“I was an idiot to think I didn’t still carry that.”
She pressed a soft kiss to the corner of my jaw. “Wishful thinking. I understand that too.”
The door of the club opened, and a couple guys in suits that stretched across their massive frames strode out. They pointed to my car, and I hadn’t gotten so soft, I didn’t recognize the potential for trouble when I saw it. I pushed Helen back to her seat and tore out of the parking lot before they could get close to us.
“They didn’t look like upstanding gentlemen,” Helen said.
“Nope. Not if they work at a place like that.”
I drove to another part of town that was even worse. I used to think the cracks in the sidewalks and road were places where the fire from hell had broken through. That wasn’t whimsy either. People who lived here didn’t go outside after dark unless they were gang affiliated and packing. Daytime was iffy at best too. And if truth was to be told, being inside was only halfway safer.
I pointed to the gutted, blackened remains of a building. “That was my pops’s garage before the bank reclaimed it. He’d owned it since he was in his twenties, but never really got his head above water in all that time. Probably because he was terrible at business, but also because he had break-ins at least once a year and had to replace half his tools each time.”
“Were you close to him?”
I shook my head. “Not really. He wasn’t that kind of man.” I pulled into the parking lot of my old apartment building. “I lived here with him and my mom from the time I was five until I moved in with Andrew.”
I tried to keep to facts, but these facts were what made me. I’d always have the imprints of sequins in my skin, a tinge of despair in my blood, the shadow of violence and poverty following me. If I wanted to stop fighting and start living—and I sure as hell did—I had to accept that. I was made here, but this wasn’t the end of me. It was barely the beginning.
The apartment was yellow stucco, cracked and crumbling—it was pretty much the neighborhood aesthetic—with an outside staircase that was rusted, and from memory, piss filled. Two stories tall, it looked slumped and haggard, as though it was as tired of existing in this violent place as much as the residents.
“Is your pops still here?”
“No.” I took her hand and rolled it against my cheek. “He died right before I started college.”
Her fingers tensed. “So, when you came into Savage Wheelz…?”
“Mmm. Deacon got it into his head that weed would help me work through my grief. He didn’t really get that you don’t grieve for a man like my pops because he never allowed anyone to love him. He was just there, taciturn and detached. He taught me about engines, how to change oil and rotate tires, but everything else...I don’t think I even knew him. He was more like that random roommate you find on Craigslist than a grandpa.”
“Is your mom still here?” she asked carefully.
“Nope. She’s probably dead, but I don’t know. She took off when I was ten, left me here with Pops. After a year, I stopped expecting her to come back.” I inhaled deep, one final taste of this poisoned air. “I’m never coming back here again.”
“You didn’t have to bring me here.”
“I haven’t been here since I moved away, but I wanted to see it one last time. This is a needed reminder, Tiger. I don’t have to live like Andrew Whitlock. I don’twantto. But I don’t want to live like this either.”
“There’s an in-between.”
I looked at her, finding her peering back at me in the softest, most open way she ever had. She was watchful, taking me in, but also the surroundings. Helen got what it meant to come from a place like this. No matter how deep our conversation was, we both knew not to forget where we were, to stay on edge and ready to roll. This was one of the many reasons she was the only person I could have shared this with.
We weren’t exactly the same, my girl and me. We were more like warped reflections in the same mirror. When she said she understood me, she meant it on a bone-deep level. Once I got my head out of my ass, I understood her the same way.
Holding her gaze, I pressed my lips to her palm. “I get that now. I’m finding it.”
“Can I come along?”
“Baby, there’s no way I’m taking another step without you beside me.”
I drove away from my old home for the final time and didn’t look back. I’d never forget where I came from, but that was just it: where I came from wasn’t where I was going. There was nothing there for me, and there never had been.
“To the lights?” Helen asked. “Are we going to see the lights?”
“Yeah, baby. That’s where we’re going.”
What I didn’t say was I’d already seen the light, and she was a red-lipped, bat-carrying, badass beauty.