Wanted: A Bad Boy Romance (5 page)

“Man, how’d you get home last
night? You were so fucked up.” KJ pushes Kyle, shoving him into the wall with
minimal force. Kyle swings back, his reflexes clearly delayed as a result of
his massive hangover. They remind me of a couple of
bear
cubs rolling around and roughhousing.

“Couldn’t even tell you,” Kyle
moans, adjusting his hat. He motions for a customer to pull a car into bay
number three. The morning sun sears through the glass garage doors, and he rubs
his temples hard.

“You stay out drinking after the
fights?” I grab my drill. The fights ended pretty late, but I didn’t stick
around to babysit fucking Kyle afterward. I had to haul ass to get out of
there, not wanting to be seen covered in blood.

“Always,” KJ
huffs.
“That’s what he does.”

Kyle is quiet.

“So you win last night?” KJ asks,
his eyes trailing down my arms and landing on my bruised knuckles.

“Of course.” I smirk. “What kind
of question is that?”

Kyle walks away, disappearing
into his dad’s office. I’m almost positive he’s going to try to sneak in a
quick nap before Terry arrives.

KJ shakes his head. “He’s going
to get caught one of these days. You know that, right?”

“Caught? Fighting?”

I’m not following.

“Driving like a drunk idiot,” KJ
says. “He’s stupid lucky is what he is.”

I fully knew Kyle Rasmussen was a
smug, entitled pencil dick, but now I want to smash his head into the cinder
block walls of this garage.

Another car pulls up to an empty
bay and honks for service.

But the conversation isn’t over.

Not yet.

For the rest of the day, it’s all
I can think about. Every time I look at that asshole, I want to
fucking
murder him.

There’s a wad of $2,000 cash
stuffed in my sock drawer from the night before. It’s enough to get me settled
in a new apartment and out from under my father’s roof.

I refuse to work here any longer
than I have to, and it’s only a matter of time before I have to
deal
with Kyle Rasmussen…

In my own way.

***

Dinner is silent.

I almost miss the clink and noise
and hustle and bustle of the
prison dining
hall. At
least that experience wasn’t painfully awkward.

I inhale the meatloaf and
macaroni and cheese Laticia has prepared and watch as she flashes me a drunken,
slow smile. Her wine glass was full a moment ago and now it’s almost empty.

The woman likes her wine, that’s
for sure.

Jordana hasn’t said two words to
me all day. Not since last night when she was giving me the Spanish fucking
Inquisition.

“How was your first day at work?”
Laticia asks, though her words slur together into one, long word.

“It’s a job,” I say, shoving a
bite of macaroni noodles onto my fork. “Definitely not a career. Going to look
for something else.”

“Now you’ll keep this job, son.”
My father’s voice booms. “A job is a job. You don’t just walk away because you don’t
like it.”

I lower my fork slowly, gathering
every ounce of calm I can muster. “Never said I was quitting, Pops. Going to
continue looking until I find something I’m better suited for.”

“Think you’re too good to be
changing oil?” He puffs out his chest and fluffs his napkin. The air is thick
with contention tonight. He balls his cool-handed surgeon mitt into a fist.

“Making ten bucks an hour won’t
allow me to return to school.” I finish my food as quickly as possible. The
sooner I’m done, the sooner I can head upstairs for the night and pretend I’m
anywhere but here for a few hours. “Unless, you know, you wanted to help me out
with that.”

Laticia turns to my father,
placing her hand over his. “You’d be surprised to learn how much tuition has
spiked in the last five years.”

“You’re a Blackstone.” He sits up
straight, clearing his throat and ignoring her. “We pull ourselves up by our own
bootstraps. That’s what we do. No sympathy. No favors. No excuses.”

It’s exactly the kind of response
I expected from him.

I shove my empty plate away, the
food filling my belly with a pleasant ache. The only pleasant thing I’ve
experienced in far too long.

“So, since I don’t have wheels
yet, and taking the bus to work is a bit of an inconvenience,” I say, “was
going to ask if I could fix up that old Mustang in the garage? I should be
getting my license renewed this week.”

I’m not sure where it came from,
but I’m betting it was something my father bought on a whim.
Something
to make himself feel better after losing his wife and daughter.
It’s the
color of cobalt with white racing stripes down the front. Chrome wheels.
Flashy, even for my father.

I tried starting it the other day
after I saw the keys in the ignition. The thing sounded like it hadn’t seen the
light of day in years.

Jordana shoots her mother a look
and the room suddenly feels stiff. Laticia’s eyes water, and she brings her
hand over her mouth, fighting tears for a moment before giving up. Her head
hangs.

I’ve just made the only person in
this house who gives half a shit about me upset.

My father shoots me a disgusted
look.

“What?” My brows arch, my gaze
jerking from person to person to person as I try to comprehend what’s going on.

“Please excuse me.” Latisha
throws her napkin across her plate and runs upstairs.

I glance at Jordana, silently
pleading for someone to fucking give me an explanation.

“That was Jerome’s car.” She says
it like I should’ve known.

“Fuck, I didn’t know.” I place my
hands in the air in protest.

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

My father finishes his wine in
one gulp, his beady eyes honing in on me from his perch at the head of the
table. “I know you didn’t know, son.”

I’m dumbfounded by my father’s
temporary moment of mercy. It’s unlike him.

“She’ll get over it.” And just
like that, he returns to his usual self.

I watch as he slides out from the
table and leaves the room.

All those years, I never thought
freedom would be swift kick to the teeth with steel-toed boots.

No family.

Shitty job.

No purpose.

What’s the point?

My phone buzzes in my pocket,
reminding me that I have a phone now. How easy it was to forget that. I’d
slipped out of the shop on my lunch break that day and signed up. I can’t have
prospective employer’s calling the home phone looking for me like I’m some
technology-phobic moron.

TONIGHT.
10:00. THE BASEMENT.
YOU IN?

Of course it would be Kyle.

I rake my hand through my hair,
tugging at the ends and sinking back into my seat. My body’s still a little
tight from the last one, but I know I still have plenty of fight left in me.

Shit.

Especially
after tonight.

That outlet would feel damn good.

I fire off a response.
I WANT $1500.

YOU’RE
DELUSIONAL.

I chuckle. He’s an idiot if he
thinks he has any semblance of an upper hand in this discussion.

FIND
SOMEONE ELSE THEN.

I shove the phone back in my
pocket and head upstairs. Faint sobs trailing from my father’s bedroom serve to
make me feel like an even bigger piece of shit for making Laticia cry like
that.

The second I pass the threshold
into my room, I slam the door and flop back onto the mattress. My phone buzzes
one more time.

FINE.
$1500.
IF YOU WIN.

My lips curl up at the sides.
ALWAYS DO.

“I bet he can fix it up and sell
it.” I’m sitting on the bed next to my mother,
who’s
face is buried deep in the center of a goose down pillow. Her shoulders heave
and shake as soft, muffled cries fill the space around us. I place my hand on
her back, holding it steady as if I possibly had the power to calm her.

Nothing seems to calm her besides
wine these days, and if anyone brings up Jerome, it sends her into an emotional
tailspin and the rest of the night is as good as ruined.

Not a single day has passed over
the last three years where I haven’t thought of my big brother. He was my
protector.
My best friend.
My role
model.
I would trade anything to have him back again, but I’ve accepted
that it’s not a possibility. I’ve chosen to keep him in my heart for the rest
of my days, but I refuse to dwell on the tragedy of his passing.

Dwelling on senseless crimes does
no one any good.

That’s why I want to work in
probation and parole. I want to change lives for the better. I want to help
convicted criminals turn their lives around so that other families can be
spared the kind of pain and suffering we’ve known.

“Mama,” I say, rubbing my hand
across the back of her silk blouse. “Let Titan drive it. Let him fix it up.
Maybe he can sell it and you can do something fun with the money? You’ve always
wanted to go to Jamaica. Maybe we can do a girls’ trip?”

I’m injecting as much hope and
positivity into the situation as I possibly can, but she’s not responding. The
cries haven’t stopped.

She misses her son.

I can’t pretend to know what that
feels like. I can only lend my strength.

I lean down, pressing the side of
my cheek against her shoulder and breathing in her soft, jasmine perfume. “I
love you, Mama.”

Her crying stops, and I sit up.
Mom pulls herself up, wiping her tear-stained cheeks on the backs of her hands
and pulling in deep breath after deep breath. Our eyes lock, and I can feel the
pain radiating from her beautiful face. It’s the realest pain I’ve ever known,
and it’s defined my mother and our lives for the last three years.

“Do you feel like I’ve abandoned
you, baby?” she asks, her brows lifted. “Emotionally speaking?”

I glance away, not wanting to
upset the fragile ecosystem of her emotional state.

“You can be honest.” She places
her hand atop mine.

My shoulders shrug. “I mean,
yeah, but I understand. You’re grieving.”

“I’m going to work on it,
Jordana. I’m going to get better.”

I gaze up at her, detecting the
tiniest sliver of hope in her façade. Her lips are straight, but features have
softened.

“Sometimes I forget you lost a
brother. I don’t want you to feel like you’ve lost your mother too.” Mom leans
in to hug me, squeezing me tight. “I say it’s time we start moving forward.”

“I agree.”

“Little by little, we can get
there.”

“We will.”

She rises up, as if she’s just
had some sort of epiphany, and ambles to her bathroom. The sink runs, and I
watch from the edge of her bed as she splashes cold water on her face and dries
it with a hand towel.

“Tell Titan he can drive the car
for now. We’ll worry about everything else later.” She offers a bittersweet
smile, her hand running the length of the doorframe.

I nod and leave to find him.

“You in there?” I rap on his door
a moment later.

No response.

“Titan.”

No response.

I twist the doorknob, take a deep
breath, and show myself in.

His room is empty. An indentation
is carved out in the center of his bed. A loud rumble pulls my attention
outside his window, where I’m barely able to catch a peek of him hopping inside
someone’s pickup truck and pulling away.

He better not be getting into any
trouble.

As much as I find him utterly
obnoxious and impossible to be around, and as much as I detest him for the
crudeness of his comments last night, I don’t want him to become another
statistic.

Not on my watch.

I sigh, recalling how my old
corrections professor used to tell us that seventy-eight percent of all violent
offenders re-offend within five years, most of them within the first ninety
days of being released.

My arms fold and I stare around
at his empty room.

I should go find him.

Then again, he’s not my problem.

But he
kind of
is.

I throw myself down in the center
of his bed, digging my fingers into my scalp and groaning as my thoughts tangle
and brawl.

Titan Blackstone is insufferable
in every sense of the word. He’s been nothing but rude to me since the day we
met. I’m not entirely sure he deserves my kindness or sympathy.

And then I think of all the
reasons offenders reoffend, and often times, it’s due to socioeconomic
conditions.

Lewis won’t help his son out. He
needs a car. He needs a better job.

Someone needs to throw him a
bone.

Pulling myself up, I trudge back
to my room to grab the spare keys to the Mustang I’d been keeping in my jewelry
box for the last three years. I tiptoe back to his room and place them on his
dresser before calling it a night.

***

My fingers tremble as they hover
over the mouse of Kent’s computer the following morning. I point the cursor at
the NCIC icon on his desktop, peer outside the doorway to make sure the coast
is clear, and then double click.

I know the gist of what happened.

I know he beat up the drunk
driver who killed his mother and sister.

But I want to know more.

I want to read his psych eval.
See what makes him tick. Know him on a deeper level.

Titan’s
nothing but a closed book.
He’s standoffish and
rude. Maybe if I could understand him better, I could get through to him.

I glance outside the door one
more time before typing his name into the search bar. I could get into so much
trouble for this if I were to get caught.

A list of his charges populates
in the left field along with dates and a photo of his mug shot. Below that is a
link to his initial intake form and another link to his psychological
evaluation.

I feel as if I’ve just found the
pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

This is exactly what I need.

I double click and a Word
document opens across Kent’s screen. My heart leaps into my chest as I minimize
it. No need to draw even more attention to the fact that I’m snooping and
violating all kinds of policies.

NAME:
Titan Lewis Blackstone

AGE:
21 years, 2 months, 7 days

MARITAL
STATUS: Single

EDUCATION
STATUS: In progress. Junior at Grace State University

EXAMINER:
Dr. Redmond Snyder, Psy D

Titan
presents today after being charged with willful assault and booked at the Cox
County jail on New Year’s Eve. He presents with a mild manner but chooses to
speak only when spoken to. We spoke briefly about his family and the recent
death of his sister and mother, though the patient appeared to grow agitated
when discussing those matters in depth.

I glance out the door once again
before returning to the document, absolutely certain I’m going to get caught at
any moment.

Titan
is
well-groomed
, with a higher-than-average vocabulary
and a generally mild affect. Before his arrest, he was studying structural
engineering. He describes his childhood as typical, with no claims of abuse,
neglect, or trauma.

I skim the page, looking for
something, anything that might help me understand him better.

When
asked how he was feeling the night of the alleged crime, Titan says he doesn’t
recall. He “blacked out.” When he “came to,” he realized his victim was within
an inch of his life, and a passer-by had already called the police.

I scroll to the bottom of the
document, hoping for another tidbit of information in the summary.

It
is my professional opinion that Titan Blackstone’s crime was not planned and
was carried out in the heat of the moment. He is of sound mind and judgment at
this time, however, there is concern of an underlying anger issue if this
patient is not treated for his grief and anguish.

I
can confidently assert that Titan Blackstone is not a threat to those around
him at this time, and that his crime seems to have been an isolated incident.

I click out of the document and
log out of Kent’s NCIC, slipping back into the spare desk chair before he
waltzes in with a cup of coffee, whistling some out-of-pitch tune. Our day has
just begun, and Kent has spent the first fifteen minutes preparing his coffee.

“What’s on the itinerary for
today?” I ask. My heart still pounds in my chest as I watch him stare at his
computer screen. It’s as if he knows something was moved.

He pulls in a careful sip of his
coffee, lifting up his mustached lip and showing his front teeth. He winces and
then smacks his lips as he gulps the drink. “Oh, let me check my schedule here.
We’ll have some appointments. Make some phone calls.”

His mouth widens to a huge grin
followed by a belly laugh. I glance at the screen. He’s reading his email and
apparently someone forwarded him a comic.

Whew.

Thank God.

I should be in the clear…

I slink back in my seat and grab
my notebook and pen off the edge of his desk, trying to hide the rampant
disappointment on my face. Looking up Titan in the system was a bold move. I
could’ve lost my internship.

And yet I’m still no closer to
knowing what makes him tick.

Well then.

Guess I’ll have to go straight to
the source.