Time Served Page 3

  Still, I know I owe Dean an apology. If I refuse to acknowledge what I did then I’m no better than the bigwigs at Fowler Metals, doing what’s quick and dirty and easy, hurting people and turning away, hiding behind the shiny shield of success.

  And while no part of me thinks that escaping in the middle of the night was the brave thing to do—and maybe not even the right thing—I do feel with a bone-jarring certainty that it was the only thing.

  I start with something he already knows. “I’m a lawyer.”

  He nods, unimpressed, and finishes his water.

  “I got a scholarship,” I continue, “and when I left Riverside I drove straight to New York to go to school.” I omit the part where I arrived a month before student housing opened up and spent my days pounding the pavement looking for a part-time job and nights sleeping in my car.

  I take a nervous sip of lukewarm water, hating the fact that my hand is shaking. I realize that Dean’s holding the pilfered business card, flipping it carelessly between his fingers. “I did my undergrad, finished law school and got hired at Sterling, Morgan & Haines.” I gesture at the card. “That’s where I am now.”

  Dean opens his mouth to speak, but closes it when the server arrives with his mountain of food. There’s soup, a sandwich, a plate of steak and eggs, and a side of French fries. “Grab me some more water,” he tells me, flicking his fingers in the general direction of the water cooler.

  My eyes narrow. I’m sorry I left without saying goodbye ten years ago, but this is a restaurant—if you want a beverage, flag down a waitress. “Get it yourself.”

  Dean, dumping pepper on the fries, freezes. “What did you say?”

  “If you want more water, go get it.”

  He stares at me a second, then shoves back from the table, snatches up his cup and returns twenty seconds later with two full glasses. He drops back into place and picks up a quarter of the clubhouse, biting it in half and chewing as he watches me.

  Finally he swallows, drinks half a glass of water and the stare down ends. “So you’re a lawyer,” he says. “You rich?”

  I shrug. “What do you do?”

  “What do you care?” He picks up another piece of the sandwich and shovels a forkful of eggs into his mouth.

  “Is that all you wanted to know?” I ask, fingers curling around the strap of my purse.

  Dean shakes his head and again I have to wait for him to finish an improbably large mouthful of food. “You married? Kids?”

  My spine softens slightly. “No. You?”

  He laughs harshly. “When would I have had time for that? You think I married some prison groupie?”

  So it is out there. Three weeks after I fled Riverside, Dean and two of his friends were arrested for an armed robbery that turned violent. He’d been sentenced to ten years and gotten out in eight for good behavior. He’s watching for my reaction, and when the surprise doesn’t come, he nods to himself. “You knew.”

  I nod.

  “Eat some fucking fries. You’re too thin.”

  I want to argue at the bossiness in his tone, but I’m famished, so I steal a few fries, shake off the pepper and take a bite.

  We eat in silence until he asks, “That scholarship pay for everything, then? Books, rent, groceries?”

  I take a deep breath. I’d never told a soul at college I was there on a scholarship. No one at the firm, not even Parker, knows I grew up dirt-poor in a one-bedroom trailer. “No. I had the scholarship, a part-time job, and...”

  Dean waits.

  “My mother gave me some money.”

  He looks startled. “Renee? Where’d she get money?”

  It had come as a shock to me too. I’d buried the papers beneath my mattress on the pull-out couch, too stunned to believe I’d earned a full scholarship anywhere, never mind an out-of-state school where I’d be guaranteed not to run into anyone who’d know about the old me. I hadn’t dared breathe a word of it to anyone, not my mother, not Dean, for fear the bubble would burst and I’d be stuck in Riverside Trailer Park for the rest of my life. I’d secretly enrolled and had been halfway through planning my escape when my mother woke me up one night at quarter past two, shoved an envelope full of money into my palm and told me to take off.

  “What?” I’d mumbled, confused.

  “Get lost,” she ordered, her normally slurred words coming out clear and determined. “Pack up all your shit, put it in your car, take that money and go to New York. Don’t come back. And don’t look back, neither. Get gone and stay gone, you promise?”

  I was too shocked to do much more than follow her orders, cramming my few belongings into a duffel bag, tossing everything else into the trunk of my rusted-out station wagon and driving out of Riverside without a second look.

  To this day I don’t know where my alcoholic mother got three thousand dollars. Or how she’d managed to save three thousand dollars, when every penny we’d ever gotten from the government had gone to the nearest liquor store. I’ll also never know how the woman who’d spent seventeen years largely ignoring me figured out my dream and kicked me out of our filthy nest to achieve it. She’d never said she loved me, and this final act was the only sign she’d ever cared at all.

  “Huh,” Dean says, when I finish the story. “That doesn’t sound like Renee.”

  “Agreed,” I nod. “But that’s what happened.”

  “So then you became a big shot.”

  “I became something I was never going to become if I stayed in Riverside.”

  “You couldn’t call? Send a note? A fucking smoke signal to tell me you were alive?”

  “You knew I wasn’t dead.” My phone rings then, a blessed interruption, and I pull it out of my bag to peer at the display. Parker. Probably wondering why I’m not at the office.

  I ignore the call but send him a quick text, promising to turn up by two o’clock.

  Two? he writes back immediately. What do you think this is, the weekend?

  I smile and put the phone in my bag, only to find Dean watching me with narrowed eyes.

  “So you’re not married,” he says. “You got a boyfriend?”

  I start to shake my head, then freeze, remembering Todd, who had taken my “It’s not you, it’s me” speech stoically, if sadly. “No,” I say finally, truthfully, then change the subject. “What do you do at the gym if you don’t work there? You don’t look beat-up enough to be a fighter.”

  He shrugs, flexing his hands, subconsciously showing his bruised knuckles. “Just work out.” Well, that’s the understatement of the year. Dean was pushing six-two back when I knew him and he was fit, but he wasn’t massively strong like he is now. This new Dean looks like the guy who ate the old Dean.

  “And for work?”

  He finishes his second glass of water, watching me over the rim as he drinks. “I work in the warehouse at Carters. The grocery store.”

  I nod. “Okay. Good.”

  “Is it? You’re happy to hear that?”

  I purse my lips. Whatever modicum of pleasantness we’d been working toward appears to have vanished. “I know I owe you an apology, Dean.”

  He keeps his eyes on the final vestiges of his food, but I hear him pull in a breath.

  “I’m sorry I left like I did. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you goodbye, or...or ever come back.”

  “Or call. Or write. Or visit me in prison.”

  I nod, though I’m not sure I could have stomached seeing him in an orange jumpsuit. “I’m sorry. I loved you more than anything but I wanted a better life, and I think I was afraid that if I returned to Riverside, I’d lose everything I’d been working toward.”

  “You thought I’d hold you back?”

  You went to prison! I want to point out. But I just shake my head. “I was afraid.”

  “You talk different.”

  I shrug. “I am different.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Well...”

  He arches a brow. “Well, what?”

 
“Is there anything else you want to know?”

  “You always this uptight?”

  Of course the question only results in me clenching my teeth in frustration. “Maybe.”

  “You still run in the morning?”

  “Not as much as I’d like.”

  “Where do you go?”

  I shrug. “North Avenue Beach, sometimes. On the weekend. Early.”

  “You should come by the gym, let Oreo give you a massage.”

  “What kind of name is that?”

  Dean barks out a laugh. “He just likes Oreos.”

  “Whatever. I have to get back.”

  “What do you do to relax?”

  I sigh. “I am relaxed.”

  “No, Rachel, you’re fuckin’ not. You got somebody? Who was that on the phone?”

  “You’ve already asked me twice. What does that have to do with anything?”

  Dean shrugs. “The girl I used to bang was a lot more laid-back than this one. A lot nicer too.”

  I ignore the deliberately demeaning reference to our former relationship—he’d done a lot more than “bang” me—and shove back from the table. “I’m not nice? What do you want from me? You want me to buy you lunch?” I grab up my bag. “Fine. Eat all day, for all I care.” I toss sixty bucks on the table, and Dean snatches my hand in his big fist so tightly I swear I can hear the bones crunch together.

  A strangled, startled cry escapes my lips and Dean instantly releases me, still angry, but obviously surprised by his own reaction. “Pick up the fucking money,” he growls.

  I want to argue, but my hand is throbbing and more than anything, I want to leave. My phone rings again, and again it’s Parker. I send the call to voice mail and take a final, steadying sip of water.

  “The girl you used to bang doesn’t exist anymore.” I push back my chair and stand up, cradling my sore hand. “Obviously the guy I used to bang doesn’t exist, either. Have a nice life.”

  Dean doesn’t say a word, doesn’t follow me out of the restaurant and I don’t turn around as I stride out, tears pricking my eyes. Too rattled to bother negotiating the awful transit system, I flag down a cab, slump into the backseat and ask the driver to take me home.

  Chapter Three

  I hate to admit it, but the confrontation with Dean leaves me shaken for the rest of the week. After leaving the restaurant on Saturday I’d gone home, changed into something semiprofessional, and headed to the office to meet Parker and prepare for the next round of interviews. He’d sensed instantly that something was off but when I refused to come clean he’d dropped it, promising no judgment if I needed to talk.

  After yet another fitful night’s sleep I wake up the following Saturday and scowl at the sunny morning. Despite a week’s worth of sleep deprivation, I’m too jittery for coffee so I toss on a pair of shorts, T-shirt, sneakers and mp3 player, and head out for a run. The city is quiet at this hour, and I pass a few city workers, fellow joggers and homeless people before I reach North Lake Shore Drive and turn to follow the water, the combination of the cool breeze and exercise helping me to relax.

  Ha. Relax. The tension promptly returns as I remember Dean’s accusation that I was uptight. You don’t know me! I’d wanted to shout. You’ve been in prison, remember? I’m the one meeting with my ex-convict ex-boyfriend after ten years apart. Forgive me if I’m not as “relaxed” as you’d like.

  I scream and jab back with an elbow when a tree trunklike arm wraps around my waist and lifts me inches off the ground. I squeal when my elbow meets what feels like a piece of reinforced steel, then flail at my face when calloused fingers fumble at my cheek, eventually dislodging one of my earbuds.

  “Jesus, stop fighting, Rachel! Stop!”

  My heart rate manages to kick up another notch when I recognize Dean’s harsh voice, but I do stop fighting. After a second he sets me down and I whirl, half-keeled-over, terror and exertion making it hard to breathe.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I gasp.

  “I’ve been calling out to you for the past three minutes,” he says, peering down at me. I notice that yet again he’s wearing his favorite outfit of hoodie and sweats, this time a matching set.

  I turn off the music and straighten, tucking stray pieces of hair back under my baseball hat. “What are you even doing out here?”

  He shrugs. “Running.” Jesus, he’s so big that when he shrugs he blocks out the entire path behind him.

  I look at Dean suspiciously. “You always come this far to run?”

  We both know he doesn’t.

  He cocks his head. “What do you think?”

  “Then what?”

  He pulls in a breath through his nose and stares at some random point on the horizon. “I came to apologize for what happened on Saturday.”

  I swear the world stops turning for a second. Dean Barclay, apologizing? I can still remember sixteen-year-old Dean returning his mother’s car, half-empty bottle of whiskey on the passenger seat, bumper and passenger side door missing, shouting, “I’m not apologizing for nothin’!” when she demanded answers.

  “You hear me?” he asks softly, stepping closer when I don’t reply.

  “You came to apologize.”

  His eyes dart down to my hand. The bruises are just small yellow smudges now. “I’m sorry I grabbed you. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I mean, fuck—I did want to hurt you, but not like that. By, just... I don’t know.”

  “You want to hurt me?”

  Dean’s dark eyes flare. “I just wanted you to know how I felt.”

  “I do know.”

  “No,” he interrupts. “You fuckin’ don’t. You tore my heart out, packed it up with the rest of your shit and drove away without looking back.”

  I take a deep breath.

  “You know what there is to do in prison, Rachel?” He takes another step forward, and I retreat accordingly.

  I shake my head.

  “Fuck-all, most of the time. Fuck-all except think about all the things you did wrong, and all the things you miss. And never mind that you left me like you did, I missed you. And I thought about you all the fucking time.”

  Guilt clogs my throat. “I’m sorry for everything,” I say again. “I’m sorry I left like I did.”

  He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter now.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Dean sighs. “Stalking you, obviously.”

  I laugh uncomfortably. “Do you need to say anything else?”

  He shakes his head again. “No. Just that.”

  “You sure? Because I’m ready for it. I expected you to say it last weekend, but you didn’t seem to want to talk.”

  “I thought I was going to say it then, too, but seeing you in the gym, I forgot all about it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He smiles wryly. “You’re better now, Rachel. You’re fancy. Even without your gold necklace and your high heels, I could tell that you were better than me. What could I have said that would make you understand?”

  I don’t have an answer to that, and Dean doesn’t seem to expect one. I realize again how wrong I was. How I thought he wanted to meet so he could hear from me, failing to appreciate how much he had to say to me. I’m not so foolish as to believe he’s gotten it all off his chest, that ten years’ worth of hurt feelings can be resolved in the span of two minutes, but he seems finished for the time being.

  Dean interrupts my moment of introspection. “How much farther are you going?”

  It takes me a minute to realize that he’s talking about my route. “Down to the hospital, maybe. Then I’ll turn back.”

  “You want to run alone?”

  “We can run together if you want.”

  “Those good running shoes?”

  I glance down at my sneakers. “I think so.”

  “All right. Try to keep up this time.” And then he starts to run.

  * * *

  Forty minutes later we reach a small city park a couple of b
locks from my apartment and slow to a stop. My cheeks are flushed, sweat dribbles between my breasts and my knees are weak. Dean, on the other hand, looks like he spent the afternoon at the spa: glowing and ready to conquer the day.

  “You gotta stretch?” he asks, discreetly looking away as I swipe sweat from my brow.

  “Yeah.” We ran two miles farther than I’d normally go, at nearly twice the speed. Even when Dean thinks he’s going slow, he’s still way too fast for me.

  I drop down onto the grass and resist the urge to fall onto my back, cover my face with my hat and take a nap. Instead I stretch out my legs and lean forward to wrap my hands around my right foot, feeling the satisfying pull in my hamstring and calf. I count to sixty, willing my heart to resume a normal rate, and switch legs.

  Eventually I lie flat, bending my right knee to my chest and pulling it toward me. My tired eyes flutter open in time to see Dean’s head obscure the sun like a sudden eclipse. He’s positioned himself in front of me, hands crossed just below my knee, leaning over me.

  “Here,” he grunts, pressing my leg into my chest. “Push against me.”

  I do so instinctively; he’s so big, his eyes still so cold despite what I would consider our recent truce, and if I’m not mistaken, two of his fingers extend a little farther down my inner thigh than they’re technically supposed to. And perhaps I’m just imagining his eyes lingering on my breasts where they strain against the pink fabric, his irises darkening slightly as my nipples tighten against all common sense.

  “Switch legs,” I pant. It’s hard to breathe with a million pounds of muscled ex-con leaning over you.

  Dean sits back on his knees and waits as I swap legs, forcing me to spread my right leg out to the side to accommodate his big form. I’ll be honest, I thought my days of spreading my legs for Dean Barclay were long over, and while my good sense tells me that that’s for the best, my legs are still eagerly parting like butter for a hot knife.

  He wraps his hands around my upper calf, leaning into me, blocking out the sun once again. I can feel the rough calluses on his palms against my bare skin, and my breath hitches when one broad thumb strokes my inner thigh ever so softly, almost as though he can’t stop himself.