by Stacey Lynn
He didn’t deserve the sharp edge of my tongue because I had issues.
I wiped my hands on the towel again. “I’ll go get that coolant for you,” I muttered.
It wasn’t until I got inside I realized how bad my heart was racing. This guy, he was acting different. Pushy, almost in a way I didn’t expect from him. And yet, his voice said he cared.
I didn’t like that either. He didn’t know me enough to care about me or my motivations.
My hands shook and it took a moment while I dug through our back closet to find the coolant. I saw Chaz use it once for the dishwasher’s car, that was how I knew we had it.
When I came back out, shakes and heart rate under control, Mr. Valentine was pacing in front of his SUV.
“I didn’t mean to offend. Or judge. That isn’t my place.”
“No worries.” I was getting used to it. Months of living in a halfway house when I first got out meant whenever I stepped foot onto the bus near it, I got lots of looks.
I poured the bottle into the uncapped tube and when it was done, closed everything up.
The hood slammed closed before he spoke again and this time, his voice was almost fatherly.
Which made me want to cry again. And that pissed me off.
“My company could use hard workers like you. Motivated. Smart. Dedicated. I see you working here, wondering why you’re the only one putting in so much effort. It’s a good quality. Admirable.”
It’d been so long since I’d had a compliment given, I forgot how to express myself. Thank you were probably the appropriate words, but they stuck in my throat.
“If you want, I can get you a job.”
“No thanks.” Odd, how I had no trouble using the words to brush him off. “I can take care of myself.”
More than being capable, it was my driving force. Somewhere inside me, I still had that burning desire to make my parents proud. It didn’t matter they wanted nothing to do with me. Someday, if I ever got to see them again, I wanted to show them what I did without their help or money or support. I wanted them to know I’d made something of myself, by myself.
Besides, I didn’t know what Mr. Valentine did, but I wouldn’t take an offer from a stranger. They rarely came without strings.
“I should get back to work. You’ll be good, but get your car in as soon as you can.”
“Will do.” His hand slid out of his pocket. A white card was in between his fingers. Something green beneath. “Take this. You ever need anything, want that job, or at least a chance at it, call me. My company isn’t the largest, but we’re successful. Pays well. Best benefits I can manage.”
I took the card because of the green beneath. I didn’t help him with his car for a tip, but I was no fool. It’d make him feel better, help put food on my table, money for the bus and laundry. Maybe I could splurge on Chipotle, a luxury in my life, if he was feeling really generous.
“Take care, Mr. Valentine.”
He grinned. A wide smile with perfectly white straight teeth. “It’s David.”
Not gonna happen.
He was a customer. He wasn’t my friend. We’d never be on equal footing.
I went back to the diner, went back to work, studying during breaks which I had a lot of because it was a slow night.
And when I got home that night, I dug through my tips, chucked the white business card into my garbage can and unfolded the cash from him.
To find three crisp, one-hundred-dollar bills.
3
Hudson
My office overlooked the Des Moines River with a full view of the glass-bottom pedestrian bridge. The office next to mine was held by my father. I grew up here. Watched it changed from an old, small city in a mainly farming state to a thriving, booming area with all the perks of a large city with the smaller size and family feel. Over the last fifteen years, we’d help build bandshell parks and stadiums, invested in new downtown condos to help stem the brain-drain—college graduates who left Iowa for larger cities like Chicago or Minneapolis. We built outdoor skating rinks, larger parks in the downtown area for growing families. We invested in real estate from condos to row homes to single-family homes and modernizing old buildings to turn them into lofts.
Our efforts worked. Now college graduates from other states were moving to Des Moines due to the lower cost of living and variety of offerings for their new lives. Our population continued to grow.
Our small empire was thriving.
My dad was a king of a small community, and I, its prince.
My current focus was just west of downtown, an area loved for its natural lifestyle and walkability footprint. Centuries-old homes, long ago turned into apartments, were crumbling and those who could afford to do so were hightailing it out of there, leaving those left worse off with higher crime rates and fewer jobs as mom-and-pop stores closed up their doors either due to poor business, or higher break-ins and thefts.
Des Moines might be a smaller city, but it faced all the issues of larger ones, at a comparable scale.
I was desperate to fix it. To give everyone who lived there an equal beginning and the same chance at creating a safe home for their children and themselves and the ability to work at something they took pride in. Granted, I couldn’t fix people or their internal motivations, but I could give them something beautiful and affordable to desire, perhaps sparking a new goal in them.
I was scouring over the final proposal plans, analyzing a row of homes near dilapidation status we would soon raze and then rebuild when my dad walked in.
He didn’t bother knocking, but I didn’t expect him to. And when I did expect it, years ago, he didn’t do it then anyway, so I quit. Now, I showed up early in the mornings, grabbed my coffee and got to work, leaving my door open until we had our morning catch-up.
He was more tired than usual and while I could brush it off, irritation made my jaw tight. My eyes hardened.
“You saw her.” I didn’t have to ask. He never slept well on those nights, and it wasn’t due to the sugar in the damn pie.
He didn’t confirm or deny, just came in and slumped into the chair across from my desk. One elbow went to the armrest, his chin fell into his palm. “What’s this?”
He reached for the papers in front of me, and I brushed his hand away. “Did you talk to her this time?”
“Of course I talked to her.”
“About anything more than her schooling?”
An ex-con going to community college to get a degree so she could be an office administration assistant. I already knew she was too smart for that, even if I hated how I knew it.
“Gave her your card. Told her we’d love to help her find a job.”
“My card? What the hell, Dad?” This was his gig. His sudden new drive and while I understood it, it wasn’t my thing. I was all for giving people second chances and it wasn’t because she went to prison. Hell, it wasn’t even because she pled guilty to killing someone.
It was everything else about her that ate away at my generally large amount of compassion and kindness and grace.
This woman would bring trouble into our lives, a lot of it. She’d bring pain and heartache and suffering, and my dad had been through enough in the last ten years.
Dad rolled his eyes behind his recently purchased glasses. He hated wearing them. That he did so early in the morning told me how tired he was.
With a heavy sigh, he frowned. “She said no.”
“Then leave her alone.” Because why… why in the hell couldn’t he leave her alone? We owed her nothing. We didn’t even know her. Hell, he’d already helped enough.
“She needs this.”
My dad was a bleeding heart. I admired the hell out of him for it. I admired the hell out of the way I grew up. There were usually so many damn kids in and out of our house, my sister and I were sometimes forced to room together. And we never cared. New friends all the time. A lot of enemies too, frankly, because not everyone who came through our doors left a better person. Som
e left just as angry, hating life and being as terrified as they’d been when they walked in our doors, regardless of how much Mom and Dad loved on them.
Helping people was what the Valentines did. And hell, my dad did it so much, he started being nicknamed Saint Valentine by the local press back when I was a kid.
He wasn’t a saint. He was a man who wanted to help people because he came from poor circumstances and had vowed to do what he could to make other people’s lives easier.
He was a good man. The best kind of man.
Sitting across from me, he looked worn and weary. And that pissed me off. Everything he was doing, it was wearing him down, and I’d already seen it happen with someone else. The last thing I needed was it happening to him.
I loved the man, but he was as hardheaded as they came. Mom used to say his skull was built from a construction worker’s helmet.
“Not all who wander are lost, remember?”
He shook his head, refused to see it. Maybe she had her own plan figured out. So she got some minor help along the way. She was smart enough to get to where she wanted to go.
“This girl isn’t wandering, she’s dead. Don’t you see it?”
I saw it. I saw it every time he talked about her and in every photo he’d shown me. I saw the hardness in the press of her jaw and the tightness in her eyes. I saw pain and the complete lack of life in her expression whenever he’d snap a photo when she was staring off into nowhere.
She’d probably call the cops. Have him arrested for stalking if she knew what we did.
But more than her pain, I saw the damage it did to my dad to see her, driving twenty miles out of his way, late at night, because she’d become an obsession. All due to a promise made years ago.
“She fixed my LX last night.”
That had me sitting up. “Excuse me?”
“Made some weird sounds on the way. Temp thing didn’t seem right. Whatever, I didn’t know anything. Mentioned something to her and she didn’t hesitate. Just went right outside, checked it out, and fixed it.”
“Jesus, Dad. Why didn’t you stop somewhere safer?” Her diner was perched between two strip clubs, a truck stop, and a hotel that rented rooms by the hour. Which was only part of the reason why my dad wanted to give her a job. It wasn’t safe for anyone, especially not someone who strolled up in a six-figure car. Or the girl who couldn’t hide she was beautiful enough to win pageants, even if she covered herself in heavy makeup and an ugly uniform. “Where is it now?”
“At the dealership. Called Floyd. He had me bring it in and gave me a rental. I’ll get it back tonight.”
Relief pushed out a heavy breath through my lungs and I sat back, just in time to jolt forward again as my dad said, “I want you to go talk to her.”
“No way in hell.” My arms strained from the pressure I put on them, bracing them flat on my desk. “I told you I wouldn’t do that. You get her working here, I’ll treat her with all the respect she deserves, but you want this. Not me.”
“Melissa wanted it.”
“God, I hate it when you use her against me.” I swiped a hand through my hair and then pushed it to the side, scowling at my dad.
Stubborn as a mule.
“If she said no, what good would it do?”
“You’re younger and handsome. Maybe she’d trust you more than a man who might remind her of her father.”
“So I pretend, what—to be her brother?” Because the very idea had my stomach rolling. When I looked at her photos there was nothing brotherly I felt about her.
Exactly why I was not the guy for this.
“No, not him. You know siblings can’t be replaced.”
I had never wanted to punch anyone more in that moment than I wanted to knock my dad out. It was such a visceral reaction, so overwhelming, so normal when it came to Melissa being brought up, I shoved away from my desk and went to the windows. The sun was shining on the water, there were dozens of pedestrians walking and biking across the river’s glass-bottom bridge. Many looked to be getting exercise. Most looked to be headed to work. A few medical professionals in scrubs walked along, sipping coffee, weary and haggard looking from the messy hair and dropped shoulders, as if just getting off the night shift.
“Hudson.”
I put my back to the window and crossed my arms. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
He grinned at me from his spot in the chair, still sprawled like he didn’t have a damn thing to do that day. “Yep. Your mom used to tell me that all the time.”
“Liar. She called you a dick.”
“I was that too sometimes. Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“Can’t you find something better to do, like hanging at the country club all day?”
“Course is closing soon for the winter.”
“Then go find a vacation home in Arizona for the winter.”
“Hate the dry heat.”
“Dad—” He was impossible.
“Go talk to her. If you can walk away from her then I won’t ask you again.”
He stood from the chair, pushing off both armrests and groaning as he did. Probably faking his knee and joint pain to get sympathy.
It worked. When it came to my dad or my family, I was the ultimate sucker. “One visit.”
“And you have to be nice.”
“Goddamn you.” I pushed off the windows to walk toward him.
He met me halfway and slapped his hand behind my neck, pulling our heads together. He was an inch shorter than me, thinner, but we still had the same facial features, the same eyes. Looking at my dad was seeing myself in thirty years.
“You’ll see. And I won’t even tell you I told you so.”
“Yes, you will.”
His lips twitched, fighting a grin. “Love you, Hudson, you’re the best damn son I’ve ever met.”
He let me go then, headed out of my office and closed the door on his way out.
He left me reeling.
Irritated. Emotional. Sad. Grateful.
Because I’d had him as a dad, and there were millions of people who couldn’t say that and be proud of it. Like her.
“Shit,” I grumbled and scrubbed my face with my palms.
I’d go see her.
I’d even try to be nice about it.
4
Lilly
I took all my classes for my second year at community college on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It gave me the weekends and a couple nights during the week to work at Judith’s and still find the time to study and remain caught up on sleep. It also meant I spent all day on campus surrounded mostly by recent high school graduates who reminded me of who I used to be and who I could have been.
It was a slow-drip kind of torture. The consistent reminder of who I’d never be again slapped me in the face every time I passed a gathering of friends.
Classes were long. Some more difficult than others. The days dragged on while I listened to eighteen and nineteen-year-old girls without seemingly any problems in the world giggle about boys in other classes, parties on the weekend, whining about parents they still lived with being overprotective and still requiring curfews.
It was difficult some days not to shake those girls. To tell them they should feel lucky they had parents who gave a shit about them and didn’t throw them to the wolves. They had moms who still cooked them dinners and made them their favorite desserts.
They didn’t have parents who moved after sending their daughter to prison and then didn’t bother sending a forwarding address so the mail was returned undeliverable.
Given the age gap and the complete differences in life, it wasn’t easy to make friends at school, not that I was really looking, but someone to eat lunch with occasionally wouldn’t have sucked. Word got out fast and spread even faster regarding my status on campus. It took one absent-minded professor to say my name during my Basic Finance class with a furrowed brow. He mumbled something about the prison program loud enough a couple of guys in the front row heard.
Everyone turned, spotted my cheeks burning and my quickly learned resting bitch face in place to give me away.
After that, I could hardly find anyone willing to do group projects with me. A few times I’d asked teachers if I could do them by myself. They’d agreed—possibly afraid to let me around the youth of America, than to attempt to get to know what happened.
I was an idiot. That’s what happened. I trusted those who should have been the most trustworthy and they screwed me over. Big time.
At least the school had a cafeteria though and seriously decent food. Although in honesty, food inside wasn’t all that horrific. Better than what I’d expected, but definitely not going to win any Michelin Stars. And while the cafeteria wasn’t going to win any awards either it was pretty damn tasty. Better seasoned. Juicier meat on my cheeseburger I was currently chewing on while groaning and griping over my accounting work.
This class was going to kill my GPA.
Not like it matters. What respectable company is going to hire an ex-con who can’t drive for three more years?
Movement across the table from me grabbed my attention right as a pale pink and black checked backpack slid onto the tabletop.
“Hey. Mind if I sit here?”
For a moment, I was stunned. No one had spoken to me on purpose in weeks. And certainly, no one ever sat with me. Still, I kept my head down on my computer. Minding my own business was always safer.
“Go for it.” I was occupying a table for eight. There was plenty of room.
“Um. My name’s Angie. You’re Lilly, right? I think we have accounting together?”
I eyed her through my lashes while she spoke and ran her hands together. She was effortlessly pretty with dark brown skin and large brown eyes. Her makeup looked like she was ready for a night out with friends, not school, and her braids hung well past her breasts.
I knew who she was. I made it a point to sit in the back row in all my classes. Habit formed from the last few years.
I knew she spoke quietly, if she spoke at all. She was pretty quiet unless she was with a group of four guys she sometimes hung around with and then she mostly stood back with a frustrated look on her face.