright fall sunlight. He took a second to lift his face to the sun, closing his eyes, and relish the feel of the heat and breeze. Taking a deep breath, he savored the fall scent mixed with diesel exhaust. Maybe it was the diesel exhaust he enjoyed more. The smell of his work. His first love. The smell of freedom. Sure as heck didn’t smell diesel exhaust in the pen.

  Didn’t smell exotic flowers, either.

  He shrugged that thought off along with its companion: diesel exhaust represented his second love.

  Sighing, he opened his eyes. An underwear model, her skin golden and glistening, her lips pursed in a seductive, beckoning pout, stared down at him from the billboard on top of the rise. Her glossy hair covered one high cheekbone, but he still recognized her.

  Cassidy.

  The entire billboard was in neutral colors, except for her blue eyes and the tiny, tiny blue bra and underwear set she wore.

  His breath caught in his throat, and his chest hurt. He’d wondered occasionally if she looked as good under those soft blue jeans and loose sweaters as he figured she must. He’d seen a picture or two of her at high school dances back in the day. He’d heard she competed in beauty pageants and did some modeling, but other than the Homecoming picture on the front page of the paper, he’d never seen that side of her. He swallowed, unable to look away from the billboard. Not yet.

  That picture right there was better than any pinups he’d seen. Better than the occasional picture the guards sometimes passed around, illegally, of course. And Torque had never much been interested. Now he wondered if Cassidy had been in any of the pics that had exchanged hands on the inside, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about all those eyes on her body. Not that he had any say. It wasn’t his. She wasn’t his.

  He couldn’t keep the disappointment from eating up his inside. He supposed modeling was a career that paid well and some women sought, but Cassidy had so much potential for more. Maybe he’d hoped that she’d made something out of her life while he was locked up. None of his business.

  Taking another deep breath, he ripped his eyes away from the billboard.

  He was just setting the third triangle out along the highway where the cars were barely slowing down as they flashed past when the flashing lights pulled along the road. He straightened, face-to-face with the Pennsylvania law as a free man for the first time in ten years.

  Swallowing the anxiety that bubbled like battery acid up his throat, he strode as casually as he could to the patrol car and met the officer there.

  She was short and curvy, with her patrolman’s hat tilting over her dark brown eyes set in flawless olive skin. She wasn’t smiling. He’d never learned to flirt, and since the current time didn’t seem like the most optimal time to begin self-instruction, he returned her look with a non-smiling one of his own. Figuring it was her prerogative to speak first, he held his hands where she could see them and waited. If there was one thing he’d gotten good at after ten years in the slammer, it was waiting.

  “You the driver?” She jerked her head at the bus.

  “No.”

  She had her mouth open to ask another question, but it closed at his unexpected answer. Her lips pursed together, and she raised her brows.

  He wasn’t compliant by nature, and she’d had her chance to take control of the situation. “Driver’s an old guy. I volunteered to set the flares up. If you’ve got a pair of vice grips...”

  He waited for her to answer his implied question, but her face remained blank. She didn’t know what vice grips were.

  “I’ll pinch off the airline so we can move the bus off the road.”

  “It can move?” A little chink in her face armor appeared as she glanced at the bus, then her eyes swiftly ran across his torso before meeting his gaze again.

  Stinking t-shirt was too tight. He’d never thought to have his brothers bring him something bigger to wear home. “Not unless we get the airline pinched off.”

  She
regained control of her face. “If we can get it down to the exit, that’d be better than sitting here along the road. I’m going to have to shut a lane down.”

  “You have a box of tools or anything in your cruiser?”

  She tilted her head. “There’s something under the seat. Let me look.” She turned then stopped and looked back. “Um, what do they look like?”

  In the end, she brought the whole box out to him and set it on the hood. He fingered through the sparse number of tools, remembering just in time not to let his fingers linger and caress the cool smooth metal. Having his fingers on those tools was more like coming home than actually walking into his gram’s trailer.

  The lady trooper gave him an odd look, and he focused his wandering thoughts. First thing he was going to buy with his first paycheck was a set of tools, the best he could afford. He could fondle a wrench in his hand all day long if he wanted and sleep with a ratchet and socket set under his pillow. Not now.

  He took a last look at the set in front of him. No vice grips. He pulled out the zip ties. These would work if...

  “You got a blade on you?” Since he’d been about five, he’d carried a pocketknife on him everywhere he went. They’d taken it when he was arrested and never given it back. That was next on his list of things to buy after the tool set.

  “No.”

  Surely someone on the bus had a pocketknife. “Gimme about ten minutes, and I’ll have it fixed up good enough to limp her down to the exit.”

  She nodded, her face relaxing a little. “There’s a big truck stop right at the end of the exit ramp. Do you think it could make it that far?”

  “Yeah. No problem.”

  “Okay. Let me know when you’re ready to pull out, and I’ll follow with my lights on.”

  “’Preciate it.” Torque strode back to the bus and poked his head in the door. “You have a knife on you? I’ll need to cut the line.”