Man, out of context, those words would have sounded very dangerous. Even in context…
“Well, I appreciate it,” I said, putting my hands on the collar of my shirt. “You didn’t have to, though.”
“Yeah, well…”
She didn’t finish her thoughts.
“Want me to take you home?”
“I’d prefer if you take me down Freedom Alley,” I said. “The interstate. My bike is on the side of the road just east of the city. It’s a bit of a drive, but it’s on the way back to Albuquerque.”
“Oh, Steele texted me, said he and Connor headed out to get your bike. Said they’d have it for you by the time you got back to your house.”
I grimaced at anyone other than a hot woman being on my bike, much less driving it, but I supposed if anyone had to do it, better it be someone who respected my chopper than some random tow company who gave no shits.
“OK,” I said. “Well, if you can drop me off at Steele’s, that would be great. Or just in the nearby neighborhood, however you want to avoid—”
“He’s not the Black Plague, Brock. I can handle him.”
I nodded and walked down.
“Sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t planning on coming down here. It’s a bit out of the blue, and Steele wouldn’t tell me why at first. I’m happy to help you, just…”
“This was a world you left behind and thought you’d never return to,” I said. “I can’t blame you. The way you two ended, you must hate us.”
Tara opened her car door for me before she got in the driver’s seat. She turned on the car and blasted the air conditioning, but she didn’t take it out of the parking gear just yet. She paused, looked at me for a second, and then turned her eyes down toward the steering wheel.
“I don’t hate any of you,” she said. “And I certainly don’t hate you. In fact, I…”
Once again, she didn’t finish her sentence. But she didn’t need to. I knew the fucking truth.
We might have had a certain connection, one neither of us were in a particular rush to define.
But it didn’t matter what that connection was because we came from two different worlds that made coexistence, let alone anything more, impossible.
She came from a world of excellence and surpassed expectations. I came from a world of tragedy and no expectations.
She came from a world of wealth and status. I came from a world of poverty and violence.
She came from a world of limitless growth. I came from a world with a low ceiling that one usually hit by age eighteen.
She came from a world of hope. I came from a world of…
No, not no hope.
I had hope that somehow, someway, even if me and the boys would never become rich, we could make Santa Maria a quiet place.
But time was running out on that hope, and I had a hard time believing I’d be the one to see that day after what I’d failed to do years before.
“It’s just that you guys live a life I will never understand, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish I did.”
What?
Tara pulled out of the county jail parking lot as she continued to talk.
“I know exactly what I will do every day, and I sometimes wish I knew what it was like to have no idea what to expect,” she said. “I wish I knew what it was like to have freedom.”
I looked at her and chuckled. I wouldn’t call her naïve, because the vast majority of the world had no sense of what our lives were like, but not fully aware was a fair statement.
