| |
Cole – Present Day.
––––––––
I SHOULDN’T BE SURPRISED Gabriella Weston hated me.
What had I been hoping for—that the years would have faded everything I did, and she would come rushing back into my arms? She’d been my one and only real girlfriend, but that didn’t mean I’d been hers. She could have been married and divorced again for all I knew. Hell, she could still be married, though I hadn’t heard any rumors about a husband, and I was pretty sure if there was someone special in her life, they would be with her during a time like this. The same couldn’t be said for me. Gabi was the only girl I’d ever loved. I’d been in prison for the past ten years. I hadn’t exactly had much opportunity to create new relationships. Not that my location made much of a difference. Even if I’d been a free man, I didn’t think I’d ever find a love that would burn as strong and bright as the love I’d had for her when I was seventeen, going on eighteen.
How different would things have been if I hadn’t screwed everything up? We might be married by now, have a couple of kids of our own. She might not have gone through whatever trauma had cost her her leg.
I had a shift later that day, the evening shift, which meant I wouldn’t be getting off until the early hours of the morning. I wouldn’t mind the later finish if I could just figure out a way to sleep in the next day. After spending most of my adult life under prison rules, my body was trained to wake at six a.m., and even when I didn’t collapse on my bed until after one, I still found my eyes pinging open right before six. I was conditioned, that was for sure, but I wanted to leave my prison life behind me. The future I’d dreamed of when I was eighteen had never materialized. In fact, I’d been forced to put it off for another ten years, but now I had a second chance and I didn’t intend on fucking things up again.
I took a shower, got dressed, and headed out to my shift. As usual, the kitchen was busy and hot, and I nodded my hellos to the guys working their asses off to make sure customers got their meals on time. I was on prep for the start of the shift, and would move to pans later in the night after most of the meals had gone out. It wasn’t exactly classy work, but I was allowed to keep my head down and get on with things without being forced to interact with too many people.
As I worked, my thoughts kept drifting to Gabi. Both times I’d seen her had felt like a punch to the chest. It was like stepping back in time, and I had to physically stop myself from reaching out and touching her as we spoke, just as I always had when we were teenagers. She looked exactly the same to me, though I knew I must appear brutish to her. Ten years behind bars would harden a guy up. I wondered if she hated my tattoos, and that my hair was so much shorter now. Did she feel nostalgic in any way for the boy I had been back then?
The kitchen was always a noisy place, pans crashing and banging, meat sizzling, and people shouting orders to one another, but, beneath it all, a commotion sounded from the front of house. I glanced over my shoulder, wondering what was going on. It was normally a pretty chilled out place to work, but something was definitely up. I heard shouts, and a plate crashed.
One of the waitresses burst into the kitchen, her gaze flicking across the space until it landed on me.
“Hey, Cole,” she yelled. “We need you out front. Some asshole is having a fit about his meal.”
“Can’t you handle it?”
“No, we need you.”
I was never asked to be front of house. The owner didn’t think I would be good for business. But most of the people working out front were women—the hostess and waitresses. Perhaps they just needed someone who appeared a little intimidating. I figured I fit that bill.
I dropped the potatoes I was peeling, the vegetables splashing into the muddy water, and barely stopped to wipe my hands on the apron I wore.
Shouts filtered through to the kitchen, and, as I pushed open the door, they grew louder. A small group had gathered in a circle around someone who was standing at the end of a table, a clutter of broken crockery at his feet. Asshole. Who the hell came into a restaurant to start a fight?
I squared my shoulders, fully planning on grabbing this guy and throwing him out of the door. I couldn’t afford to get myself in any more trouble, but I figured there were enough witnesses around to explain how I was the one trying to put this to an end, not start it. I sensed Deano at my shoulder. He’d also been working in the kitchen, and I knew I had backup. As I pushed through the small crowd, one of the waitresses—a tiny woman in her fifties—tried to placate the man.
“Stupid bitch,” said the guy. “If my meal is tasteless, I ain’t gonna pay for it!”
“But you ate the whole thing ...” She was still trying to reason with him.
The man must have noticed the movement in the crowd as I approached, and his head whipped toward me. The moment he locked eyes with me, I froze in surprise. What was it with people crawling out of the woodwork at the moment? Or perhaps it was just that I’d been away for so long. Everyone else had been around this whole time.
Ryan.
He straightened, his eyes widening. “Fuck me, Cole Devonport.”
To my astonishment, he apparently forgot the scene he’d created and strolled toward me. With me stunned into inaction, he grabbed my hand and shook it, smacking me on the shoulder with his other hand. I could feel everyone staring, trying to connect the two of us. Plenty of people knew about my prison stay, and I didn’t want to be associated with the likes of Ryan Becks. My reputation was bad enough as it was.
I dragged my fingers out of his hold and took a step back. “I think you need to leave, Ryan.”
“Now is that the way to greet an old friend?”
I scowled. “We’re not friends. We never were.”
He barked a laugh. “No? You could have fooled me.”
“Leave, Ryan, or we’ll call the cops.”
He gave a smug smile. “You know the police pretty well by now, don’t you?”
I balled my fists, resisting the urge to lunge for him and break his face. I kept my tone even, though anger bubbled beneath the surface. “This is your last chance. Turn around and walk away, or the police are going to be called.”
He gave a nonchalant shrug. “No problem. I didn’t want to stay in this shit hole any longer, anyway.” He turned, and for a moment I thought he was going to leave without any more trouble, but then he spun back to me. “Hey, how’s that piece of skirt you used to hang out with? Gabriella, wasn’t it? Is she still as fit as she was back then?” He chuckled. “I remember how she was always gagging for it.”
A red haze descended over my vision, and I was no longer aware of any of the people around us, or how I was supposed to be protecting my already ruined reputation. With a growl, I lunged toward Ryan, my shoes crunching on the smashed crockery. Hands grabbed my arms from behind, holding me back. I shook them off, but the delay had given Ryan just enough time to turn and saunter from the building, the little bell above the door ringing as the door swung shut behind him. I could make out his figure walking into the night. A part of me—a massive part—wanted to race after him and smash his head into the sidewalk, but I knew I couldn’t. Going after him now would be viewed as assault, and it would put me right back behind bars.
What the hell was he doing back here? As far as I was aware, Ryan had left town not long after I’d been incarcerated. I wondered if he’d seemed as surprised about seeing me as I’d been about him. Had the shock in his eyes matched my own, or had he been a little too confident about approaching me again for the first time in ten years?
I didn’t know, but the last thing I needed right now was the likes of Ryan back in my life.