Hard Time (12 page)

“Most folks wouldn’t try to bludgeon a man to death.” I took my own breath away. My words felt blunt as that tire iron, and I was shocked to hear them. Shocked and oddly thrilled to have found my voice, my spine.

“Everybody gets mad, if you push them the right way,” he said. “That guy I beat down pushed me harder than anybody can be expected to take. But I got cranked through three years of anger management classes at Cousins, and I
know
what angry motherfuckers look like. And act like. And I’m not one of them, not outside those circumstances that got me put away.”

I wanted to believe him. I really did. But I’d wanted to believe Justin, all those times he promised not to hurt me again. And I’d wanted to believe I wasn’t the sort of woman who’d let a man mistreat her. Eric believed what he was saying—I trusted that much. But people were the worst judges of their own characters.

He sighed and stared at the tabletop between us. “It’s like we were never anything at all, were we? All that stuff we said to each other . . .”

Even knowing it might be dangerous, I said quietly, “I meant every word I wrote to you. I felt every last bit of it.”

He met my eyes. “Doesn’t feel that way. The way you look at me now.”

“I knew you in a vacuum then.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I knew . . . In that context, I only knew part of you. One side. And the stuff on the other side is huge—why you did what you did, and how you feel about it.”

“You’re saying that like, before, I looked okay from where you sat, like some shiny red apple. But now you sliced me open and I’m too rotten for you?”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. My brain thought the simile was apt, but my heart begged to differ. “It’s not as cold as all that. But you . . . I dunno. Petals and thorns or something. Some poetic bullshit like that.” Like the kind of bull I’d fed myself only weeks ago.

“You think I’m like him, don’t you? You think if you give me long enough, I’d hurt you like he did.”

I shifted in my chair, all at once deeply uncomfortable. “I don’t know what I think.”

“I’m not a guy who gets mean if you just wait long enough. But if somebody fucks with the people I love, I’m not going to just sit back and let it pass.”

My brows rose at that.

Eric seemed to catch himself. I saw color rise in his cheeks and he went stiff, sliding a cell phone from his pocket and checking its screen. “I gotta meet with my parole officer at five forty-five.” He stood to shrug his coat back on.

My stomach turned. I felt unsatisfied way down inside, teased by the very edge of a satisfying explanation. As he pulled on his hat, I eyed his neck, still red from the cold. I unlooped my scarf from the back of my chair. It was rich bottle green, a cashmere blend, and it stood out like a jewel against my camel-colored winter coat, against the gray and white of Michigan winter. I loved it, a lot.

“Here,” I said, holding it out.

His brows rose.

I gave it a shake. “Take it. I have another at home.”

Reluctantly, he let me put it in his hands. “Green.”

I thought of you when I bought it.

“It’s real soft.”

“Use it. Your neck’s all chapped.”

His fingers squeezed it but his expression was pure misgiving.

“I want to you have it.”

He met my eyes. “I don’t need your charity.”

“It’s not charity. It’s a woman telling a man he’s being a stubborn jackass. Take it before you get wind burn.”

A little smirk, a little breath. “I’ll borrow it. But only ’til I see you next. I’ll find my own by then.”

“Fine.”

He caught my gaze. “Will I?” he asked. “See you again?”

“I’m not sure.”

“We don’t have to . . . We don’t have to be those people we were, in the letters. We can be just who we were today.”

If I took you to bed, which man would I get?
Shit. I hadn’t meant to think that.

“Unless you don’t like who I am,” he added quietly.

“I don’t know who you are, Eric. You’ve kept things from me—the fact that you were getting out. And why you did what you did, to get locked up.”

“That first one—I’ll own that. But I can’t tell you why. I’m sorry.”

I sighed, watching his fingers as they flexed, subtly feeling the scarf. “Just tell me this, then. What this man did . . . Was it worse than trying to beat a human being to death?”

His gaze darted, moving back and forth as he looked between my own eyes. “That’s not an easy question, Annie. But he hurt someone real bad. Someone I love, who didn’t do anything even half as bad to him. He did something that he had to answer for. And he answered to me.”

“Why couldn’t he answer to the police?”

“Not my call to make.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, weary. When I opened them, he looked as tired as I felt. I stood. I watched him wind my scarf around his neck, its tails so bright against his dark coat.

“That’s a good color on you.”

He smiled limply. “I remember a time when I used to dress you.”

My body responded, humming. He spoke the way lovers do, when their affairs have come to an end. Sad and fond and accepting. Were we lovers? Without ever having touched one another? My scarf had now caressed more of this man’s bare skin than I ever might.

“I remember liking that,” I said softly.

“I’m still him. I’m still that man.”

I looked away. Tears were brewing, and that was just another intimacy I wasn’t ready to offer him.

“Look at me,” he whispered. And the way he said it, every noise and every person around us went away. I turned. He held out one end of the scarf, brought it to my cheek.

“I love how your eyes do that,” he said, voice full of wonder. “How they look green, next to something green. Like that old trick you do with buttercups. Like they suck the color right up.” He let the end drop. “Anyway. I have to get going.”

I nodded.

We bundled up. He extended an arm and I preceded him to the door, which he held.

“Thanks.”

“I’m gonna be around the library now and then,” he said. “I can’t help that. All depends on the weather, and where the city sends me. With my record and this economy, I need to just go wherever my boss tells me I’m going.”

“That’s fine. I’m not scared of you.”

“Aren’t you?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Good.”

My lips twitched and I pursed them. I couldn’t say if I was on the verge of smiling or crying.

“Do you . . . Do you want my number?” he asked. “You don’t ever have to use it. But would you like it? Or my email address?”

“You have email?” Why did that seem so surreal?

He nodded. “My sister gave me her old laptop.”

“Um . . . Okay, then. Can’t hurt.”

He fished for his wallet and took out a business card of all things.
Eric Collier. Contract Landscaping, Odd Jobs.
An email address. A phone number. A free man.

I slid it deep into my coat pocket. “Thanks.”

“Maybe I’ll see you around, Annie.”

I watched his lips as he said it, my cheeks warming to remember how I’d fantasized about kissing them. “See you.”

A little hitch of those lips, a little wave, then he turned away, heading for the road. My scarf around his neck, probably smelling of my lotion. His card in my pocket, slippery between my gloved fingers.

The man who’d brought me back to life, crossing the street, leaving me closed in the dark and cold. Leaving me wanting.

I made the decision two days later. After a lot of thought, and no alcohol. After weighing the pros and cons and finding no answers there, only more questions. And it was a question I typed into the body of an email.

Would you like to hang out on Saturday evening? Just as those two people from the donut shop. There’s a bar on Benson Street called Lola’s. Seven o’clock?

Anne

I paused. Hit the back arrow key. Added the
i.

Annie

I could’ve called. But writing . . . Wasn’t that the only way, really?

His reply didn’t come for another two days, sent around noon while I was busy at Cousins. Busy worrying he’d either not received my message or had chosen to ignore it. My heart stopped when I saw his name in my inbox.

I’ll be there. And I’ll bring your scarf.

Eric

When the night arrived, I was early. But he was earlier.

I spotted his back through the front window, his messy hair. As I hauled the door open, it felt as though I were spreading my ribs wide, heart pounding and slick for the world to see. He didn’t spot me until I reached the booth he’d procured. He looked surprised as our eyes met.

“Evening,” I said, slipping off my coat. I’d donned it as a formality, not ready for him to know I lived here. And I’d dressed exactly as I felt, a bundle of caution hiding a core of hopeful mischief. Jeans and a fitted sweater saying nothing special . . . but underneath, spring-green lace and satin.

“Evening.” He studied me as I sat, his expression tough to read. My scarf was rolled neatly on the table by his elbow, and he slid it over the shiny wood. “Thanks for that.”

“You’re welcome. You all right?”

“Yeah, fine. I’d just expected to be kept waiting. At least until seven.”

I shrugged. “I’ve been needing a drink.”
And to see you. Whoever you are.
The bar was warm, and he was wearing a tee shirt, his winter layers heaped beside him. I tried to not notice his arms.

He looked around. “This is
not
a place my parole officer would approve of.”

“Are we violating your conditions?”

He shook his head. “Nah. But I sure didn’t have you pegged as a girl who’d pick a dive like this.”

I shrugged. “It’s close to where I live, and it’s not like Darren has a ritzy section. Can I get you something?”

“You sit. I’ll grab whatever you want.”

My eyes jumped to the bar, glad not to find Kyle on duty. The last thing I needed was him shooting me looks, demanding,
Is that the guy? The one we warned you about?

“Iced tea with lemon and ice and a shot of bourbon.”

Eric looked puzzled at that but nodded. “Sure.”

He came back shortly with my drink and a bottle of beer. We sipped in heavy silence for half a minute, then he asked, “Why’d you decide to see me again, anyhow?”

I read your letters on Monday night. Every last one. Wrapped my tongue around each word, then watched us act them out in my mind, all week.
“I’m not sure.”

His brows drew tight.

“I’m not trying to toy with you,” I said. “If I knew what I was after, I’d tell you . . . I think maybe I’m just trying to make sense of you. And us, how we were. What we are now.”

“We’re whatever you decide we are.”

“Would you want to just be friends with me?” I asked, curious.

“Maybe. Until you started seeing somebody.”

“What would happen if I started seeing somebody?”

“It’d rip my heart out,” he said with a sad smile. “How would you feel if we tried being friends and
I
started seeing somebody?”

Oh God. I felt exactly that in a breath—the meanest twisting in my chest and stomach. We were here already, weren’t we? Talking about things I hadn’t been sure we’d
ever
be able to utter to one another.

“I’d feel crummy,” I admitted. And I realized in the next breath exactly what we were. We were exes. We had a history. We’d been intensely, romantically intimate. We’d felt for each other, and we’d hurt each other. We’d never truly touched, but all the same, we weren’t over what had been, between us.

“I’ll be honest,” he said. “If you want to hear it.”

I nodded, sipping my drink to try to clear a lump in my throat.

“I’d be friends with you, for as long you weren’t seeing anybody. Because I like you, as a person. And because I’m in love with you.”

I froze.

“I’d be friends, just for the chance to see you. But the second you got into something with some other guy, I’m out of there. And
not
because I’d flip out and beat him up. Just because it would hurt too much. I’d be out of your life—no drama, no nothing. Just gone. But for now, I’ll take you whatever way you’ll let me.”

“Jesus.”

He smirked at that. “Like you didn’t know.”

“No, I didn’t. Not in . . . those words.”

“Well, you know now.” He stared at his bottle, spinning it around and around by the neck. “But if you feel like being friends . . . I don’t even care why. Pity, curiosity. Because you want to fix me, or get back at your daddy. Whatever.”

I frowned. “None of those reasons.”

“I know I ought to be getting busy forgetting about you, because I fucked all this up so bad, I’m probably never fixing it. But you’re the first good thing I’ve felt in so long. The only colorful thing in this shitty gray world I’ve come back to. The spring seems such a long ways off. Maybe seeing you will get me through the winter.”

I didn’t even know if he was speaking in metaphors or not, but again I pictured the green oasis I’d hidden behind wool and denim.

“Well . . . I don’t know why I’d want to be friends,” I said. “I don’t think I
need
to know why. But we connected on the inside. I want to know if maybe there’s some way we could do the same, in the real world.”

He held my stare. “That
was
my real world.”

Fuck.
I blushed, ashamed. “I’m sorry. Of course it was. It was real to me, too . . . in the moment. But I didn’t know what I was doing, either. I was too drunk on it. Too close to step back and see what was happening.”

“And what was happening?”

I blinked at his hands, still toying with the beer bottle. “I was falling for a man I didn’t really know. A violent man. Who’d done something terrible to another human being. Worse than the boy who’d made me not trust myself to begin with.”

“Your ex hit a woman. He hit
you.
Why?”

I frowned. “He was drunk. And frustrated, about I don’t even know what.”

“I beat a grown man, sober. One who goddamn well saw it coming. One who deserved it.”

“So you keep saying.”

“I’m no saint, but I’m not your ex, either. I’d
never
hurt you.” His burning eyes told me this on a level no words ever could.

“Not me, no. I believe that.”

“Who do you see, right now?” he demanded. “The me you met at Cousins? From those letters? Or some violent man from whatever dramatic reenactment you’ve got running in your head, of what I did when I was twenty-six?”

I was tired of this question—the one I’d been asking myself for weeks now. I shut my eyes and rubbed my face, let him see how exhausted the whole thing left me.

“You’re the same woman to me,” he said quietly. “From our letters.”

“I wasn’t the one who was keeping secrets.”

His nostrils flared, exhalation audible. We were quiet for a time, me sipping my drink, Eric staring out the front window at the passing cars. He broke the lull, meeting my gaze.

“I haven’t . . . I haven’t been with anybody. Since I got out.”

Goddamn my heart for rejoicing the way it did. Something inside me gave way, river ice breaking up in a spring thaw. “No? That’s . . . surprising.”

He shrugged, glancing around the bar. “I don’t know anybody in this town.”

“No, I guess not.” Though why should that matter to a man who’d gone without for half a decade? “You’re awful good-looking. I’m sure if you wanted to . . .”

He frowned.

“What?”

His annoyance softened, and when he spoke he sounded defeated. “The way we’d been talking, before I got out . . . That was like we’d been describing a feast. Some amazing gourmet meal I was dying to sit down to, once I got released. Then I do get out, and I can’t have that feast—and that’s fine. But after all that thinking about it, I don’t want to settle for just whatever I might get. I don’t know if I’ll meet a woman anytime soon who’ll make me feel the way you did, but I don’t want just anybody, for the sake of it. I don’t want the first sex I have after five years to be as forgettable as some drive-through hamburger.”

I felt too many things at those words. Touched, to hear I was special. Hurt, to hear he did intend to move on, to look for someone who could replace me. But why shouldn’t he? Why wouldn’t I
want
him to, if his waiting for me to come around smacked of obsession?

All I managed was, “I could understand that.”

“Plus the places a man might go, to hook up with somebody—bars like this one. Those aren’t places I need to be hanging out at, now. Those sorts of people. It’s too depressing. I’ve spent too long locked up. I don’t want reminding of how people get themselves locked inside their own dead-end lives and bad habits. It’s too much like prison. And it’s too much like home.”

“Sure.”

“Did you . . .” He sighed, an aggravated huff. “Have you been with anybody? Any guys, since we quit writing to each other?”

I blinked. “No. Of course not. Not that it’s your business.” But the bald relief on his face doused any angst I felt.

“I know it’s not,” he said, voice softer. “But I still wanted to know. It’s only natural.”

“It took
me
five years to meet you and feel ready to even share those thoughts. To
have
them. I’m not going to jump into bed with somebody and actually do those things.”

“I just wanted to hear that maybe that stuff, everything we said . . . That it was special, I guess.”

My face warmed. “Of course it was. I wouldn’t have risked my job if it weren’t.” Or my heart. Christ, I was aching for him, all over. Want all twisted up with pain. “It
was
special. But I also don’t know you. I don’t even know how to parse those two things. Part of me feels like I know you inside out, better than any guy I’ve ever been to bed with. But also that you’re a total stranger.”

“A stranger because you don’t trust me?”

“Because I’ve not met so many sides of you. Important ones. The side of you who did that awful thing. The side of you that chose not to tell me you were getting out . . . even though you knew you should. That it would change everything.”

“I was selfish.”

I nodded. “Yeah. You were.” I stirred my drink with my straw. “I was, too. I used you to feel all that stuff again. Alive. And sexual. With somebody I didn’t think I’d ever have to worry about becoming anything real with.”

“I don’t mind being used like that.”

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

Eric turned his bottle around and around, thinking before he spoke. “Do you know why I beat him like I did? With a tire iron?”

“You won’t tell me why.”

“No, I mean why a tire iron.”

“No.”

His gaze sought the traffic. “It’s because for that bright, hot moment when I got the news that set me off, I wanted that man dead. Because my bare hands weren’t enough, after what he did. And because I didn’t own a gun, and I didn’t take the time to plan shit out. I just moved my body to where his body was, and on the way I grabbed something I thought maybe I could kill him with—”

“God,
stop.”
I cringed, fearing a play-by-play.

“What I’m saying is, I’m not the kind of man who designed his world to be violent. I’m white trash—I know that. Where I’m from, that’s just how it is. But I wasn’t the worst man you ever met. I never got into any scary drug shit, or knocked some poor girl up, or stole from anybody. Before I beat that man down, the worst thing I probably did was drive too fast and smoke weed a couple times a month. Get in a scrap now and then. Like I said, I’m not a saint, but I’m not . . . I don’t know what it is you’re worried I might be. But I bet I’m not that bad.”

Except what I knew him to be—an attempted murderer? Not that great, either.

“If you won’t tell me why,” I said, “I don’t think I can ever . . .”

“Ever what?”

“Get back to where we were. In the letters.”

His expression flickered at that. Like he’d not imagined us finding our way back was even the wildest possibility. Like I’d just told him,
There’s still a chance. I’m not over you.
Like I’d just admitted it to us both. It made me feel dizzy. Or maybe that was the bourbon.

“Even if I did know why,” I added quickly, “that doesn’t mean I’d agree with you doing what you did. But I wish you’d just tell me.”

He shook his head.

I slumped in my seat, weary all over. We were right back where we’d gotten stuck in that donut shop.

Eric thought a minute, drummed the tabletop with his fingertips. “I could make a phone call.”

“To whom?”

He cracked a smile at that. “‘To whom.’ Fuck me, you’re adorable.”

I rolled my eyes.

He changed again, seeming suddenly determined, and calm. A man with a plan. He stood, skirted the bench and headed for the door, fishing his phone from his jeans, coat and gloves and hat left behind. I watched him through the front window, his back to the glass. I could see his shoulder blades through his tee, from the way he held his phone to his ear. The neon sign behind him blinked red to yellow, turning his blue shirt from black to green, black to green.

Wear green. Wear black.

Right now he wore both. I’d worn neither. And if I had that final choice to make again . . . Here I was, still not committed to either option, as fickle as that light. Did this phone call really have the power to change my mind about him? Exonerate him? Invite him upstairs, into my bed? Inside my sheets, inside my body?

I flushed all over, shocked to have even thought those things.