Four years ago . . .

I spend my Saturday mornings at the federal prison in Terre Haute, and with every trip, I have too much time to think, too much time to worry. Today, my worries are heavier than ever because of what Clarence said last night, but I haven’t decided what to do about it yet.

I park and head to the facility’s main building, beginning the long process of working my way through security. After two years, a lot of the corrections officers recognize me and ask how I am, but even though I’m more comfortable with the process, I’ll never be comfortable in this space. It’s not meant for comfort. It’s meant for punishment—no matter what anyone might feed you about efforts to “rehabilitate” criminals. This isn’t where they send you if they think you can change. This is where you go when society has given up on you. But I refuse to give up on the boy I’ve loved since I was nine years old.

I’ll never forget the day I fell for Nic. I wrecked my bike outside the trailer park, and my knees and chin were busted open. There was so much blood that I was frozen in panic, just sitting there in the ditch beside Old Grotto Road, silently crying. Nic, my neighbor and best friend’s big brother, found me, scooped me into his arms, and carried me home.

It was a hero-worship kind of love that got way more complicated a few years later when I watched him repair the roof on his trailer. He was shirtless, his skin dark from the summer sun, his hair shaggy around his jaw. At thirteen, I thought he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. His dark, broody eyes, the way he’d mumble to himself in Spanish, and that massive chip on his shoulder.

By the time Mia and I were in high school, my secret was out. I loved my best friend’s big brother, and she knew it.

Nic was a bad boy, and I’m not talking about what uppity bitches mean when they say those words. Nic wasn’t just some young punk who liked leather jackets and tattoos and wasn’t afraid to drop F-bombs. That’s an amateur bad boy; Nic was a professional. He was the kind of guy who didn’t give a shit that he was breaking the rules. If he thought breaking the rules was the only way he could get on even ground, he’d break them twice.

He ended up in prison because his family needed money, and he did what he had to do to get it. Nic’s problem was that he thought he was smarter than the guys he was working with, and they didn’t like his ego. They knew he wasn’t loyal and were happy to see him go down. But guys like that always expect their money back.

Nic has spent the last two years in this place, and he’ll spend the rest of his life here if he makes the same mistake when he gets out. This isn’t some rich white kid who got caught selling coke to his friends. This is a Mexican-American guy from a trailer park who’s spent his whole life having people decide he was trouble after just one glance.

The first time I visited here, I expected to talk to Nic on the telephone through a Plexiglas panel, like in the movies. But the visiting room is made up of rows and rows of chairs. There are officers all around, cameras everywhere, and not even the illusion of privacy.

When I see him today, it’s like someone reaching into my chest and bringing my heart out into the fresh air. He’s in his typical neon-green jumpsuit and slip-on shoes. His dark hair is wet, as if he just got out of the shower. Every time I visit, he looks more tired than the last. Not even after his mom left did he look this rundown. It’s like this place sucks the soul out of him, and I don’t like to imagine what he’ll become if he doesn’t get parole at his next hearing.

“Bailey,” he says softly. He draws me in for the first of two hugs we’re allowed—one at the beginning of the visit, and one at the end. “Why the fuck are you wasting another day visiting me?”

The thing about bad boys is they tend to be real assholes. Nic is no exception.

“Nothing better to do, I guess.” We do this dance with every visit. He pretends he doesn’t want me here, and I pretend my visit is no more inconvenient than stopping for a gallon of milk on my way home. We both know better.

We separate and take our seats, and I study his face, memorizing the hard line of his lips and the broody darkness of his eyes.

“Now I’m here, so I guess you’re going to have to talk to me, unless you want to walk away and make my drive over here for nothing.”

He shakes his head, but his eyes soften as his gaze drops to my mouth for a beat. The attention makes my stomach flip in anticipation, even though my brain knows his gaze is the only thing that’s touched my mouth since he was sentenced. Along with our allotted hug at the beginning and end of our visit, we’re allowed one kiss at each of those times. But Nic never kisses me. It’s as if he’s determined to push me away now more than ever. “How’s college? You keeping up with all those rich kids?”

“It’s fine.”

His jaw hardens. “I heard a rumor that you’re dancing at the Pretty Kitty. Please tell me that’s not fucking true.”

I lift a shoulder in a halfhearted shrug, trying to play it off as if it’s nothing, like I don’t care what he thinks about me shaking my ass for strange men.

“Christ, Bailey. The fuckers who spend their time there aren’t good enough to look at you.”

“You always liked going there.”

He arches a brow. “Like I said. Not good enough to look at you.”

Why does he have to say that shit? My chest hurts. “Gotta pay for college somehow.” It’s the excuse I’ve used with everyone, and Nic seems to buy it just like everyone else did. I want to tell him the truth about why I need the money. He’s the only one I could tell, but he still wouldn’t like it. “Your old boy came around last night.” I know better than to speak his name here, where there are too many curious ears, but Nic knows who I mean. “He was waiting for me when my shift ended.”

His jaw goes tight, and every muscle in his body tenses and he sits a couple inches taller. “What’d he say to you?”

“He said you owe him money. Wanted to know if I have it,” I say. When he lifts his chin ever so slightly, I know it’s true. He owes those assholes money. “The goods the police found in your trunk . . . those weren’t yours, were they?”

“A cut would have been mine, but they weren’t paid for.”

“He wants his money. Where are you going to come up with that kind of cash?”

He looks away.

I draw in a ragged breath. “You know, he’s a regular at the Pretty Kitty.” Nic doesn’t meet my eyes. I swallow. “Last night he offered to let me pay off your debt.”

His head whips around. He’s not slow or naïve. He knows exactly what Clarence was offering. “Is that what you want?”

“Are you kidding me? I don’t want his hands anywhere near me.” And I’m not a whore. It’s one thing to take off my clothes and shake my ass, to shimmy up a pole so some drunken idiots will hand over the cash in their wallet. It’s another thing altogether to spread my legs and let a man inside me. I swallow hard and lower my voice. “This isn’t about what I want, it’s about making sure you can start fresh and stay clean when you get out of here.” He deserves someone who’ll make a sacrifice for him, and considering how he got here, that someone should be me. “If you had a way of saving me from having a shit life, you’d do it.”

“I don’t need you to save me from anything.”

“You’re going to get parole. I just know it. The last thing you need is to get out of here already in debt.”

“I’ll figure it out.” His voice is as hard as his jaw now, and he’s not looking at me. “It’s my problem, not yours, so back off.”

“Maybe I can find another way to get the money. Or maybe you just don’t come back to Blackhawk Valley. Go somewhere else, start a new life.” I reach out to touch his hand. “I’ll come with you.”

He yanks his hand away and sneers. Finally, he’s looking at me, but those brown eyes aren’t kind. “Listen, Bailey,” he says. “Whatever little-girl fantasies you’re carrying around about us ending up together, you need to get rid of them right now. Move on with your life. Stop trying to play my hero, and stop trying to be my girl. That’s not what I want.”

It’s impressive how hard he can hit without touching me. I want to be tough and hide how much it hurts, but I’m failing. My vision blurs with tears.

His shoulders sag. “I never should have gotten involved with you. You get too attached.”

But you did. “I’ll find a way to pay him back.” Someone has to. I won’t let myself think about what will happen if Nic has to work off what he owes Clarence. It’s not an option.

“No, you won’t. You’ll find a way to get the fuck out of my business. If he mentions it again, you tell him you don’t have anything to do with me anymore.” He makes a fist. “And you don’t, Bailey. Stop thinking this is some fairytale, because there’s nothing between us anymore.”

I used to think nothing would hurt more than unrequited love. I spent my adolescence loving Nic and knowing that he cared for me but not in the way I wanted. But this? Knowing we were so close to having a life together and now he’s not even willing to try to get it back? God, it’s so much fucking worse.