“Because when you let someone touch you, it’s because you have feelings for them.” His mouth wreaked havoc on my neck, sending tiny explosions of heat over my skin. “Sex is only sacred when it’s with you.”
I lifted my gaze to his. “Is it always going to be like this?”
“Fuck, I hope so.” He held me close. “Are we good?”
I smiled against his skin, sweetly scented of sex and sweat. I wanted to trust him. I was going to trust him, but I wasn’t just letting it go. “No.”
“I get it, Micki. It was stupid to even consider it.”
“I know you want the patch, but I have to fit into your life, too. Don’t fuck us up.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
Chapter Two
Ryatt
I sat on the edge of my bed, pressed two fingers to each of my temples, and tried to massage away the pain piercing my brain. Living in a halfway house sucked, but living in a six by nine would suck more.
I glanced around my small room. Sadly, I had lived in worse. I could’ve done something to the plain white walls, but I didn’t want to be comfortable. Good thing because the mattress on the bed was marginally better than sleeping on plywood. I’d know. When I was a kid, I’d spent six months in a group home sleeping on a wooden pallet. At least here, I had my own bathroom.
Jail would only be slightly worse. I’d traded one system for another. From the foster care system to the prison system. Neither situation was my fault.
“You’re fucking lying,” the woman living in the room next to me screeched. I think her name was Fawnya. I avoided knowing anything else about her or any of my other housemates. Laying low was my priority. My three months in hell was about over. “I haven’t done shit!” she continued to scream.
A door slammed followed by banging. Fawnya struggled with the limitations of sober living. I wassurprised she hadn’t fallen or jumped out of her second-floor window.
She was a tweaker. I never touched that shit. Strictly recreational sales and use. I popped a few scripts and smoked weed. My situation wasn’t even because I’d sold to an undercover. Someone had given Santa’s naughty list of names to the cops. Dominos started dropping. My dealer got five years, and his supplier was found dead in a bathtub.
My court appointed attorney told me to take the deal, and he claimed I was getting off lucky with eighteen months of probation instead of five years in state lockup. For three of those months, I would have to be monitored, hence the halfway house, while I completed ninety days of drug treatment. So here I was, halfway house living, and pissing in a cup for my perverted probation officer.
And I was late for my weekly. I grabbed my helmet off the scratched and dinged dresser and snatched my bike keys.
Treena, the house mom, stood in the hall with her arms crossed. She was the last person I wanted to piss off. She wouldn’t think twice about cleaning house if I gave her a reason to bounce me back to my probation officer.
A cop knocked on Fawnya’s door, and another stayed a step back with a direct line of sight into the room if Fawnya decided to let them in. “Ma’am. Open the door.”
“You tested dirty,” Treena hollered. “You’re going back to jail.”
“I took cold medicine,” she pleaded from inside her room. Fawnya wasn’t skating on this one. Anyone could tell she’d been tweaking, and she should’ve knownTreena would find out. Treena was a dog with a bone once she suspected someone was using.
The second cop nodded, and Treena used her master keys to unlock the door. Another reason not to leave anything in my room. Treena had her good points, but staying out of people’s stuff when they weren’t home wasn’t one of them. Those keys were her infinity stones, clutched in her hand, they gave her all the power.
I guess you had to be crazy to live with crazy. If I had anywhere else to go, I would. I locked my door and smiled at Treena as I slipped past and made my way outside.
My Yamaha YZF R1 was my baby. I snapped the strap of my helmet, lifted my leg over the bike, and hit the start button. The purr of her engine was music to my ears. I could give up weed, but not speed, the kind of high that flying down the interstate over a hundred miles per hour could give.
I’d sell my soul before I gave up riding. The two-hundred dollar a month payment wasn’t a problem when I was parting out eighths. But funds were tight now that I had rent, restitution, and a record. I didn’t need to be good at math to count to zero.
I guess I proved the naysayers right. I hadn’t amounted to much. But I hadn’t followed in my old man’s footsteps. I’d never hit a woman, and I’d never kill anyone.
I weaved in and out of cars, changed lanes, and broke a few speed and traffic laws I probably shouldn’t have before pulling into the parking lot of my PO’s office. The professional building was down the street from the courthouse. I locked the handlebars, lifted off my helmet, and headed inside.
Following the routine, I signed in and sat in one of the hard plastic chairs in the open area.
His receptionist—I couldn’t remember her name—slid open the bulletproof glass window separating her desk from the waiting area. Ted clearly had a high-class caliber of convicts visiting him. “Hi, Ryatt. Ted is on a call. He’ll be right out.”
“Thanks,” I said. After setting my helmet on the chair next to me, I pulled out my phone, checked my socials, then logged into my delivery apps.
