Hard Time (22 page)

It’s late, and I need to get to sleep soon. Lucky I’ve got you to think about. After I send this I’m going to get into my sheets and fist myself, imagine it’s you touching me. Imagine you’re on top of me, maybe. Picture your naked body, and the way you look in the light of my reading lamp. Now that I know for real. I’ll say your name when I come, then drop off to sleep and dream about you. If I dream at all. Sometimes you send me to sleep so satisfied, it’s like my brain goes totally blank. Like a cloudless day. You probably don’t know how that feels to a man who spent five years caged in with so much light and noise and anger. To feel that peaceful and cleaned out. But you make me feel it, just from thinking about you.

Hope you sleep well, maybe even dream about me. Miss you already.

Yours,

Eric

I set my phone on the ledge and sank deep into the hot, jittery water, submerging all but my nose and mouth. The world became a garbled, echoing rush, like the physical chaos of an orgasm made audio. I wished Eric were here with me so badly, it hurt. His big body in this tub, talented fingertips turning pruny from spoiling me, below the surface.

I let my own fingertips play his part, and when I came the world was all warm water churning around me, thoughts of Eric’s warm body rushing in and out of mine.

When I rose from the tub on wobbly legs, I realized I’d not so much as sipped my wine.

With that man in my blood, no drink in the world stood a chance at getting me even half as high.

My flight into Detroit arrived early—but Eric was earlier. I spotted him by the baggage claim just as I was pulling out my phone to text him.

Like my childhood home feeling strangely small after all those months away, Eric felt extra big as his arms wrapped around me. Solid and warm and awesome. I was smiling so broadly as we stepped apart, I had to bite my lip.

“Hi,” I said, feeling pleasantly shy.

“Welcome home.”

Was that where I was? Home? Or was home the place I’d just come from? All I knew was that no matter how ill-fitting Michigan sometimes felt, this man was so damn right.

As we wandered close to the conveyer belt, I said, “Thanks for coming all this way. Saved me loads on parking.”

“Best two hours I’ve spent lately.”

I spied my bag coming around on the carousel. I yanked it off, but Eric took it from me before I could even retract the handle. He carried it by the strap like it weighed nothing.

The cold hit me hard as the sliding doors parted and we hurried to the short-term lot. He let me in first then stowed my bag behind the seat. I rubbed my arms against the chill, remembering it wasn’t about to get any warmer in this truck.

“That’s what I should’ve gotten you for Christmas,” I said as he buckled up and started the engine.

“What’s that?”

“I should have paid to get your heater fixed.”

The dash lit up with the headlights, illuminating his smile. “What I need’s a new goddamn truck. All the stuff that’s screaming to be replaced in this thing . . . Even doing what I can myself, it’d be cheaper to buy a new ride. Well, new to me. Something used, but decent. But not ’til my fines are paid off.”

Even if I could afford to front him the money—which I couldn’t—he never would have accepted it, so I didn’t bother voicing my desire to do so. Instead I asked, “What’d I miss in Darren?”

“Whole lot of the same old nothing. Plus a big drug bust over on Chestnut, the day before Christmas. Oxy racket, the news said, down near the south end of the old plant. Cousins’ll be getting some new recruits soon enough.”

“Yuck. Glad they’re off the streets, anyhow.”

He didn’t reply, and I realized what I’d said.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean that about criminals in general. About what you did. That the more men who get locked up, the better, or—”

“Didn’t think you did. Plus I’ve never once claimed I didn’t deserve the time I did.”

“Okay. Good, I guess. Drugs are different, anyhow. They hurt vulnerable people. Doesn’t sound like the guy you hurt was much of a victim.”

“Nope.” He said it curtly, but without angst.

“He was on drugs, you said?”

“Amphetamines. Not that he was some innocent, the way he got swept up in it.”

My stomach curdled a little as I remembered Eric owed me some answers. “So. What was that call on Christmas night about, the one that interrupted our fun? Family stuff?”

“Yeah,” he said through a sigh. “Yeah, family shit.”

“Who called?”

“My sister.”

“And is everything okay, or . . . ?”

A long pause, his eyes locked on the road, unblinking.

“Eric?”

“I dunno, Annie. I don’t know if everything’s gonna be okay or not.”

I felt chilly all at once, and tugged my hat down over my ears. “How come? What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing you need to get worried about.”

“If it’s something that’s upsetting you, then yeah, it is. Tell me.”

He shifted in his seat like a weary old man, and when he spoke, his voice was fifty pounds heavier. “He’s getting paroled. The guy who assaulted my sister.”

My body went cold. Colder than the air in the cab. Colder than the wind rushing by on the highway. “Oh. When?”

“Second week of January.”

“And . . . ?”

He met my eyes for a split second. “And I dunno. Don’t know if he’s planning on coming back to town—to Kernsville. Don’t know if he’s got anything to say to me or her. If he’s been well-behaved enough to get released, maybe he’s okay. But then who knows if his attitude might just change if he gets back on the crank. I got a whole lot of questions, and no answers.”

“Is your sister freaked out?”

“Oh yeah. But I’ll tell it to you like I did to her—there’s no guarantee this asshole wants anything to do with any of us anymore. Hardly any of the shitheads he used to hang with back home are still around, and he pissed just about everybody else off, one way or another. It’s bad news, but there’s not much good in worrying about the worst-case scenarios.”

“Are you going to do anything? Like, go home to Kernsville when he’s let out, just in case?”

“I imagine so. He’s out on a Tuesday. I’ll probably see what days I can trade around to try to go over there the next weekend.”

“Are you allowed to even be around him, after what you did to get convicted?”

A soft huff of a laugh. “Course not.”

My dread warmed over, heating to become anger. “You can’t go, then. You can’t violate your parole over this guy.”

“My sister asks me to, then yeah, I will, Annie.” Another glance. “I’m sorry.”

“If your sister asks you to, that’s pretty fucking selfish of her. Plus that must be a part of
his
parole—not going near your sister.”

Eric shook his head. “He got put away for drug offenses. My sister never reported her attack.”

“What?”

“Her business is her business. That’s how she thinks of it.”

“Jesus.”

A long, long pause. He blinked at the slice of highway illuminated by the headlights. His nostrils flared. “I can’t get into this with you. But my family’s safety is more important to me than my own skin. So’s yours, for that matter. You can argue with me all you want, but you’re not going to change my mind.”

I hissed a sigh, a kettle spewing steam. “If you ever did this for me—risked your neck or your future like this—I’d leave you. I’d
never
ask you to make that choice. And I’d be pissed to hell if you made it against my wishes.”

“And I’d rather live without you than let somebody hurt you. There’s fundamental differences in the way you and I see things, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart.
He’d called me that before, but this time there was the slightest patronizing edge to it. The sound of him digging in his heels. Dismissing my point of view. I didn’t know what to say, so I just twisted the end of my scarf in my lap, felt the sting of my knuckles going white.

After what felt like an hour, he asked softly, “You gonna leave me if I go home the week after next?”

The world went very quiet and still, my body following suit.

“Annie?”

The question hadn’t even gelled in my mind, but it was a good one. A
terrifying
one. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t make me choose between my sister and you. It’s not fair. There’s no right answer in that.”

“I don’t want you to choose me—I want you to choose
you
. And what’s best for you. Why don’t you . . . Why don’t you invite your sister to Darren, that week? And get somebody back in your hometown to tell you if the guy shows up or whatever?”

“She won’t come.”

I got so mad then, I could just about scream through my teeth. I was really beginning to hate his sister. Like,
hate
her. “Then she’s being selfish.”

“Probably.”

“I want to talk to her,” I said, though in truth the idea scared me shitless. I wanted to punch her, too, but in reality there was no way I was probably ever doing either.

“Not happening,” he concurred. “Anyhow, she won’t listen to whatever you have to say. My sister doesn’t listen to anybody. Not even me.”

“She can’t really care about you, if she’s willing to put your fucking freedom at risk over this.”

“Nobody cares about me as much as my sister does,” he said, tone stiff.

“I beg to differ.” I wanted to think
I
cared more about him, but I couldn’t make this into some unwinnable, petty contest. Instead I said, “That’s not what family does to each other.”

“Keeping each other safe is what my family does. I failed at that six years ago. No way I’m taking that chance again.”

“She’s not returning the favor, Eric. If you get arrested for a parole violation, or worse . . . What good are you to her then?”

“Annie, we’re getting this blown way out of proportion. I’m just going over there to see my family. The fact that I’m not risking my job—ditching shifts to run over there the second he’s released—should be proof I’ve gotten some better boundaries since before I got locked up.”

I sighed, fuming.

“Chances are good this guy won’t want anything to do with us. He’s a coward. He’s not after another beat-down from me, and my sister didn’t press charges, so he’s got nothing to take revenge on her for. Somebody else got him locked away. It’s all just a precaution, okay? I’m not an idiot. I’m not going to be doing anything rough unless I absolutely have to.”

“Fuck . . .”

“Listen, sweetheart. I love you. But you don’t know me as well as you want to think you do.”

My mouth dropped open and I stared at him, feeling slapped. He caught it.

“Sorry. I don’t mean that you don’t know me at all, but this stuff . . . You don’t understand me, I can tell. Or what all this means to me.”

“No. I don’t.”
Because it’s insane.

“I wish you’d just trust me. And the decisions I make.”

“I wish you understood how ridiculous this is, that you’re even
considering
going home.”

He didn’t reply, a tendon along his jaw tensing in the glow of the dash.

I turned away, attention on the distant lights. Christ, this was going to be a long-ass drive.

* * *

When we finally made it to the outskirts of Darren, I had no clue to what to expect from our good-night. Would I just say thank you for the ride, and that would be that? Were we still . . . good?

It was killing me, not knowing. Killing me how quickly we’d gone from warm embrace to cold shoulder. After everything we’d weathered since he’d gotten out, and how close we’d gotten this past week and a half, I’d thought we were rock solid, but now . . . Now I couldn’t feel anything from Eric. Like our frequency had gone dead, a wire snipped by my near ultimatum. It hurt as much as a fist around my heart.

“What’s going to happen when we get to my place?” I asked, the first words to fall between us in an hour or more.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you just going to drop me off or . . . ?”

“What do you want me to do?”

Christ, always with the
what-did-I-want
. “What do
you
want?” I countered. Much as I’d once needed his deference, right now I was sick to goddamn death of it.

“I want what you want,” he said, sounding tired but stubborn, and inside I screamed.

We reached my block and he parked up in front of the bar. He switched off the engine and met my eyes in the streetlight and neon. “I don’t want to go without us knowing where we stand with all this. Whether that means we sit in here, freezing our asses off all night, or if you invite me up.”

“Come up.”

He seemed surprised by my decisiveness. “Okay, then.”

We slammed our doors. He carried my bag and I got us into the foyer, no words exchanged until we were inside the apartment.

“Something to drink?” I asked.

“Nah. Thanks.” His gaze was moving around the living room—nervous, I thought. Fearful. Like maybe he wondered if this was the last time he’d be invited here.

“I hate this,” I admitted. “Are we having a fight?”

“Nobody’s shouted yet.”

I took off my coat, slung it over the back of the couch then sank onto a cushion with a frustrated sigh. I let my head fall into my hands. Let this man see how I felt. How he made me feel.

He said, “I dunno what to tell you.” I sensed his shadow as he sat on the coffee table. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t planning to go back that weekend. And I won’t lie to you, not ever again. Not after I almost lost you, being too chickenshit to tell you I was getting out.”

“It’s not about lying or not lying.” I raised my head to meet his eyes. “It’s about . . . priorities, I guess.”

“I love you,” he said quietly. “I hope you believe that. But I love my family, too, and I’m going to be there when they need me. When they
ask
me. You can’t make me choose. You don’t have to like it, but you
can’t
make me choose. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you what you want to hear from me right now.”

I shook my head, frustrated to the bone. “No, I guess not.”

“You gonna break up with me?”

I rubbed the spot over my heart. “Jesus, Eric.”

His voice got real quiet. “I hope you won’t. I won’t lie to try to keep you with me, and I won’t set my family aside for it, either. But I don’t want to lose you, believe me.” He reached down and took one of my hands in both of his, squeezing my fingers with his big ones. “It’d rip me apart.”

“I feel like I don’t get a say.”

He smiled sadly. “It’s not your problem, or your family. So no, you don’t.”

“But you’re my . . .
Are
you my boyfriend?”

“I am if you want me to be. But no, you still don’t get a say. The last thing I want is for you to get tangled up in all this bull.”

I dropped my head again, groaned, and let him hear exactly how bad I wanted to strangle him at that moment.

“Sorry,” he said softly.

“I’m really,
really
annoyed with you.”

“I know. I’m pretty annoyed with you.”

This wasn’t getting sorted out tonight, that much was clear. I was thinking in circles, trudging around and around this stubborn rock of a man, getting no place. “Can we just hit Pause on this for now? Until after New Year’s?”

“Sure. Just don’t get your hopes up that I’ll change my mind by then.”

I stared at him, long and hard. “You’d hurt my ex, if I asked you to.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I would.”

“Why won’t you just
not
hurt this other asshole, if I asked you? What’s the difference, if both things matter so much to me?”

“Because this asshole didn’t hurt you. He hurt Kristina.”