My eyes narrow in on the tattoo of a vine and a cross on the forearm. Red-hot rage explodes through me, and I’m off the ground.
I’m going to kill him.
I’m going to go to real jail this time, and it’s because the bastard is going to be dead.
Ellison
Drix is gone, going for Axle’s truck, and I spin, scanning for help. “Axle!” And then I’m chasing after him. “Drix, stop. You have to stop! Axle, please!”
The driver’s side door is open, but before Drix can jump in, Axle grabs hold of Drix’s arm and slams him into the side of the truck. “What are you doing? We’re on a job!”
Adrenaline courses through my veins, and the fire shooting out of Drix’s eyes causes me to step back. The rage in him, the madness, the set of his jaw, the entire way his body is poised and ready to strike like a snake full of venom—I’ve never seen this before. Never in Drix. Never in another human being. This is beyond anger. This is raw and bloody and the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.
Drix rams the picture into Axle’s chest. “Holiday’s boyfriend committed the robbery. He framed me and he’s going to pay.”
With one arm still wrapped around Drix’s biceps like it’s a metal vise, Axle yanks the keys from Drix’s hand, then opens the paper.
“The tattoo on the arm,” Drix spits. “It’s Jeremy.”
Axle drops Drix’s arm and a sentence full of f-bombs. “Where’d you get this?”
“Me.” I step forward. “Kellen asked me for help, and I found this in Drix’s file.”
Axle’s eyes go ice-cold. “Your dad knew Drix didn’t do it?”
I shake my head so quickly that pieces of hair fall out of my bun. “No. No way. He had nothing to do with the arrest or what the DA offered. Dad only got involved once there were candidates for the program. He trusted the DA to make the right conviction.”
“We never saw this picture,” Drix says. “We didn’t know it existed.”
“We didn’t ask.” Axle scrubs a hand over his face. “I was stupid, and I didn’t ask. But we have to be smart about this now. We have to figure out how to clear your name, how to do it clean, and we have to figure out how to keep Kellen safe. We need a lawyer. A good one.”
“And how are we going to pay for that?” Drix snaps.
“I don’t know,” Axle shoots back, “but I’ll figure it out.”
“My dad,” I say, and they both turn to me as if they had forgotten I was there. “We’ll go to him. He’ll help us. I know he will.”
The anger rushes out of Drix’s face. “We can’t go to him. We aren’t supposed to be together.”
Fear and anxiety go around and around causing nausea, but I have no choice. At my core, I’m my father’s daughter. “Dad set up that program to give a voice to the voiceless. He would be angrier at me for saying nothing and saving myself. This is important. You’re important. No matter how angry he’ll be at me, he loves me and he’ll forgive me. My future, no matter what, is secure. This is about you and your future. This is about making sure you get all you deserve.”
Hendrix
Elle has the nicest car I’ve ridden in. Leather seats, air-conditioning that works and an engine that doesn’t sound like it’s about to rattle out of the frame. It’s a smooth ride, and it’s been a silent one except for her fingers that tap against the steering wheel at stoplights. She’s nervous. So am I. No telling how talking to her father is going to go down, but the rolling in my gut keeps screaming it’ll be bad.
She pulls in her driveway, skips the right that would take us to the front of the house and goes around back to park in front of a massive garage. The smooth engine shuts off, and it’s absolute quiet.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say.
Elle looks over at me, and those normally intimidating blue eyes are soft. “This is how I was raised. My dad taught me to fight for people, and you’re someone worth fighting for.”
Fighting for. I’ve been in fights my entire life. None of them worth being in. All were with my fists, and if Elle wasn’t in my life, there’s a good chance I would have continued down that road, and I’d be fighting Jeremy with my fists again.
I love Axle, but when he told me to accept the plea deal, that was worse than being kicked in the balls. Worse than having my head torn off my body. Worse than having my heart ripped out of my chest as it still beat. My brother told me to give in. He told me we couldn’t win. He told me not to fight.
Something broke in me then. Something that has kept me from feeling whole. But sitting here next to Elle, understanding that she will bear the wrath of her family to fight for me—emotions build up and threaten to bust past my skin.
I cradle her face with my hand, and she leans into me. “Thank you for this.”
“They’re probably going to ground me,” she says, and that smile she tries to give me is one of the fake ones. “Will you wait for me? There’s a good chance I might be thirty.”
I caress a finger over her lips to ease the fakeness away. I prefer the real her—even if it’s the side of her that’s sad. “We’ll make this work. Your dad is a good man, and I’ll spend as much time as I can proving to him I’m worthy of you.”
“We should go in.” Her mouth pulls down, and it breaks my heart.
Her backyard is big, green and lavish, but what catches my eye is the white gazebo next to the weeping willow. Picturesque, private and perfect. Elle and I need an escape. We need to, one more time, live in our own world.
I exit the car and reach Elle’s side as she cracks the door. I open it the rest of the way for her and offer her my hand. She gives me a shy grin as she accepts, and I knot my fingers with hers. I close the door, then stare down into her eyes so she knows I’m dead serious. “When we get past this, I want you to go on a date with me.”
Elle shines. “Was that a question? Because I’m not sure I heard the question mark at the end. In the real world, people ask for dates. They don’t assume dates.”
She’s killing me. “First apologizing and now asking...you’re high maintenance.”
Elle laughs, and I pull on her hand. “Come with me.” Before we go in and place ourselves in the head of a salivating lion.
We walk across the grass, hand in hand, and Elle points out where Henry had built her a tree house when she was ten, where her father had taught her to hit a ball with a bat and where her mother used to lie with her on afternoons and read books on lazy summer afternoons.
Under the cover of the weeping willow, I tell her how Axle taught me to play the guitar, how the drums came naturally and how when Holiday’s grandma said I wasn’t being an ass, she’d teach me piano. I tell her that we throw cake at each other on birthdays because I first did it on my birthday when Holiday was getting on my nerves. She threw cake back. A tradition was born.
We talk, we laugh and for a few minutes it feels like two teens wasting away a summer afternoon. Warm breeze, blue sky, birds singing to one another, and we move to the shade in the gazebo where Elle caresses my arm as we sit on the wooden bench.
“Someday, I’d like you to be the one to walk me into a fund-raiser,” she says, and her voice has a soft whimsical feel as if we’ve been transported to another time, another place.
“Does that mean I have to wear a tux?”
She winks. “Definitely. You’re stunning in your suits, but I’ve dreamed of you in a tux.”
“We need to work on your fantasies. Mine include less clothes, not more.”
Elle turns red, but she smiles—the real one. “You have your fantasies. I have mine. But imagine it, you and I walking in together. I’ll be in a long flowing dress, you’ll be all adorable in black, and then we’ll dance. Then you’ll have that snapshot in your mind forever of me in a beautiful dress and of us dancing.”
I can see it. It’s not hard to do. If she on
ly knew how many snapshots of her I have in my mind already. But I hear what she’s saying. She wants to spend time with me as her man in public. She wants to be with me in public during a dance. She’s about to walk through hell for me, and I can do this for her.
A gust blows through the gazebo and strands of her hair blow around her face as I stand. With her hand still in mine, I squeeze. “Dance with me, Elle.”
Elle is blinding. Her eyes, that smile—a sun that’s the center of my world. She stands, and in the middle of the gazebo, she wraps her arms around my neck, and we sway from side to side. I then do something I hardly ever do—I sing.
Low, soft, right in her ear and we move with the beat, move with the melody. I sing of flying, wings and how some loves are meant to be. And my favorite part of the song, the part where the beat picks up, the part where the rhythm changes, I spin Elle. A turn for every tap on the snare drum. Then there’s a dramatic pause where there’s no beat, no voice, no music, and I dip her, holding my breath as she looks up at me with so much love, my heart is overflowing.
I bring her back into me, and where we should keep dancing, we instead hold on to each other. Her head tilted up, my hands framing her face, a lick of her lips in invitation and I kiss her. Easy and slow. A memorization of how soft she is, yet strong to the core.
There’s a burn, a match that’s been struck. Mouths moving, her hands along my back, fingernails tickling along the skin of my neck, and her body pressed to mine. The fire runs hot, starts to consume, but this isn’t the time, and it isn’t the place because this kiss is a promise.
A promise that no matter the consequence, I’m not going anywhere. A promise that I love her. A promise that someday I’ll be the man with her in the middle of the dance floor. Me in the tux. Her in the beautiful dress.
I gently kiss her lips one more time, then pull back. I don’t tell her I love her because my kiss said it all. She doesn’t say it back because the deep blue of her eyes tells me all I need to know. I enfold her into me again, wrap my arms strongly around her and close my eyes.
I will hold her again, I will be with her again, and when I do it, I’ll be a man truly free of his past.
Ellison
My hands are cold. Freezing. Yet, clammy. Drix is following me through the house. It’s empty as it typically is after a long trip. Mom and Dad prefer to have downtime. A few moments alone after they’ve had to be perfect for such a long stretch.
When we first walked in, I heard Mom moving about upstairs, and I stayed as quiet as I could so she wouldn’t poke her head out to greet me. I don’t need her disappointing stare. I don’t need her blocking my path to Dad. This is between me, him and Drix.
Outside Dad’s office, I suck in a deep breath, but there’s no calming the waves of nausea crashing in my stomach. As soon as one wave fades, another one crests. But this is the right thing to do. Dad will see this. He’ll be mad at my lies, but he’ll eventually forgive me because that’s who my father is at the core of his being—he’s love.
I knock on the door, Dad gives affirmation to enter, and Drix places his hand on my neck. I briefly close my eyes with the touch of reassurance. Then his hand is gone, and I walk in. Dad smiles. It’s big and it’s wide and it tells me how much he missed me. “There you are. I told your mom you wouldn’t be gone long. Where do you want to go to dinner? Your choice. Maybe even a movie if there’s anything out you want to see...”
But his smile fades, slips right off his face as if someone had used an eraser. Drix has entered, and I keep walking because if I don’t, I might lose my nerve. I sit at one of the chairs across from Dad, perched at the edge, because that’s where I feel like I’m teetering.
“Hey, Dad.”
Dad keeps his eyes purely on Drix as Drix stands behind the other empty chair.
“What can I do for you, Hendrix? Not sure if you knew, but my wife and I just returned from a long trip. Typically I wouldn’t take impromptu meetings, but I know you wouldn’t have stopped by if it wasn’t important.”
“It is, sir. I found out some information, and I came straight here from a job site to see you.”
Concern for Drix worries Dad’s forehead, and it gives me hope. This is my father—the man who cares. “Elle, thank you for letting Hendrix in. Do you mind giving us a few minutes?”
Here comes the part where I throw myself off the ledge. “Actually, I’m involved in this.”
Dad’s eyes snap to me, and it’s hard to not shrink. “What do you mean?”
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, then readjust my glasses. I should have rehearsed this for about a year because I don’t know how to lead off. Should I start with how I’ve been seeing Drix behind their back since May? How I’ve fallen in love with him and him with me? Should I tell him how I was at Drix’s house and a friend of his told me Drix didn’t do the crime? Do I tell him I snuck into this office, went through his private files and removed proof that Drix is innocent?
I raise my chin. I’m in free fall and prepare myself for impact with the ground. “Drix didn’t rob the convenience store.” I remove the picture from my pocket, unfold it and lay it on Dad’s desk. “This is a screen shot from the surveillance video, and the person who robbed the store had a tattoo. Drix doesn’t have any tattoos.”
My father stares at the photo, and his frozen expression is terrifying. “You pled guilty.”
I glance at Drix out of the corner of my eye, and I admire how cool, calm and collected he seems sitting in the chair opposite of me. “Yes, sir, I did. But I pled guilty because we couldn’t afford a lawyer, and they were threatening to charge me as an adult if I didn’t accept. My brother and I decided I couldn’t take the risk of me going to adult prison. We felt the evidence was stacked against me, but that picture proves I didn’t commit the crime, and if you allow me to explain, I can tell you who did do it.”
“Where did you get this picture?”
Drix goes to answer, and if I know him, it’s to cover for me, but Henry is wrong. The truth is important. “I found it.” No sense stopping now. “When I was searching through Hendrix’s binder here in your office. Someone told me he didn’t do it so I searched for answers.”
His eyes flicker between us, and I can tell he’s doing the math in his head. He’s figuring out I haven’t stayed away from Drix and that Drix hasn’t stayed away from me. It’s time to own my choices. “Just so you know everything, Drix and I are together.”
A tick of Dad’s jaw. “Together?”
“Dating, sir,” Drix answers before I can. “We see each other after the events and have seen each other a few times outside of the events, as well. I apologize that we’ve done it behind your back. I promise, anything going forward, will be with your permission.”
Now he doesn’t have to go that far.
The cords of muscles in Dad’s neck protrude, and my heart picks up speed. I hold on to the arms of the chair for support.
“I need you to leave, Elle. Go to your room and don’t come out until I tell you.”
“Dad—”
“Go,” he snaps, and the anger that blares from him in my direction makes me feel as if the two of us are strangers.
I dare to look over at Drix, and he subtly inclines his head for me to go. I do, feeling like I’m abandoning him. My father starts yelling before I even have a chance to close the door.
Hendrix
Governor Monroe isn’t yelling at me as a politician, he’s yelling at me as a father, and I remain silent and take it. I never had a father who fought for me. Never had a mother who was willing to go a single round on my behalf either. I may not like being on the receiving end of a verbal lashing, but I respect him for loving his daughter.
“I have showed you nothing but respect.” He’s not yelling anymore, but agitated as hell as he flings a pen across his desk. “How could you not offer me the same?”
/> Governor Monroe leans back in his seat, every muscle still tense, and the silence between us stretches. I count in my head, like the beats of a bass drum, and when enough time passes, I realize this isn’t another rhetorical question. He’s waiting for an answer. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. Elle and I should have never kept our friendship and relationship a secret.”
No change in expression, and I read the writing on the wall. Doesn’t matter if we went to him, he would have forbidden it. So this begs the question if I really am sorry for going behind his back, because being with Elle is one of the best things that’s happened in my life.
“You have a right to be angry with me on how I’ve handled my relationship with your daughter, but with all due respect, it doesn’t erase the fact that Elle did find that picture, and it proves I did not commit that crime.”
The governor stands and walks over to a bar area. Instead of pouring himself liquor in a glass like I’ve seen a million times on TV, he grabs two bottles of water from the mini fridge. He hands one to me and then sits in Elle’s seat.
I’ll admit it, this puts me more on edge than walking through the slasher room at a haunted house. He rests his water on the desk and leans forward.
“Start from the beginning. Every detail you can think of that leads up to the crime and what happened after. If you had Cheerios for breakfast, I want to know. Don’t leave anything out. No matter how insignificant. And don’t sugarcoat anything either. You were high that night. I saw the toxicology results. I know you went through withdrawal. I know we gave you drug and alcohol counseling. I need to know everything. The absolute truth.”
Sincerity. It’s etched on the lines around his eyes and mouth, and into the way his body is angled toward me. Since I met Elle, this is what she’s been explaining to me. How her father cares and is in power to help others. A sensation of awe and confusion rushes through me.