Love Hard Read online

  The second part was when I asked her if she wanted to get drinks. I quickly remembered that she said she didn’t drink on the first date, which wasn’t unusual, but the facial expression she had when she looked at me was almost… painful. She looked pained when I said those words, as if I had asked if I could fire her from her job. I wasn’t sure what it meant, and I knew it might not wind up being anything bad, but I still wanted to keep an eye on it.

  Those two points, though, were relatively minor—in my mind, at least—in comparison to the quality of the date. It truly was as good as I could have hoped for. I tried not to get carried away too much, knowing it was just a first date and that a lot could happen between now and us becoming a couple, but boy did I feel good.

  I pulled up to the house in the Honda Accord about twenty minutes after dropping Courtney off at her apartment, letting the garage door open and then close once I pulled in before I got out of the car. Courtney’s perfume still lingered in the car, and I wanted to hold on to that feeling as long as I could. Whatever it took, however long I could have it there, I wanted to. If I could have fallen asleep in the car to that scent…

  No, that’s just weird. Don’t get that carried away yet.

  I gathered myself, got out of the car, and walked inside. I heard Alyssa listening to the TV in the other room and walked over. She was already looking in my direction when I saw her.

  “I heard you had a great date with Miss Ross.”

  “You did, did you,” I said, trying to play it cool, although I had this vision in my head of her students spying on us and spreading the word about what had happened on the date.

  “Mmhmm.”

  Now she’s playing coy. Damnit.

  “And how would you know about such a thing?” I inquired.

  Alyssa just smiled and shrugged.

  “Girls can tell these things,” she said. “The way you walked in here, how late you’re getting in… I think it’s pretty obvious.”

  “I mean… yeah,” I said, seeing no reason to deny it. “We had an amazing time.”

  “What all did you do?”

  I went over to the loveseat, turning the television to a low volume. I proceeded to outline everything—well, maybe not everything, about the date. As I recounted it for Alyssa, it struck me how happy I was talking about her. It flashed me back to a previous conversation I’d had with my daughter about being truly happy, and while I wouldn’t call this “truly happy” since it was too temporary and too momentary to give me true happiness, I could say that I was getting a glimpse of what that looked like. You may yet make me a better man, Alyssa.

  “So, like I said, you had a great date with Miss Ross,” Alyssa said with a shit-eating smirk.

  “Yeah,” I said, and I decided it was time to give her a little grief back too. “And word on the street—see, I can talk like that too—is that you were the one who facilitated this.”

  “What?” she said, clearly taken aback.

  I just laughed, clapping my hands in approval at the hilarity of the situation.

  “Adults can gossip too, you know. She told me that you told her I was single on Monday.”

  “Oh my God!” she said, horrified. I just smiled.

  “You did a good thing, Alyssa. Really. Thank you for, shall we say, encouraging all of this.”

  “This is so embarrassing,” she said.

  I just laughed and turned the volume up as she sat in mortification. Someday, she really would look back on it and be glad she had said it, but I could kind of understand her embarrassment at the moment. Kind of.

  Still, I was happy, she was probably happy, and I knew Courtney was happy from the way the date ended. It was the perfect night, and I didn’t know how it could get any better. My phone rang in my pocket, but I ignored it. I just wanted to sit in silence and reflect on what had happened.

  Then my phone rang again, and I had a feeling it wasn’t just some random number. It was too late for telemarketers, and a Friday late night phone call was…

  Well, I thought as I reached into my pocket, it isn’t necessarily a good sign. It almost definitely wasn’t Courtney asking me to come back over so we could finish what we had started in the span of one evening.

  On the display was the name “Krispy.” I groaned. This could only mean one thing, and it wasn’t that the summer charity events were getting canceled.

  “Yeah?” I said, answering the phone.

  “Sensei, we got a problem,” Krispy said. He sounded very on edge, very much like he was looking to kill someone or had just killed someone.

  “The hell’s going on?” I said.

  I stood and left the room, not wanting Alyssa to hear any of this. It didn’t matter if the problem was just me having left some equipment there or someone having been murdered. I wasn’t going to let her into the world any more than I had to.

  “There was a hit on Trace,” Krispy said.

  No… shit, no, Trace.

  “He’s still alive, but they got him good, Sensei. I don’t fucking think he’s going to be in any condition to be president for the time being.”

  “Fuck, seriously?” I said. “Who—”

  “Fucking Mercs, who the fuck else?”

  I went silent as I remembered one of the last conversations I’d had in the club. I wasn’t exactly looking like a Sensei now. I’d said that this was the most peaceful time in the club that I had ever seen, and now…

  “What about Splitter?”

  “He turned his phone off, and even then, if Trace found out that we’d reached out to him, he would murder us,” Krispy said. “Guy’s gone off the fucking grid with his girl.”

  “Shit,” I said.

  Suddenly, it looked like a very poor decision to have given Splitter the OK to leave behind the club completely while he went on vacation. There weren’t very many emergencies that would have required him coming back so soon, but this seemed like one of them. It was only made worse by the fact that it wasn’t like he was coming back tomorrow; it would be a full week before he returned.

  “Listen, Sensei, we have no president, our VP is out fucking his girl, and BK doesn’t want to be president. Said he’s better at killing, not at leading. We’re fucking calling you because we need you.”

  “I, what? You need me?”

  “Yes, we need you,” Krispy said, annunciating his words with unusual precision for him. “We fucking need you. The only person who has the experience and the charisma to lead us is you.”

  “Get fucking Sword.”

  “Sword said you were the one we needed.”

  Ah, fucking hell. This is exactly why I left. So that when shit went down, the club would have to grow and depend on the younger generation. I can’t be helping every little crisis that pops up like this.

  “I don’t know, Krispy, I—”

  “Listen, Sensei,” Krispy said, the anger in his words evident. “The club fucking needs you. The club has done so much for you, and you’re just going to walk away from this?”

  “You fucking realize I was going to surprise my daughter tomorrow with a trip to the Grand Canyon?” I snapped, not thinking about how Alyssa was one room over and had probably heard everything. “You fucking realize that I left because I didn’t want to get into dangerous spots like this? So I could spend more time with my girl? You’re young and aggressive, Krispy, you can—”

  “Sensei.”

  A new voice came on the line. It was Sword.

  “Sensei, please,” he said. “I can’t do this without you. If you don’t want to be temporary president, at least come be my temporary vice president. Please.”

  This was all just too insane and pissing me off. I’d just left the club as an officer barely a few days ago, and now I was being asked to come back into the fold and lead us into dangerous territory? If this were just for a day or so, I could take Alyssa to the Grand Canyon another week. But from the sounds of it?

  If Trace was knocked out for any period of time, this could easi
ly turn into the kind of thing that lasted for weeks and weeks. Maybe even longer if the worst happens, which is unfortunately pretty plausible right now.

  But…

  Goddamnit.

  “I’ll call you back in an hour,” I said.

  I hung up the phone before I could say anything else. I muttered fuck under my breath and started walking toward the living room. I’d watch TV with Alyssa and see how I felt at midnight and then decide.

  But that plan went way the fuck out of the window when I turned the corner and nearly bumped into Alyssa, who had been eavesdropping on the entire thing.

  “Alyssa!” I said, surprised.

  “The Grand Canyon sounds really fun,” she said, widening her eyes. “But I know you, Dad. You’re going to be itching to go back to the club the whole time if we go out there.”

  Good job, buddy, speaking loudly enough for her to catch all of that.

  “You weren’t supposed to hear any of that,” I said. “Let Dad figure it out on his own.”

  “Yeah, but I did, and I can’t forget what I heard,” she said. “Dad, I know you’ve kept me from the club, and I appreciate that. I’m happy that you try not to entangle me in that world. But it’s a world you live in. You need to go.”

  “Baby,” I said, enormously frustrated, ninety-nine percent of it having to do with myself. “I knew this would happen. I would leave, the club would face a crisis, and then they’d ask me back. But—”

  “What’s going on?”

  I sighed. I generally didn’t reveal club business to Alyssa, but she wasn’t four years old anymore. She was fourteen, a young woman who could handle the truth—maybe not make decisions on it, but certainly know about it. Goddamnit. God fucking damnit.

  “Trace was nearly killed, and Splitter is on vacation,” I said. “There’s no leadership at the club right now. They want me to take over temporarily.”

  “And you’re going to leave them hanging?”

  I was stunned at the bluntness of Alyssa’s words. Whose side was she on, anyway?

  But if she had said it…

  “I’m just worried about something happening to me,” I confessed. “It’s hard enough for you to only have one parent. If you lost the other one…”

  And I was dead because of my own decisions and my own actions…

  “Don’t think like that, Dad,” Alyssa said, her voice cracking a bit. “You’ve made it this long, and you’ve dealt with some pretty bad stuff, I’m sure. I saw the shootout in North Hollywood on the news, you know.”

  Shit. She wasn’t supposed to know that. But then again, what could I have expected? That shit went viral. I guess she just decided not to ask me about it before.

  “It’ll kill you if you don’t go,” she said. “We can do the Grand Canyon some other time when Trace wakes up and Splitter comes back.”

  I sighed. I had thought Alyssa would beg me not to go back, that she would be praying I wouldn’t leave. Instead…

  “I’ll let you know in an hour.”

  I put my hand on her shoulder and pulled her in for a hug, but she seemed distant when I did so as if she didn’t approve of the answer that I gave her. I walked past her, went to my room, and sat on the bed.

  If I went through with this, I needed to tell Alyssa the truth. Becoming president wasn’t just about assuming responsibilities in the club, even if it was on a temporary basis. It also meant putting a giant target on your head for the authorities and rival gangs. I didn’t want to say I could handle dying while Alyssa was still in school, but I could handle the prospect of her not knowing the truth about her mother even less.

  Maybe I was being selfish, wanting to tell her. Maybe I would spoil her image of her father being… whatever she thought I was. But I was a believer in the truth, and…

  That’s bullshit. If it were true, everyone would know Olivia’s death was your fault. You may say it, and you may think it, but you don’t live it.

  I sighed. The only way I would feel comfortable doing this was if I knew that I had the strength to tell the truth. And the only way I could do that, ironically enough, was if I felt comfortable enough that I knew the Saints and my daughter wouldn’t judge me for it, or at least not abandon me as a result.

  I picked up the phone, but just before I dialed Krispy back, another thought came to mind.

  Courtney had expressed an enormous disdain of the Saints on our first date. It was fine then, but that was because I was removed and stepped back from the Saints. If I went back into the fray…

  Don’t think like that. What’s more important: someone you had one date with, or your brothers and your daughter? Courtney is a wonderful, amazing human being… but if you don’t take care of anything else, she won’t mean shit. You’ll never live with yourself if the Saints fall apart.

  I pressed the call button. Krispy answered on the first ring.

  “I fucking hate all of you,” I said. “I’m in.”

  Chapter 8: Courtney

  I didn’t get much sleep the night before, but for once, I was happy about it.

  And for once, it had nothing to do with the alcohol. Instead, it had everything to do with one of the best dates of my life. It was so good, in fact, that I found myself constantly checking my phone, rereading my messages with Vance and wondering when we’d get to hang again.

  I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that things would go so swimmingly going forward. We’d have our moments of butting heads, and we’d have our fights. But just the fact that I was thinking that far ahead…

  I actually found myself hovering by the front door of Green Hills High when I got in, listening for the sound of the motorcycle so I could share a glance with Vance when he came by. How crazy was that? I hated the Savage Saints, but now, the sound of a motorcycle was something that I wanted to hear.

  Granted, that was only in this specific context. If I heard a parade of bikes going by during my second-period class, I would have gotten annoyed as all hell and probably mumbled something under my breath, but still. It was funny how the right person could change things so quickly.

  But Vance never showed up on his bike. The first bus pulled up around half an hour after seven, and I was more than a little surprised to see that Alyssa had gotten off it. Furthermore, her face was not one of happiness or excitement for Friday; she looked distracted as if she had had a long night.

  She obviously knew that her father and I had gone out but I didn’t think it had to do with facing me; she hadn’t even seen me yet on her walk up to the school. No, it seemed like something had happened that I had missed out on, and if I got the chance, I knew I would ask her about it.

  I nodded to her and all the other students as they walked in, trying not to make it obvious that I had stood at the door only for Alyssa’s father. I then went into my classroom and pulled up the local newspaper so I could catch up on the news over the weekend. The main headline was something that startled me and only further reinforced my beliefs.

  “Robbery in downtown Green Hills, one left critically injured.”

  I then read through the article to see that one Tracy Cole, apparently the president of the Savage Saints—how quaint, they have titles like they’re a club or something—had gotten hit by members of a dying rival gang. Others had protected him and chased off the would-be assailants, but Tracy had gotten shot in the shoulder and hit in the skull. Doctors said he would probably live, but he was in a coma at the moment.

  I don’t know that it spoke well to me that I didn’t have a lot of sympathy for Tracy at that moment, but he was part of the Savage Saints; that was like walking into a UFC arena and being surprised that someone got punched in the face. The club was a vessel of violence, something that resulted not just in the murder of Nathaniel, but of many other people.

  This morning knows how to get fucked in a hurry real well. All was good, and then…

  The bell rang for first period. I hadn’t even realized that it was set to start at any moment, and I looked up to a
classroom of students staring at me. I quickly reminded myself of the lesson plan for the day and went through with it.

  Throughout, though, I was a little distracted, in part because of the violence that had occurred not that far from the high school and because of how Alyssa looked. I saw no way how the two could be connected—Tracy and Alyssa shared two different last names, and while Vance rode a bike, there was nothing on his bike that suggested he was a Saint—but something in my gut just told me there had to be a connection of some kind. I was missing something.

  When the bell rang fifty minutes later to end the first period, I had Alyssa come over. I made no pretenses this time about a paper or any homework I needed.

  “What’s going on?” I said. “You look mighty distracted. Is everything OK?”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “Nothing crazy. Just a lot of work.”

  I was never going to call a student out for lying about a personal subject, as that was their private issue, not mine, but I could tell that she was deflecting and hiding something. I’d given this particular honors English course a sometimes unfair amount of homework, and Alyssa had never acted like this during those stressful periods. She could be very tired, yes, but it was rare that she was distracted.

  “OK,” I said, accepting that I wasn’t going to know more. “If you need help or advice, just let me know.”

  “I will,” Alyssa said.

  She turned and started to leave before turning back to me with a smile.

  “How was it a few nights ago?”

  I smiled and blushed a little bit. I definitely wasn’t going to tell her everything—even if her father had—but to lie would have just been doing what Alyssa had done to me. And besides, the fact that she had asked the question told me she knew we went out; I had never told her beforehand.

  “Your father is kind and a gentleman, Alyssa,” I said.