Page 21 of All Wrong
Corinne disconnected the call and put her phone on the counter. Then, so she didn’t make a liar out of herself, she stuffed her feet into her sneakers. The store was still open for a few hours yet, and if she burned off enough calories, walking to the store and back, the indulgence wouldn’t do as much damage, right?
CHAPTER EIGHT
NICK
Nick locked the office behind him and stepped out of the main building feeling the same way he usually did. With a spark of hope and a metric shit ton of pessimism.
He was doing his best. The kids were making the effort. But sometimes, it felt like trying to turn back the tide or reroute a raging river.
Most of the regulars were good kids at heart. Good kids who, for whatever reason, had been dealt a shit hand. Some more than others.
There were the ones from good homes who came by when their parents were working, whosimply needed a place to hang out or a way to alleviate summer boredom.
The ones from not-so-good homes who needed a safe port in their stormy lives.
And then there were the ones who were one step away from the point of no return, like he and Nicki had once been.
The Zone accepted them all, without question or judgment. They were not at fault, and they were doing their best to survive in a system designed in a vacuum. A system dependent on people doing the right thing and having adequate resources available to step in when things didn’t quite work out.
In other words, not real life.
He understood the challenges these kids were facing because he’d faced them too. Drugs. Theft. Child prostitution. All thanks to an addict mother and an imperfect system that had kept shoving him and Nicki back into the sewer every time they tried to crawl out, leaving them to fend for themselves and do whatever they had to do to survive.
Would it have mattered back then if they’d had a place like The Zone to go to? If they’d had people like him and his sister willing to fight for them?
Maybe, if someone had intervened early enough.By the time they’d hit their teens, they’d been so jaded that they wouldn’t have believed anyone or anything.
Nick walked over to one of the many wooden boxes located at strategic locations in and around the center. Standing in the shadows, he opened the lid and tossed in a couple of gift cards. Then, he moved to the next one and did the same thing. He worked his way along the periphery, repeating the action until each one was restocked.
It was something he and Nicki had brainstormed one night. Not all the kids had spending money to go out and get what they needed, whether it be food or shoes or school supplies. This way, no kid had to go without, and no kid had to swallow their pride to ask for help. Sometimes, all these kids had was pride.
Nicki must’ve mentioned it to her sisters-in-law at some point because shortly after that, gift cards to every place in town started coming in on a regular basis, everything from hair salons to local restaurants and the big superstore down the road.
Despite the generous donations, it still didn’t feel like enough. What some of these kids really needed was a house to go to at night. A place with a soft, warm bed, enough food to fill their bellies, andsomeone around who would give a shit if they didn’t come home at night.
Homebeing the operative word.
That was the dream, but not one in his power to provide. To pull it off, he’d need a big house and bigger yard, far enough away from the NIMBY types who paid lip service to good deeds and charitable acts, but sang a different tune when they were faced with the possibility of having a house full of foster kids next door.
Money was also a challenge. He didn’t have a hell of a lot of it. Sean paid him a good wage, but most of what he earned these days went right back to the kids.
Then, there was the issue of him being a single male biker mechanic with a juvenile rap sheet a mile long. Who in their right mind would grant him custody of anything, let alone impressionable, at-risk kids?
By the time he stuffed the last card in a box, his vision seemed impossible, and he was in a dark mood. Maybe he’d head up to Hog Heaven, the biker bar on the outskirts of Birch Falls. Get drunk. Work off some steam. While he was there, he could keep his ears open for chatter. The bikers were a roughcrowd, all about free will and bad choices, but it was strictly adults only. Kids were off-limits. Period.
Before he did that, Nick decided to stop off at the grocery store and pick up some more gift cards before they closed for the night. He made a beeline for the rack of offerings, selecting an even dozen. As he was exiting the aisle, he caught Corinne McCain’s reflection in the storefront glass.
What was she doing here this time of night? Hadn’t she been on her way home from the store when her car broke down earlier?
He looked up and down the row of lanes. Only one was open.
He thought about turning around and killing time in another aisle. Surely, he could find something he needed. Orange juice. Maybe some of those bagel things with the cheese and pepperoni. He could drop those off at his place before heading out to Hog.
His feet had other ideas, however, because he found himself moving toward that one open checkout line like some unseen force was pulling him that way.
He stepped up behind Corinne, between the racks of gum and candy and lighters and jerky,keeping a respectable distance. She was wearing different clothes than she had earlier. Quality walking shoes. Form-hugging yoga pants that showed off her dancer’s legs to perfection. A tapered shirt that covered too much of her shapely ass, in his opinion.
His curious gaze fell on the items she was loading onto the belt. Chips. Cookies. Popcorn. Not what he would expect from a woman who’d had bags of fresh fruits and veggies in her SUV earlier.
