Out Bad (16 page)

She handed him her credit card.  “Fun times.”

He winked at her.  “I wouldn’t change it for the
world.”

Gwen sat in the end of the driveway seriously second
guessing herself. 

She stared up at the white farmhouse that sat to the right
of the gravel drive.  Maybe he wasn’t even home.  She should have
called, but after talking with
Jarod
last night and
hearing Joe’s voice on her voicemail, she’d wanted to drive straight to his
house.  But that would've been a bad idea and maybe a little crazy. 
She needed time to relax and prepare for what she came to hear today. 

She slowly eased her car along the rough rocky surface,
taking in everything as she went.  The house looked different than in the
blurry satellite photo.  The trees were trimmed back revealing a porch
with pretty railing that dressed up the plain exterior just a bit.  She
imagined many years ago, farmers and their families sitting in rocking chairs
on that same porch as the summer sun set. 

Gwen rolled down her window letting the humid air flood the
car.  Taking a deep breath she let the smell of grass and rain fill her
lungs.

It was amazing how different it could smell here.  It
wasn’t like she was out in the middle of nowhere.  It was only maybe a
fifteen minute drive to a grocery store, but it felt, and smelled like she was
out in the country.  It was beautiful.

The barn Joe told her about came into view as she reached
the back of the house. 

So did his van.

Her stomach clenched.  She was ready for this.  It
was time to take back her life and this was an important step in facing her
fears. 

Parking her car beside the van, she jumped out before she
changed her mind.  She marched up the back steps and onto the small
covered porch at the back door.  She stopped.  He obviously came and
went through this door, but should she go to the front? 

Hell, at this point it didn't matter.  She was showing
up at his home unannounced on a Saturday afternoon.  Using the wrong door
would be the least of her offenses. 

Knocking quickly, she turned around, putting her back to the
door, trying to catch her breath.  She stopped breathing anyway as she
heard heavy footsteps approaching the door. 

The steps stopped and she could hear soft clicking as the
door slowly opened behind her. 

“Gwen?” 

His voice was low and quiet making the hairs on the back of
her neck prick. Goosebumps broke out over her skin, even as she could feel a
flush creeping up her neck.  She turned quickly, hoping he wouldn’t decide
she was crazy.  Even if she was pretty sure it was true.

He stood in the doorway, shirtless, one arm braced against
the door jamb beside his head. She had worked a whole conversation out in her
mind on the way here and every freaking word was escaping her now.  All
she could seem to focus on was how very wrong her assumptions about Joe had
been. 

She had expected a nice body, but this was…

This was…

Um…

This was like nothing she’d ever been lucky enough to see
before.

He had tattoos.  Lots of them.  And she wanted to
inspect each and every one of them.  With her fingers.  Maybe her
tongue.

“Sweetheart, is everything okay?”  He probably had a
concerned look on his face, but for the life of her, she couldn’t seem to rip
her eyes away from the width of his chest. 

That wasn’t entirely true. 

She managed to drop her gaze to his stomach.  This body
was more than a physical labor kind of body.  This was the body of a man
who worked out.  A lot.

Seconds ticked by.

She needed to say something. 

She blinked her eyes hard, trying to break through the
sludge her brain had turned to at the sight of his body. 

“Um, what?”  That wasn’t what she meant to say. 
She meant to say… something else.

“Are you okay?”  This time she could hear concern in
his voice.  She closed her eyes.

“Yes.  I mean, no.” 

That was it.  She opened her eyes, careful to keep them
planted directly on his face.  “I missed your call.” 

That didn’t come out right. 

“I mean,” she took a deep breath and shook her head trying
to get her brain to catch up with her mouth, “I’m sorry I missed your call last
night.  I was in a meeting.”  That was a little better. 
Coherent at least.

Joe raised his eyebrows.  “How late did you
work?” 

She shook her head.  “It was like a--”

She rubbed her eyes, trying to smudge away the vision in
front of her.  “It was a meeting with a therapist.”  She spit out the
words quickly before they got all muddled up again.

“Oh.”  He dropped his hand and stepped to one side of
the door.  “Come in and tell me about it.”

Gwen stood for a minute staring at the doorway before
her.  Going in to the place he lived felt intimate, significantly more
intimate than it had when he was in her house.  Once she crossed that
threshold, she was in his world as much as he was in hers.  That was why
she was here.  He’d always come to her.  It was time for her to show
him she was in this as much as he was. 

In two steps, she was through the door.  As she moved
past him, she let her bare arm brush against his body.  The almost black
hair that covered his chest like a fine mist was surprisingly soft against her
skin.  She thought she heard him quietly suck in a breath as their bodies
connected. 

The thought that he might be just as affected by her made
her breath quicken.  She kept moving into the house afraid of what she would
do if she stayed too close to him right now.  She didn’t want to get
distracted by him.  At least not just yet.

Joe looked down and rubbed his stomach as if he just
realized he was missing his shirt.  “Sorry.” 

He ducked into a room to the side and came back pulling a
t-shirt over his head.  “I was cleaning out the fridge and spilled
something.”

Well thank God for that. 

She watched as he tugged his shirt down over the last little
bit of exposed flesh, both disappointed and relieved.  Hopefully now she
would be a little bit more articulate.

“So can I assume you found my address the same way you found
out about my, um…”

“Incarceration?” 

“Yes.” 

She nodded.  “That’s sort of why I’m here.”  She
took a deep breath as she tried to find the right words.  “How did that
happen?”

He shifted on his feet.  “Well, what do you already
know?  I can start there.”

She shrugged.  “Not much.  They used pretty
generic wording on the charges.” She glanced around the room as she
spoke.  They were in the middle of an eat-in kitchen straight out of the
seventies.  From the dark wood-look cabinets to the busy gold linoleum
covering the floor it reminded her of the kitchen in the house she grew up in.

A vase full of beautiful flowers sat on the counter. 
She wandered over and sniffed at the full white roses.  The card caught
her eye.  Actually, it was the handwritten name in perfect block letters
on the envelope.

Gwen.

She turned to face him.

“I picked those up last night.”  He shoved his hands in
the pockets of his jeans.

She fingered the velvety petals.  “They’re
beautiful.”  She took one more breath of rosy scent.  “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”  Joe nodded his head toward the
doorway that led to the front of the house.  “Come and sit down.” 

He followed behind her as she went into the living
room.  It was a big space, probably intended to be a dining room where it
met the kitchen and a living room at the front near the door.  Joe used it
as mostly living room with an office area in one corner where a long desk sat
flanked by filing cabinets and topped with a computer.  A pretty nice
computer too. 

She headed for the extremely large sectional that took up
most of the room and sat at one end.  Joe stood for a minute before
sitting toward the bend, more than a few feet away from her. 

It was hard to tell if it was her coming here or the
prospect of discussing his less than stellar past that had him upset.  She
began to regret her decision to come here when he dropped a bomb that was
nothing like what she expected to hear.

“I went to prison because I wouldn’t testify against the
gang I was in when they were investigated for trafficking.”

****

Joe swallowed hard.  This could go one of two
ways.  Gwen would either give him the opportunity to explain himself or
she would run for the hills.  Either would be understandable, but
selfishly he prayed she was strong enough to want to know more.

She blinked at him a couple times as his words hung in the
air between them.  She sat silently for long enough that he almost started
to explain, but he held his lips tightly together, unwilling to force a very
difficult story on her if she wished to remain happily oblivious to the things
that happened in this world.

Finally a look of confusion furrowed her brow. “Why in the
world wouldn’t you testify against them if they were doing something that
awful?”

“They would have killed me.” 

She probably thought he was being paranoid, but it was the
truth.  He’d seen it happen as a terrified eighteen-year-old kid, only realizing
what he’d signed up for when it was too late.

Gwen stared at him, her face paler than normal, the
brightness in her eyes gone as the truth of what he'd been a part of sank
in.  “I think I need you to explain what happened because I’m having a
tough time reconciling the person I think I know and someone who would be a
part of something like… that.”  Her voice was quiet as she spoke her words
slowly.

“Okay.”  A million times he had run through this
conversation in his head.  He’d known this day would come and wanted so
badly to explain to someone how this happened to him and have them
understand.  Realize it wasn’t that he was a terrible person, just someone
who’d made terrible choices.

It was a story he’d never told anyone outside the groups he
attended while inside.  Then, he was explaining it to other people just
like him.  Others, who were both victims of circumstance and their own bad
choices.

Now, for the first time he was going to have to explain it
to someone who may not understand how a good person could end up doing bad
things.  Even worse, it was someone he cared about.  Someone he
wanted to care about him, someone he wanted to trust him.  Gwen might not
find that possible after today.

“Just start at the beginning.”  He felt the warmth of
her hand as she slid it into his.  She’d moved closer to him on the couch,
bringing the distance between them to inches instead of feet.  Her light
emerald
eyes filled with both fear and
concern. 

Guilt flooded him.  He’d waited too long to tell
her.  He wanted to explain before she risked becoming attached, when she
would have easily walked away without pain or sadness.  He could see from
the look in her eyes, that chance was long gone.

He shook his head as he tugged his hand from hers and went
to stand across the room, putting the couch between them, needing to be away
from her. 

She needed to be able to leave at any moment if she wanted
and if she was within reach, he would try to stop her.  “When I was
eighteen I was struggling to figure out where I fit in.  We moved around a
lot so I didn’t really have many friends.  After I graduated I got a job
at a bike shop, cleaning-up and helping the guys, doing grunt work, whatever
they needed.”

“I used my first couple checks to buy an old bike I could
fix up.  I started to ride around with some of the guys who worked there
and they kind of took me under their wing. They started showing me some of the
stuff they did on the side.  I didn’t realize at the time what was really
happening.”

“You didn’t realize it was a gang?”

“Not initially.  My dad was real strict.  I didn’t
know much about the way things were.  I pretended to.  I wanted these
guys to be my friends so I went along with whatever they said, acting like I
knew.  By the time I figured it out, I was too far in to get out easily.”

Now came the worst part.  The part he’d never really
admitted to anyone.  He’d only just recently accepted it himself, but if
he was going to be the man he wanted to be, the kind of man Gwen deserved, he
would have to lay everything out, ugly and all.

“By then I didn’t want out.”  He watched her face
waiting for a reaction.  She just sat silently, waiting for more. 

“I had friends, men who had my back, someplace I
belonged.”  He hesitated, not wanting to admit the worst of it. 

“I liked the money and the attention.  The other guys
all liked me.  I was good at it, toeing the line and keeping things moving
the way they needed to, so I moved up in rank real fast.  Pretty soon I
was the guy the president went to when he had something he needed.  I
handled it, or knew who could.”

He paused, giving her the chance to process all he was
telling her. 

“Did you kill anyone?”  Her voice was tight.  She
chewed on her bottom lip as she squeezed her hands together tightly in her lap.

“No.” 

A single tear slid down her cheek as she nodded her
head.  He ran his fingers through his hair.  This, seeing the pain he
was bringing her, was killing him. 

He wanted to hold her.  Tell her how sorry he
was.  If he’d only known he would find someone like her someday he would
have done everything differently.  But that wouldn’t be fair to her. 
This isn’t something he would pressure anyone, especially her, into accepting.

“I was lucky I guess.  Most of the guys in our group
were smart enough to do what they were supposed to do and stay out of what they
weren’t.  The only problems really were with other gangs creeping into our
area.”

“What do you mean?”

“We ran drugs, brought them into our area, and distributed
them.  If another club came into a place we considered ours, something was
done to deter them.”