"Mommy? Was that man a giant?" the little boy asks, watching me over his mother's shoulder.
"Hush, baby,” she murmurs to him. “Don't stare."
With an irritated growl, I rake my hair back. Women and children are terrified of me just from being near me. When Three River locals discover what I was convicted of—
Forget it.
Focus on the here and now.
I hear Matt's voice in my head, reminding me to breathe, and focus on what I can control.
Riley swaggers up to the truck and yanks the back door open, tossing the Target bags on the back seat, which is already littered with fast food trash, folders stuffed full of documents, a black and yellow Dewalt bag full of tools, work gloves, Mt. Dew bottles, and who knows what else.
"Don't mind Jess," Riley says, slamming the door closed and hopping behind the wheel. "She's a sheltered little white-bread girl who's never left Three Rivers."
I shrug as I latch the seatbelt across my chest. "It's fine."
"I keep waiting for her and Felix to hook up, but my brother is a pussy-ass dipshit, apparently. I know he likes her and I know he knows she likes him, but he won't pull the trigger."
"She's pretty," I say.
Riley just nods and shrugs one shoulder. “She is.”
Felix is Riley's older brother, and owner of Crowe Construction, the counterpart to Riley's Crowe Demolitions. Felix builds spec homes, and he and Riley also work together flipping homes—Riley does the demo, Felix renovates, and then they sell it and split the profits.
Riley grins at me. "Yeah, she is. Not my type, though. Sweet girl, but I like 'em with a bit more spark, y'know?"
I shrug. "Sure."
I have no idea.
I haven't spoken to a woman who wasn't in uniform in ten years. And the first woman I did talk to, just now, literally backed away from me. And that's before she knew anything about me.
The rest of the day is spent getting me settled: we go to the credit union where my savings are held, and I get a temporary checkbook and pick a debit card, which will be mailed to Riley's office since I don't have an address yet. Next, he takes me to an apartment complex back toward town, near the industrial area.
Foxwood Commons is a massive apartment complex running along Tompkins Road between Main Street and Division; the buildings are long and low, three stories, beige brick with faded green shingle roofs and matching shutters, balconies connecting the buildings at the second and third levels, with a fenced-off swimming pool serving the whole complex, and laundry facilities for each building. Riley walks me through the process of signing a six-month lease and writing a check for the first and last months' rent, and then I'm given keys to my very first home.
It's on the far north end of the complex, a third-floor unit, one bedroom and one bathroom with a tiny living room and galley kitchen, threadbare tan carpet in desperate need of replacement, Formica counters and laminate flooring, popcorn ceilings, and battered twenty-year-old appliances.
Riley stands in the living room with a sour look on his face. "Well, Bear, it ain't much, and it ain’t exactly the Ritz, I know, but—"
"Beats the shit out of a ten-by-twelve prison cell," I cut in.
He laughs and claps my shoulder. "You said it." He sets my bags of purchases on the floor. "You'll need some furniture, I guess. C'mon. I know where we can get some cheap."
"Why are you doing all this?" I ask as we descend the stairs.
He waits to answer until he's behind the wheel again. "When I got out, I had Mom, Dad, and Felix. Felix let me crash on his couch and gave me work on his clean-up crew. But several guys I was on the inside with didn’t have that support. They got out and didn’t have dick. Nowhere to go. No one to help them. What're they supposed to do? Where are they supposed to go? That's why recidivism is so fucking high in this country. Prison is about punishment, not reformation. I watched a good half a dozen guys I did time with end up right back on the inside within weeks or months and a couple within fuckin'days—because they had no fuckin'options.” He lets out an angry sigh. “I vowed that when I had the ability, I was gonna do something about it. So, after I got the company going, I put the program together. I don't have the time or wherewithal to help a lot of people, but I do what I can for the guys who go through my program. I figure if I can help you develop skills while you're on the inside, pay you enough to have something to live on when you get out, help you find somewhere to live, and then give you a job, you're not gonna go back in. Do it right once, and that's all you need." He looksat me. "It's a bridge, Bear. A bridge from prison to real life as a responsible member of society."
"Can't ever thank you enough."
"You can—stay on the path, man.” He cuts a sharp, insightful glance at me. “Stay clean. Do good work. Be a good person. Don’t go back to prison. And maybe pay it forward a little.That'show you thank me."
We spend an hour at a resale shop, picking out a bed, dresser, couch, and coffee table—we have to make two trips to get it all from the store to the apartment in the back of his pickup.
By the time we've gotten my apartment set up, it's almost five o'clock.
Riley glances at his phone. "Guys are about to knock off for the day. Whaddya say we check in and grab a bite?"
