Page 31 of X's and O's

I groaned at the thought of her tucked up in her bed, reading these scenes over and over, her breath quickening with each line, her fingers skimming down her body to relieve the ache between her thighs.

She was barely visible now, at the end of the street. “Is this what you want?” I shouted, cupping my hand around my mouth to try to make my voice go farther. “You want a masked man who will chase you down and claim you?”

She didn’t answer. Just disappeared around the corner.

I shrugged, giving up, and going back to the book for further research.

If she wanted a masked man, I could give her that.

9

LEVI

Dear Violet.

I’m getting out. Today. This doesn’t feel real. I keep thinking the guards are going to walk back into my cell and tell me they’ve changed their minds. But all they’ve done so far is bring me paperwork to sign and street clothes to change into.

Meet me on Sunday. At the Saint View bluffs. Like we planned.

Fuck, I can’twait.

Levi.

Iwished I’d never sent Violet that letter.

I was a fucking idiot for thinking the outside world would just welcome me back with open arms like I didn’t have a criminal record and hadn’t just spent six years in prison.

I’d walked out of the prison gates high as a man could be, the rest of my life laid out in front of me and sparkling like diamonds. I’d get a job. A house. And then I’d be able to hold my head up high when I met Violet for the first time.

Except none of that had happened.

Boyd, my roommate at the halfway house, lifted his head as I came back into our room and slumped down on my single bed.

He took one look at me and sighed. “No luck again.”

It wasn’t even a question. Just a statement of fact.

I twisted to glance over at him. “You aren’t surprised.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “I admire your spirit to change your life, but man, I told you it wasn’t going to be as easy as you thought it would be.”

I stared at the ceiling, gaze focusing on the mold spots. “I just thought if I worked hard enough, asked enough people, someone would give me a chance.”

Boyd lay back on his bed, the mattress giving a protesting squeak I was so fucking sick of hearing. These beds were worse than the ones at the prison. “My offer still stands. I can hook you up with a guy—”

“No.” I wasn’t getting hooked up with anyone or anything unless it was a nine-to-five at a registered company where your paycheck had taxes taken out of iteach week. The kind of hookup Boyd was talking about was more the kind that ended with you standing on a street corner at 3:00 a.m. with a brick of coke in your backpack and waiting on some dodgy fuck in an expensive car to come take it off your hands in exchange for a wad of cash.

One the IRS knew nothing about, of course.

Even talking about that sort of thing could get us sent back to prison, so I wasn’t interested in hearing it.

“Fine,” Boyd grumbled. “I was just trying to help.”

“Like I said, I don’t want it.”

But by Sunday, nothing had changed.

I was still unemployed. Still essentially homeless. Still with nothing to offer and completely worthless.