A Pound of Flesh (A Pound of Flesh #1)(144)

“Jesus.”

“I owed him.” Carter stared out across the field. “Before I was sent down, Max had a woman, Lizzie. They’d been together for years. He worshipped the ground she walked on.” He sipped his beer. “Long story short, Max managed to get into some messed-up shit. Drugs. The coke I was arrested for was a setup. It wasn’t his; he had nothing to do with it. Neither of us did, but some * dealer with a grudge tipped off the cops. I took the heat and the thirty-six months.”

Kat blinked. “Why?”

Carter exhaled heavily. “Lizzie was pregnant.”

“Oh.”

“With his history with the cops, if Max had been caught with that shit he’d have been sent down for years. I couldn’t let that happen. Man should be with his woman while she’s pregnant with his kid.”

“So you served time for him.” Kat’s eyes shimmered. “Just like that?”

Carter worried his lip with his teeth. “Didn’t have much going on at the time. Nothing important, anyway.”

Not like now.

“That was … Wow, Carter. I don’t know what to say.”


“There’s nothing to say.” He shrugged. “It didn’t make much difference. Not long after I arrived at Kill she left him.”

“What about the baby?”

Sadness gripped Carter’s heart. “He died.”

“He?”

Carter bobbed his head solemnly. “Christopher. Max’s son.”

“Oh God.”

“Engaged, pregnant, planning their lives together, and then …” Carter closed his eyes. “Just like that. Lizzie took it so hard. They both did.” Carter rubbed a hand across his head. “So she left. After promising that she’d be with him forever, she left without a word, no note. Nothin’. Max never got over it, losing Christopher and then Lizzie. Now he tries to find the answer to it all in booze, blow, and women.” Carter shook his head. “He’s on a downward spiral, and I have no f*cking idea how to help him. He won’t admit that he needs help. Sad thing is I lost something the day Lizzie walked away, too.”

“What?”

His eyes met hers. “My best friend.”

Kat slid her hand across the bench and clasped Carter’s pinkie. With no words said, her touching him was enough.

For the next hour, she sat with her chin in her palm, watching Carter intently, never judging, never interrupting or commenting on the things he told her. It was liberating, cleansing, almost like therapy, to be so open and honest with her. He stopped talking and smirked in embarrassment. He’d been boring her to death with his life story.

“Jesus, sorry. Just tell me to shut the hell up.”

“Never.” She sighed. “I love listening to you. I want you to tell me everything. Carter, you’re … you’re like no one I’ve ever met.” She glanced at their hands, linked on the tabletop. “I have something to ask you.”

“Hit me.”

“You know I told my grandmother, Nana Boo, about you … and me.”

“Yeah,” Carter replied, feeling his heart give an appreciative thump. He liked that she’d done that. It made what they had together feel more real, like what they shared was valid and true.

“Well.” She hesitated and looked away.

“What is it?”

Kat dropped her chin and spoke in one long breath. “She’s invited you to Chicago, to her house, to spend Thanksgiving with her, with us … I mean, you and me, she’s invited us both, and I’d really like to take you and have you meet her, but I understand if you don’t want to. I get it; I do—”