The more I think about it, the angrier I get.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat and tell him, “It’s good to be home, I just … need a moment to get reacquainted I guess.”
I took the fall for the raid, and they’ve been careful since then. It makes me bitter to think about it. If Kat’s dad hadn’t fucked around the way he did four years ago, I wouldn’t have lost her, I wouldn’t have gone away and I would have been here when my pops’s health started going south.
Leaning back, I settle on something that brings a smile to both of us. “I’m looking forward to working on my bike,” I say.
“Working on her?” He grins and says, “I fixed her up so she’s practically brand new.”
I chuckle, nodding my gratitude.
My mind wanders to Kat. Thinking she’s all sorts of new to me too.
New and apparently off-limits. Or so she thinks.
Even if I can’t touch her, I want to be in that house. Wanting that soft bed with her scent on it. In prison I had to sit with all these feelings. There was literally nothing else to do. I could try to jog them out in the exercise yard, but I was in my cell most of the day. You learn to deal with the waves of rage. Some guys do, anyway. Other guys go crazy in there. Who knows? Maybe I was one of them.
Reed eventually does some work on the computer. He makes a few calls. His uncle comes in and the three of us have a conversation that feels like it goes on forever, but only lasts about fifteen minutes. I’m getting back to life in the club. This is life in the club.
The garage is where I lose most of my time, remembering what could have been.
Working with metal and surrounded by the nostalgic smell of oil, the feel of labor bringing a burn to my muscles forces the time to tick by. For the first time since I’ve been out, there’s a moment of peace and ease. And naturally … my mind wanders back to her.
It always comes back to her.
It’s not until I climb into Reed’s truck, and he gets in behind the wheel that he brings her up. “You two …? What’s going on there?”
“I haven’t spoken to her in a year,” I tell him. He’s busy nodding his head while I admit, “But I want her back. I want us back.”
I keep my last thought unspoken as he turns over the engine: I need her back. If I have her, everything else will be right again. I fucking know it will.
I’ll make it right. I’ll make her love me again.
Kat
Lydia leans against my kitchen counter and looks out the window into the yard. Her takeout container is open on the countertop next to her and she pokes her fork into it, then scoops out another minuscule bite. “I’m going to miss this.”
“This restaurant is only good about half the time,” I joke, downplaying her somber mood.
“I’m going to miss you, Kat.”
She rolls her eyes at me and laughs, but I know the emotion behind her words is real. Realer than most things in my life, anyway. Some things turned out to be cruel jokes and I didn’t know until after the fact. C’est la vie, I suppose.
“I’m happy for her. I truly am.” I snag a wonton and add, “But I’m going to miss you like crazy.” I can’t even look her in the eye as I say it. Just in case some part of me decides to get weepy.
I know how much she’s wanted to go to college and how excited she is to start her new life. Part of me actually considered leaving to stay with her, at her suggestion a few months back when she got her acceptance letter in the spring. But … I don’t think my life is anything to dismiss, either. My job at the flower shop is a good one, I love it even. I have a kind boss and reasonable hours and I enjoy putting the orders together. It’s meaningful, what I do, even if it is small. It’s just not college. Lydia going off to college feels like another world away.
In reality, it’s only a two-hour ride on the train. I know which ticket to buy to visit her and how long it’ll take to get there. I even know some of the places we can check out when I visit. We mapped it all out over a bottle of wine when we checked out the campus together. In all honesty, I’ve never been so thrilled for her. Lydia’s eyes were so bright when she took in the buildings.
With my fork halfway in the air, I cock a brow and ask with a smirk, “You sure you have to leave me all alone down here?”