Vindicate (Recovered Innocence #1)(77)

That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Cora arranged for me to come to work with her. I think she’s hoping it will give me something to aspire to. I’m lost. I don’t recognize anyone or anything. I don’t know who or what I want to be. There was a time when everything I wanted to do and be was lined up in my head just waiting for me to tick them off like a f*cking checklist. Go to college. Check. Get a good paying job. Check. Marry Cassandra. Check. Buy a house. Check. Start a family. Check. Grow old with Cassandra. Check.

None of those boxes will ever be checked off.

I have to create a new list. But where do I start? I’m twenty-four years old. I should be halfway through my checklist by now. Cora tells me I can do or be anything I want. She pushes community and technical college catalogs at me, trying to get me interested in something. At night I lay awake and attempt to imagine my life a year from now. All I see is me still lying on Cora’s couch, still struggling to figure my shit out. I’m frustrating her and myself. Maybe this Take Your Brother to Work Day will give me some kind of direction even if it only helps me realize what I don’t want to do.

I wait outside for Cora, sipping a cup of strong black coffee. I got the taste for it in prison. Before that I never touched the stuff. Cora bought me a coffee maker even though she doesn’t drink it. She’s been good to me. Too good. Better than I deserve. She’s the reason I’m leaning against her car on a foggy San Diego morning, waiting for her instead of sitting in a prison cell wondering why me. She was the only person who believed in my innocence. The only one. Not even our parents—who should’ve stuck by me no matter what—considered for a moment that I could be innocent.

I don’t know who that says more about—them or me. Cora says them, but I’m not so sure. My conviction destroyed my parents individually and as a couple. I haven’t seen either one of them since shortly after being assigned a prison uniform. At first Cora made excuses for them when she visited, and then she stopped mentioning them altogether. We’re supposed to have a family reunion this Sunday. Cora arranged it. She’s the only reason I agreed to go. I’d do anything for her. She’s more than proven she’d do anything for me. She’s done everything for me.

Cora backs out the front door of her garage apartment, her arms full. I jog up the walk and relieve her of the files she’s carrying. She locks the door and turns to me, a big smile on her face. It gets me every time. A combination of joy and surprise like she can’t believe I’m really there. I can’t believe it, either. I hope I never get used to this feeling or that smile. I hope she doesn’t, either.

I follow her down the walk to her car and put her files in the trunk. I stand just in time to see the car keys flying at my face and catch them before they smack into my nose.

“You have to practice sometime,” she says. “Drive us to work.”

I haven’t driven in six years. My license expired while I was in prison. My parents sold my car. “Are you sure?”

She opens the passenger door and climbs in with a wink. I let out a frosty breath in the cool morning air. This is one more thing I have to relearn in my life outside. I slide into the driver’s seat and adjust it for my bigger body and longer legs.

“The mirrors too,” Cora reminds me.

It’s like I’m taking driver’s ed all over again with my little sister as my teacher. I hope driving isn’t as hard as riding a bike. That shit took me too many tries to get right. I’m wobbly like a kid riding without training wheels for the first time. Bike riding is a f*cked up metaphor for my life now. Everything is an uphill struggle and scary as f*ck. I suck so bad at it I wonder sometimes if I shouldn’t just commit a crime for real this time so I can go back to the predictability and reliability of prison life. I won’t, but the thought is scarily tempting sometimes.

You wouldn’t think being free would be so hard.

I do as Cora instructs and start the car. She coaches me the whole way. I’m relieved when we arrive safely. Driving is a hell of a lot easier than riding a bike. We get out of the car and head into the offices of Nash Security and Investigation. I owe Cora and everyone in this place everything. If Mr. Nash and his son, Leo, hadn’t agreed to help Cora find the bastard who killed Cassandra and worked to set me free, I’d still be sitting in a cell. How do you repay someone who rescued you from hell and gave you your life back?

I juggle Cora’s files that I retrieved from the trunk, open the door for her, and follow her inside. The receptionist, Savannah, looks up at Cora, then does a double take when she spies me trailing behind my sister. Her first, fleeting glance is full of female appreciation that quickly morphs into avid curiosity tinged with fear. She doesn’t want to be attracted to an ex-con, but I’d put money on her panties being soaked at the thought of f*cking me. I’m a walking, talking, good girl’s bad boy dream. I’m the guy she bangs once or twice on the quiet just so she can brag about it later to her friends.

I grin at Savannah, following it with a wink and lick of the lips. She gasps and presses her hands to her chest, her cheeks red. If we were alone I bet I could take her right there on top of her desk. Wouldn’t even have to pull her panties all the way down, just push up her skirt and pull them aside. She’d shower after, feeling sullied, later she’d jack off reliving it. I’m not even the slightest bit tempted by her or any other woman I’ve met since I got out. Another way my life’s f*cked up.