Hard Time (Hard as Nails #1) (18 page)

“I’m not lying,” I lie again. It’s a lying game in a lying world, and I’m totally fucking losing the game. But that’s Katie, you know. Somehow, she always has the upper hand when it comes to me.

“Whatever. But I get it,” she says with a shrug. “People walk back into our lives all the time.”

“Yeah.”

She reaches her arms around the back of my neck and clasps her hands together. The way she holds onto me makes my heart rate speed up—I’m turning into such a woman. She plants a quick kiss on my lips.

I immediately pull her in for another, which she wholeheartedly returns, but only for a few seconds before she pulls back.

“So I think you should come to my place for dinner.”

“Your place?” I furrow my brow and take a step back.

She’s smiling bright, excitement sparkling in her eyes, and I realize this is the moment I’ve been waiting for.

She’s inviting me into her world.

She’s ready for me to meet her daughter.

I’m thrilled.

But there’s also a part of me that’s fucking terrified. Not for myself, but for Katie and her daughter. There’s a part of me that wants to tell her not to do it. Not to endanger her daughter by inviting me into their lives.

I know where it stems from. The look of betrayal I can still see on Trevor’s face. His implication that my other friends were somehow drawn into my shit. The knowledge that I’ve been fooling myself. That I’ll never be anything more than an ex-con.

“Street, did you hear me? I think you should meet Riley.”

“Are you sure?” It’s all I can manage to get out, but even as I ask the question, I shake my head. Is this really happening? Is she inviting me to meet her family? Because if she is, that means she’s accepted all of me, and there’s a part of me that just can’t believe it. “Are you sure you’re not going to go home and change your mind?”

She salutes me with her hand against her forehead. “Scouts honor. I trust you completely, Street. You’re a good man.”

That’s what does it. Those words hit me in the gut like a freight train going too fast and rapidly approaching a sharp curve.

I take several steps away from her.

Am I a good person?
After all, I just turned away Trevor, the person who’s stuck by my side since I was eight years old. He needed my help, or thought he needed my help. Either way, the point is that I turned him away.

Suddenly, I’m suffocating under the weight of my past. My fuck-ups in foster care. The crimes I committed while at Thornbridge Orphanage and how I’d landed in prison in the first place.

“Street?” Katie waves her hands in front of me. “Are you there?”

I’m torn between a million different emotions. I want to tell her yes, but I also want to run. My gut is telling me there is no way this will end well.

“No,” I say dryly. My lips have become chapped in an instant, and I do my best to wet them so I can continue to speak. “No dinner.”

“What?”

“What is this?”

She presses her palm against my chest again. “You’re scaring me.”

“Good,” I spit and push her hand away. “You should be afraid of me.”

“No. I shouldn’t.” She’s trying to process my reaction, but that’s an impossible task. I know this, because not even I can make sense of it. “You’re joking, right?”

“This…” I throw my hands out to her, drawing an imaginary line between us. “This is a joke. It’s always been a joke. It’s all it will ever be.”

“I don’t understand.”

I laugh and run my fingers through my hair. I’m already frustrated with myself, and I become even more frustrated trying to make sense of whatever the hell it is that I’m feeling. “We’ve been fooling ourselves.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Am I? What do you think? That I’m going to meet your daughter and we’re going to be some kind of perfect American family? No. I mean, we’re good together. You’re a fantastic fuck…”

She moves away from me quickly, and I tamp down the immediate urge to pull her back. No. I have to let her go. I was stupid to believe we could ever work. I’ve been blinded by my obsession for her, but this is where I draw the line. If I cross this line—if I meet her sister and her daughter—I’ll fall even more in love with her.

Where will that leave me?

I’ll do something to fuck it all up and she’ll leave. Even if that’s not true, she’ll graduate, and because of her degree, she’ll find a nice job that can pay all the bills and give her everything she’s ever wanted. She’ll move out of that trailer park and into a nice house. And then over time, she’ll eventually see me as the shackles continuing to hold her down.

Then
she’ll leave.

Either that, or she won’t leave, and she’ll stay because that’s what she does. Stays with guys who are bad for her for far too long.

I can’t be the reason she’s locked up. I can’t be the reason she’s stuck in place, when she should be shining and shooting for the stars. She’ll resent me, and she’ll remember what a fucking loser I am and always have been. She’ll leave me for someone better, someone more worthy.

And I’ll be right back at square fucking one.

The rational part of me knows my mind is out of control, that my fears are overlapping and tangling. But I can’t stop what comes out of my mouth.

“You know what this is? You feel sorry for me because I took a knife to the gut for you. And now you want to repay me by letting me into your home. That’s nice, Katie, but it’s not necessary.”

“You know it’s not like that.” She swallows a lump in her throat and takes a measured step toward me, but I stumble backward. I can’t allow her any closer. I’ve made up my mind, and this is the way it has to be.

“Just stop,” she demands. “Just stop running and talk to me.”

“I am talking to you.” I shift past her and reach for the front door of the store. “That’s the problem.”

“So that’s it?” She throws her hands in the air. “You’re just going to leave? After everything we’ve been through? When we’re this close to being
us
?”

I feel the silence at the end of her question in my heartbeat. With each thud, my body tells me to snap out of it. To stop. To let her in and tell her my fears.

To give
us
a chance.

But I can’t.

“Yeah,” I say and swing the door open. “Yeah, that’s it.”

I don’t bother shutting the door, and instead walk down the empty city streets in the pouring rain.

* * *

Hours later, I’m still walking aimlessly. I can’t wipe her face from my mind. She stood there in that shop, holding it all together while I threw everything in the trash. I’m a royal fuckup, but that’s not much of a surprise to anyone that’s ever known me.

In my head, I see her break into tears the moment the door shuts behind me. In reality, I’m sure she’s still holding herself together, waiting until she’s alone to try to figure out what went wrong. She won’t be able to put the pieces together though, because I don’t even know why I freaked out so badly.

Yeah, I got scared. But to throw it all away like that makes me the biggest pussy in the universe. Now there’s a burning hole in my chest and I need to be alone. That’s the only way I’m going to figure this shit out. But there’s one thing I know: I fucked up. Big time.

We’re broken, we can’t be fixed, and that’s on me and only me. That’s the part that stings the most—almost as much as the stiches in my gut that burn with each step I take.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Street

I’m not ready. I told myself I was, but I’m not.

Doesn’t matter. Once Trevor planted the seed that my friends had sacrificed themselves for me, I had to call a meet.

Now I stand in front of Nailed Garage.

The bay doors are up. The radio on one of the workbenches in the back still cranks out classic rock. I’m wearing my old leather vest—my
cut
, as we used to call it—with an old white t-shirt, tired blue jeans, and my old motorcycle boots.

For a moment, I envision the five of us: me, Axel, Slate, Jericho, and Davis, dressed the same way. I picture us not as we’d been three years ago, just before I went to prison, but five years before that, when the garage first opened.

“Street.”

I look up and see Jericho walking toward me. His hair is a mess of dark waves hanging down to his shoulders. He’s wearing his cut, too. Like mine, it sports the Thornbridge patch worn by the original members of Nailed MC. The patch represents the hard times, the shit we’d seen and done. It’s meant to remind us where we came from, and where we never want to be again.

Only if Trevor is right, my friend
are
back there. Because of me.

For a few seconds, Jericho and I stare at each other. The air is fraught with tension. Awkwardness. Even anger. Me, because of what Trevor told me. Jericho, because I’d cut him and the others out of my life. We’d been tight before prison. We’d been the definition of brothers despite not sharing the same blood. But after I’d gone away, I hadn’t deserved that. Hadn’t wanted to drag them down with me.

I’d done what I had to. Even so, I know Jericho views it as a betrayal of sorts.

When he still doesn’t move or say anything, I sigh. “Look—”

Before I can complete my thought, he strides up to me and hugs me with his strong, muscular arms. “I’m still pissed at the shit you pulled. But it’s good to see you, Brother.”

I hesitate briefly, caught off guard by feelings of relief and homecoming, before I squeeze him back. Then I grab his shoulder and hold him at arm’s length. “Jesus, you’re huge.” Jericho had always been fit, but now his shoulders are wide with muscles. His arms ripple with strength. The black t-shirt he wears under his cut hugs his defined chest and stomach.

He smiles behind the stubble on his face. “I’ve been working out.”

Working out? Right. Jericho isn’t a gym rat. Years of running Nailed Garage by himself, on the other hand, has obviously done him well.

“The place looks good.” I nod to the building.

“Yeah, we keep it clean.” He pats me on the back and walks me into the shop.

It looks the same. The floor is nearly spotless. The wall still sports logos of the manufacturers and parts companies we’d scored contracts with when we opened the place. The back wall is still lined with workbenches and toolboxes. There are a few more toolboxes out on the floor than I remember, and he obviously has plenty of people working for him now.

I suck in a breath when I see my bike parked in the corner. I stride up to it, running my fingers across the seat. It’s a custom chopper, a T-5 Blackie by Zero Engineering with everything blacked out and taller bars. It looks bad ass and is a sweet ride, and I fight the urge to hop on and take it for a spin.

Again, not why I’m here.

“You’ve kept it in great shape,” I say, my voice harsh with the emotion I’m trying to keep in check.

Jericho snorts. “Like I wouldn’t. Knew you’d be back for it one day. I’m hoping it’s today.”

It’s not. “Jericho, I—”

“Street.”

I turn to see Slate and Davis now standing next to Jericho. Slate, a successful defense attorney, is wearing a smooth black suit with his dark hair slicked back. Davis, a wizard with money and computers, is in a bright blue button-down shirt and gray pants, his hair closely cropped with blonde waves.

I’m a little disappointed to see them dressed in their professional attire. They look as far from garage owners or motorcycle riders as one can get, and they’re passing up a perfectly good opportunity to take a walk down memory lane.

I hold out my hand to Slate first, wondering if he’ll leave me hanging.

Instead, he smiles his usual cunning smile and grabs me around the shoulders.

“Family doesn’t shake hands.”

We embrace.

“It’s good to see you,” I say as I pull back.

“Good to see you, Brother,” Davis says with a quick, one-armed embrace, keeping his other hand in his pocket.

I’m not surprised they greet me with ease—of all of us, Jericho has always been the hothead. Axel came in a close second, something he apparently got under control when he joined the Marines six months before I’d been arrested.

“How’s Axel?”

“Up to speed. Doing great. Wishes he could be here. Wants to catch up when he can get some leave.”

I nod, even though I doubt that will happen.

Jericho frowns as if he can read my mind. “Let’s head back to the meeting room,” he says.

We walk through the office to a little hallway that leads to the back room, which is warmly lit with floor lamps in the corners. A long boardroom table sits in the middle of the room with four chairs around it. Pictures of the MC hang on the walls. We’d taken a picture in front of the garage every year that it was open. I see the three on the wall in which I’m absent, and it stings like a motherfucker.

“Beer?” Jericho offers.