Hard Core by Tess Oliver

her pure and simple, and I would do anything to keep her safe and happy. But if she didn’t want me, if there was any point in time when it seemed she didn’t want me in her life, I would walk away. I’d be brokenhearted, but I would walk away. She didn’t need anything like she’d had in the past. She’d already survived that hell, and I wasn’t here to make her relive it. I was here if she wanted me. And if she didn’t, I would live with that.
    Her body relaxed. She’d fallen asleep in my arms. It was still almost too hard to believe that I was holding her. But I knew, it was always there in the back of my mind, how easily this could all shatter. If Jacy knew how this had started, how this hadn’t just been chance or fate, if she knew how I’d loved her long before I met her, I was sure she’d walk away and never look back.

Chapter 14
    -Ledger-
    Orson State Penn, 12 months till release

    Straight lines and right angles. I managed to create an imaginary oval running track inside the exercise yard even though it was all straight lines and right angles. With the exception of the razor-edged curlicues surrounding the perimeter, the entire prison, buildings, outbuildings and exercise yard, was a puzzle of cement squares and rectangles. Bleak and harsh were two of the words that came to mind as I looked around the yard. But I preferred the hours outside over the hours inside. If it had been allowed, I’d have just stayed outside in the exercise yard twenty-four seven. Snow, blistering heat, no matter what the weather, I’d have preferred to stay outside. There was no ceiling on the outside. And I didn’t have to listen to the other prisoners with their bullshitting and bragging and forced badassery. Dozens of convicts competing day and night to prove who deserved the crown for king of the assholes.
    My cellmate spotted me and made his way across the yard. Tank, a high school football hero nickname, apparently, stayed out of the fray for the most part. Not that he didn’t have the look of someone who could drive your head into the asphalt with one good push, but according to him, he was waiting for his dad’s high power lawyers to get his sentence reduced so he could be relocated to a better facility, a facility more fitting of a man with a hefty bank account. I had no complaints about him. Sharing a twelve by twelve with Tank was like winning the cellmate lotto, especially with some of the creepy fuckers doing time with us.
    Aside from being built like a linebacker, Tank was a normal guy. Like so many guys inside, he insisted that he’d never done anything to warrant jail time and that the judge just didn’t like him because, ironically enough, he came from a privileged background. But that was as detailed as he ever got about his crime. Even though he was mostly a rich, entitled sounding dick, I felt bad for the guy. He had a wife at home, a wife whom he loved like fucking Romeo loved Juliet. He spent a lot of his time talking about her, and I found myself listening whenever he told stories about his wife. Not just because there wasn’t that much else to keep my mind occupied but because every story he told painted a picture of a woman who I was almost certain couldn’t exist. I had begun to think that she was only a dream woman and that Tank was just making her up as he went along.
    “Hey, roomie.” Tank sat on the edge of concrete wall next to me. “Are you going to join in that basketball game or what?”
    “Nah, think I’ll just work out on the bars.”
    He leaned back and rested his elbows on the top edge of the wall. “Yep, think I’ll skip it today. That big fuckface, Nate, is really generous with those elbow swings. Almost broke my nose last time. Don’t need any more twists and turns in this beak.” He reached up and tapped his nose. “Broke it twice playing football in high school.”
    It seemed I was about to hear another football story. With any luck, it would morph into a story about