“Just go, JR. Leave and let me get some sleep, because we both know this isn’t going anywhere.”
I sucked in a ragged breath as she grabbed my arm and forced me toward the door. This was it. The end was here, and I could either walk out that door or try to change.
“My name really is JR,” I spat out.
She stalled for just a moment, her eyes blinking up at me innocently. “What?”
“JR. The letters—that’s all there is to my name. Very creative mother,” I jested. “I used to pretend it meant something else, but then you grow up and realize it really doesn’t fucking matter.”
I turned to face her, going all in. “I killed one of my foster parents. Nobody knew, and I’ve never told anyone, not even Alyssa. This was after I met her and we were split up. He was this real asshole, always doing— He was a shitty human being. And when he tried to attack this other kid who was just a puny shit, I snuck up behind him and slammed a knife into his chest.”
“How—”
“We were in the kitchen. I smeared some cream on the floor and slid his foot through it, making it look like he slipped and fell forward on his knife. And then I wiped the prints.”
Her eyes widened at my confession. “How did you even know to do that?”
“You learn a lot when you’re in the system. And the guy was already drunk, so it wasn’t hard for the coroner to believe he’d killed himself on accident.”
Her eyes dropped as she processed what I was saying. I knew it was a lot, and that was just what I had done as a kid. Thatdidn’t even touch on the shit I’d done as an adult. I was old enough to know better, and yet, I still did horrible things.
“JR…I don’t even…”
“When I turned eighteen, I started stealing food while I was sleeping on the streets. Mostly out of dumpsters at the back of restaurants, but sometimes, I snuck into the kitchens and stole plates of food. A few times, I was almost arrested.”
She walked over to the couch and sank down, her attention fully on me. And just like that, it all came pouring out. She just listened. I was fully aware that at any moment, she would realize what a shitbag I was and tell me to leave, but I couldn’t help it. She had to know everything or this would never work.
I talked deep into the morning hours until the sun was about to rise. I was exhausted from saying so damn much, but she had barely said a word, hardly even moved from her spot on the couch.
Finally, as the alarm went off in her bedroom, she got up and turned it off, then came back and sat cross-legged on the couch. I sat hunched forward, my elbows resting on my knees as I waited for whatever vitriol she spat at me.
“The job you left on,” she finally asked after a few minutes. “What happened?”
I scrubbed a hand over my face, tired as hell. I was in no mood to talk about this, but there was no turning back now. “I told you the last job I had before I came here went south. Archer had to leave because of Bailey, and that put us in a bad position. He found someone to fill in, but the guy was an amateur and the job went south. To make up for it, this guy we work for called in a favor.”
“Couldn’t you say no?”
I smiled tiredly at her. “It wasn’t that kind of favor. We went on the job, but…the man we were supposed to?—”
“Kill?” she asked hesitantly.
I nodded. “He had killed the boss’s brother. Of course, what we didn’t know was that this asshole was a piece of shit who raped and murdered our target’s wife.”
Her jaw dropped in shock. “What did you do?”
“The easy thing would have been to take him out. That was the favor,” I smiled. “But when I heard his pleas…” I dropped my gaze to the ground, ashamed more than I ever had been before. “I thought of you, and I couldn’t do it.”
“Of me?”
I nodded slowly. “I thought, if I ever wanted to have something real with you, there was no way I could ever pull the trigger. Stupid,” I huffed out a laugh. “What I’ve done, that’s not something you come back from.”
It was all in the open now. No matter what I said or did from here, I knew I had lost her. You didn’t tell someone you murdered people for a living and then win them over with a smile.
“Anyway,” I shoved to my feet and turned for the door. “I thought you deserved the truth.”
I started for the door, but didn’t make it two steps before she grabbed my hand and tugged me back to her. She gave away nothing as those usually bright eyes watched me carefully.
“You don’t have to be perfect, Johnny Roger. I don’t need a man who has the perfect job or has perfect teeth or the right car…”
