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I grin and wink at her as I open my sketchbook. “Give you what I didn’t bring with me last night.”
The question lingers in her gaze as I start sketching. Her face among roses, her smile behind curved glass, the thorns wrapping around the bottle of wine, the stars in her eyes.
She gasps before I’m done and throws herself into my arms. “Oh my God! It’s beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as you are,” I tell her honestly. “Never.”
She smiles. “Can I keep it? Can you sign it?”
“You got it.” Her excitement eases the throbbing in my head, relaxes the grip of the nightmare. I sign with a flourish and rip the small page out of the sketchbook.
She places it in her lap. “You’re so talented. Wow.”
Heat is rising up my neck. “You think?”
“Are you kidding me? It’s perfect.” She smiles again, a faint, secret smile that goes through me like a rip of warm wind. “You could do anything you wanted. You’re gifted, and bright.”
“Um. Thanks?” I duck my head, because the heat is scorching my cheeks and ears. Christ. It’s fucking stupid how much I hunger for her kind words. Apart from Zane, can’t remember the last time anyone told me I was worth anything.
“You’re welcome. And now I have to run. New class starting today.”
That’s right. She’s moving into her new life, her new path with her studies. Soon she’ll also get fucking Fred back, do to him the things I taught her to do to me, and they’ll…
Fucking hell. I don’t want to imagine her doing anything with him—being with him, kissing him, going down on him. She shouldn’t be with him.
She should be with me, and I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything else in my crappy, fucked-up life, even as I know it will never happen.
I’m not easy to love, Mom always said. Too contrary, stubborn, unhelpful. I’m just too damn worthless to be with anyone, and this just goes to prove it.
***
After car washing and spending a few dollars on a burger at a street corner joint, after counting and recounting what’s left, summing it up, I curse long and loud.
No way am I making enough to pay the rent this month, even with Rafe paying half. Rafe Vestri, owner of the tattoo Damage Control where I’m training, one of the two guys who give a damn about my life, who together with Zane took me and Shane off the streets and who is still looking out for me.
Need to call him, tell him I’ll need more help this month, and that I’m moving out, to a cheaper, smaller place. Need to find a room somewhere out of town. Commute will be shit, but at least I’ll have money to buy food and have a roof over my head. Winter is closing in, and I have no desire to be on the street when the temperature at night drops below zero.
The memory of my life before Zane found me makes me shudder so hard I almost drop my cell. I clutch it more tightly.
Just need a job. Like the one Shane has, at a construction site. Pays well. Only problem is my body, made fragile after too many breaks. Bones fracturing easily. Shoulders dislocating with a simple fall.
Shit.
It’s why I looked for easier gigs—bartending, cashier, cleaner. They were okay while they lasted—before I got the shit beaten out of me once, then again, landing me in hospital and then at home long enough to lose the jobs. And fuck, finding new ones is a bitch when you have a rap sheet.
Hadn’t realized when I got out of prison, but it soon sank in. Not that I could get any legal jobs without a permanent address, but still.
That’s why I can’t tell Zane or Rafe, or anyone. Why I can’t give up this one chance to a life.
My thoughts keep circling back to my mom and the call from her lawyer. I had a missed call from him the other day. Never called back.
Now I scroll back to the number, hesitate. When I told Manon my mom’s still dead to me… Okay, not true. I’m pissed off. Hate her guts for setting me up, leaving me to get captured and rot in prison.
I want to know why she did it. What she did afterward. If she has an excuse for it all. Pathetic, I know. Not wanting to believe she’s just selfish. That she just doesn’t care about me. Never has.
I’m pressing the number to call before I even know what I’m doing. It rings and rings, and then a male voice answers.
“Hello.”
