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Cole – Present Day
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I HAULED A TRASH BAG out of the bin, the muscles in my forearms popping under the strain. I’d learned the hard way that a professional kitchen created a lot of two things—garbage and dirty dishes.
I glanced down at the multitude of tattoos covering my lower arms. Hell, they were covering most of my upper arms and torso, too, but were hidden beneath the white sleeves of my work shirt. The tattoos were surprisingly good considering the vast majority had been acquired while behind bars. They were just another way of fitting in, of acting like I was part of the gang. Though I hated having to blend in with the crowd, I did what I needed to do in order to make it out of jail in one piece. That, and fighting. As soon as people realized you were handy with your fists, they tended to leave you alone. I figured that out in foster care before I’d ever seen the insides of the prison walls.
Turned out the two institutions weren’t all that different.
I’d spent most of my days in and out of the system, but I’d been lucky to end up in foster care in this town. My foster parents had been good to me, but things hadn’t quite gone the way I’d planned.
Being released from prison was never the way I’d wanted to be reintroduced to Willowbrook Falls. I would have liked to have ventured somewhere else—a Caribbean island, perhaps—but I had to go into the halfway house initially for my probation officer to make contact with me, and then I’d been given this job. It might not be much, but I knew how hard it would be to find other work in a different town. Thank God my old foster parents hadn’t completely disowned me, and had managed to find me a position in the restaurant. It was owned by a friend of theirs, Frankie Kilhorn, and they’d put in a good word for me. The money wasn’t great, but it was enough to allow me to rent a small, rundown house on the outskirts of town.
I understood why Frankie wanted to keep me out back, away from the watchful eye of the rest of the town. I would be bad for business, and I didn’t want to cause Frankie any trouble when he was helping me out. I was a grade A screw up, and I’d given up trying to prove any different to anyone else in this town, or even to myself. Even when I tried to do the right thing, it always went wrong, so what was the point? Now I was just keeping my head down and living for myself. I was never born to be a crowd pleaser anyway.
Trying to ignore the stench of old fish permeating from the trash bag, I hauled it outside to throw into the large industrial container located in the alleyway which ran alongside the back of the building.
As I stepped out, two voices were speaking in low tones, and I just caught the end of the conversation.
“—moved in with her alcoholic father, from what I’ve heard.”
“No shit. How’s that going to work? One old booze hound and Hopalong Cassidy.”
They erupted into laughter, but as I stepped into view, the laughter faded.
Two of the other kitchen hands, Deano and Ben, were out on a smoke break. The two men were also longtime residents of Willowbrook Falls, and though they’d been a couple of years above me at school, they knew my background.
“Ah, shit, man,” said Deano when he caught sight of me.
My mild curiosity about what they were laughing about suddenly deepened to concern. “What’s going on?”
Ben nudged Deano and gave his head a slight shake.
I looked between them, the strange sensation in my gut solidifying. “What’s up? Seriously.”
They exchanged a glance and then Ben said, “Gabi’s back.”
The words hit me like a punch in the chest, expelling the breath from my lungs and making it hard for me to take another. The ground suddenly felt a long way away, no longer right beneath my feet, as though I’d distanced myself from reality for a fraction of a second.
“Gabi?” I managed to say. “When?”
He shrugged. “Not sure. A few days ago, I think.”
“Holy shit. Any idea what’s brought her back to town?”
I’d done my best over the last ten years to forget Gabriella Weston ever existed. I’d never succeeded, not really. I’d always held her at the back of my mind, wondering what she was up to, if she was married and with a young family by now. Being behind bars helped to prevent my desire to look her up again, but any time a young woman had walked in at visiting hours, with the same kind of wild corkscrew curls Gabi had, the same curls I used to love twisting around my fingers while she lay with her head against my bare chest, my heart and stomach always lurched with ridiculous hope.
She would never have visited me. Not after what I did. I didn’t blame her.
I realized the two other men still hadn’t answered my question, and were both distracting themselves, Deano flicking cigarette ash and scuffing a butt around on the floor with his foot.
“What the fuck is going on?” I demanded, squaring my shoulders. There was something they weren’t telling me, and I needed to know.
“You should go see her, man,” said Deano. “She might appreciate a friendly face.”
Ben scoffed. “More like she’d want to bash his face in.”
“Yeah, thanks for that,” I said, jerking my chin in mock amusement.
“We’ve got to head back in,” said Deano. “Smoke break’s over.”
They finished their cigarettes and moved to head back into the building.
“Hey, wait up,” I called after them, and Deano turned back. The sadness I saw in his eyes shocked me.
“Seriously,” Deano said, “just go see her. Even if she smacks you in the face, I reckon she’ll be happy to see someone she knows. It’s been a long time since she left. I think she’s been through a lot.”
He walked back into the restaurant’s kitchen, leaving me shell-shocked and playing the conversation over in my head.
What were they talking about? I already knew she’d been through a lot—after all, I was the one who’d put her through it—but, for some reason, I felt like they weren’t telling me something important.
Gabi, back again. I almost didn’t want to believe it.
I couldn’t allow myself to hope for anything. She’d still hate me, I had no doubt about that, and I deserved her hatred. I’d dragged her heart through the dirt and then stomped on it several times for good luck. She’d left, and I’d never made any attempt to contact her again.
I didn’t think she could hate me as much as I hated myself.