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  This book is dedicated to Mr. Robinson.

  My junior high history teacher.

  The coolest teacher in school.

  A teacher who asked me out into the hall for the sole purpose of telling me I was more than I believed I could be.

  I didn’t believe you then, Mr. Robinson.

  It’s taken a lot of time, but I’m beginning to believe.

  I thank God for teachers like you who see what we do not see.

  And take the time to set us on the course of believing.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank my very supportive reader Danielle Teodoro (and her sister Jessica) for having a fabulous name that I could steal. I hope you like Carissa. I think she’s the bomb.

  PROLOGUE

  Stay Golden

  AFTER HIS FATHER cuffed him, Carson Steele’s temple slammed into the corner of the wall by the refrigerator. It happened so fast that, despite all the times it had happened, and there were a lot, he still wasn’t prepared. So his hand came up to curl around the corner too late to soften the blow as the sharp pain spread from his temple through his right eye and into his jaw. Doubling that, his left cheekbone stung from the back of his father’s hand slamming into it.

  “Trash fuckin’ stinks!” his father yelled. “What’s the point a’ you, boy? You good for nothin’?”

  Carson had learned not to respond. Anything he said made it worse. He could defend himself and get his ass kicked. He could apologize and get his ass kicked.

  Problem was, he could be silent and get his ass kicked too.

  But his dad had a woman at their house, and even though they were both slaughtered on beer and vodka, if his dad had a woman (which he did surprisingly often, regardless that he was a jackhole, and not only to Carson), his father would have other things on his mind. This being the reason Carson hadn’t been prepared for his dad to have a go at him.

  When he turned from the wall, still holding on to the edge and battling the pain, and looked into his old man’s eyes, his dad just muttered, “Piece of shit. Good for nothin’. For fuck’s sake, do somethin’ worth somethin’ in your sorry life, take out the fuckin’ trash.”

  Then he moved to the fridge, opened it, nabbed a six pack, slammed it, and stormed out.

  Carson went to the trash.

  It was a third full.

  His father was right. It stunk. Carson had no idea what the man threw in there, but whatever it was smelled lethal.

  The same thing had happened last week, though. The garbage hadn’t been half full, his dad tossed something in that smelled to high heaven, and unable to bear the stench, Carson took it out.

  The minute he came back, he got open-palmed smacked across the face because “We’re not made of fuckin’ money, you piece of shit! I’m not a millionaire who can afford fifty trash bags a week, for fuck’s sake! Wait until it’s goddamned full!”

  He couldn’t win for losing.

  This didn’t bother Carson. He had a good memory, which sucked, seeing as every one of them wasn’t one he’d want to remember.

  He was used to losing.

  He took the garbage out to the alley and tossed it in the Dumpster. As he was dropping the lid, he saw his neighbor roll up in his pickup.

  The man slid his window down and stopped.

  “Hey, Car, how’s it hangin’, bud?” Linus Washington asked.

  Then Linus’s eyes narrowed on Carson’s face.

  Linus was a big, black guy who’d lived next door to them for the last three years. Good guy, serial dater, but he’d had a steady woman for the last year. Carson liked her. She was pretty, had a smokin’ body, but he liked the way she looked at Linus the best. Like he could do anything. Like if he went to the Pacific Ocean, raised his arms, and spread them wide, the sea would part.

  Yeah, that’s what he liked about her best.

  Sometime recently, Linus had got on bended knee but Carson only knew that because his dad had told him she’d accepted the ring, then said, “Dumb fuck. Gettin’ his shit tied to a woman. Stupidest thing you can do, boy, gettin’ your shit tied to a woman. Learn that now, save you a world a’ hurt.”

  He understood this coming from his dad. Carson’s mom was beautiful. He’d seen pictures. That was the only way his mother was in his life. Stuffed in an envelope full of pictures shoved at the back of his father’s nightstand. Pictures just of her, smiling and looking gorgeous. Pictures of her and his dad, both of them smiling, looking happy.

  She left before Carson could even crawl. He had no memories of her. His father never spoke of her, except the constant trash he talked about women that Carson knew was directed at her.

  He also knew better than to ask.

  And last he knew that she left her baby before he’d even learned to say the word mom.

  He could get this, if his old man knocked her around the way he did Carson.

  He also didn’t get it.

  Not at all.

  “It’s hangin’, Lie,” Carson muttered, dipping his chin and turning toward their back gate.

  “You wanna come over, get a Coke, watch a game?” Linus called before Carson could turn his back on him and their conversation.

  “Got shit to do,” Carson kept muttering, moving toward the gate.

  “Bud!” Linus yelled.

  Carson drew in a breath and turned back.

  “Anytime you wanna come over and hang, my door’s open. Yeah?” Linus said what he’d said before a lot.

  “Yeah,” Carson continued to mutter, knowing he’d take him up on that, as he had hundreds of times since the man moved next door.

  This just wouldn’t be one of those times. He didn’t go over after his dad had a go at him. And the reason he didn’t was right then written on Linus’s face.

  Linus was giving him a look that Carson read. He’d honed his skills at reading people, started doing it the minute he could cogitate. If he didn’t, he’d have it far worse than he did from his old man.

  Far worse.

  But the look on Linus’s face said he didn’t know if he wanted to climb out of his truck and give Carson a hug or if he wanted to climb out of his truck, slam into Carson’s house, and kick his dad’s ass.

  Sometimes he dreamed of Linus kicking his dad’s ass. The man was built. He was tall. He’d wipe the floor with Jefferson Steele.

  But most of the time, he dreamed of doing it himself.

  He didn’t because his dad kept him fed. He kept a roof over his head. He kept clothes on his back. He needed the jackhole.

  When he didn’t, things would change.

  But he didn’t court disaster for Linus. Linus was a good man. If he had a go at his dad, his dad would stop at nothing to put Linus in a world of hurt any way he could.

  Linus didn’t need that. The woman who looked at him like he could move mountains didn’t need that. And Linus didn’t need to give it to a woman who he looked at like the first day that dawned for him was the day he laid eyes on her.

  “Take care of yourself, Car,” Linus said quietly.

  Carson nodded and moved to and through the gate, lifting a hand behind him as he did in a lame goodbye.

  The
goodbye was lame. He was lame. Weak. Pathetic. Of his own free will, walking away from Linus and into a filthy, stinking pit that held nothing for him but pain, violence, and neglect.

  He hit the back door and heard it immediately. His father’s grunts. The woman he brought home whimpering through each one.

  Not the good kind of whimpering, the pained kind.

  She was dry.

  How the fuck his father could nail as much tail as he did and not sort that, Carson had no clue.

  What he knew was the man was good-looking. He made decent money. He could be a charmer.

  But mostly, he was a jackhole, and he only hid it long enough to get off. Therefore none of the women stuck around.

  He would have thought they’d talk. Women did that shit. But apparently, when it came to his dad, they didn’t.

  Or maybe his dad was just that good of a player.

  Moving swiftly through the house, avoiding going anywhere near the living room where his dad was fucking some bitch on the couch, he headed to his room.

  He was sixteen but he’d already had four girls. The first one sounded like the woman his father was currently pumping on their couch. Those pained whimpers.

  It wasn’t good, fucking dry. He got off but it wasn’t good.

  It really wasn’t good for her.

  He’d learned with the second one that if he kissed her a while then paid some attention to her tits, things were a lot better down there. Wet and hot. Sweet. And it far from sucked, tonguing and toying with a girl’s nipples. He’d got off, she hadn’t, but the whimpers he got when he was doing her were of an entirely different variety.

  Number three was where he found it. She’d shown him. He got her ready. He got off. But when he was done, she wasn’t and she wanted to finish. So she took his hand and pressed his finger against her clit and moved it around, moaning and squirming and… fuck. So damned hot, he nearly came again on her leg watching her. In the end, he got her off with her help and Carson watched, thinking it was beautiful.

  A miracle.

  So number four got it all. After he made out with her forever, did shit to her tits and got her wet for him, he’d fucked her while he worked her clit, and she’d gone wild. It was magnificent. So good, he wanted to try other shit, using his mouth, his tongue, his hands, see what that would bring. She let him and the results were spectacular.

  But after he gave that to her, she got clingy and kept calling and coming around and his dad gave him crap, not the good, teasing, my-boy’s-becoming-a-man kind of ribbing.

  Mean. Like the jackhole he was.

  So even if Carson kind of liked her, had a good time with her, and not just when he was doing her, he scraped her off. He didn’t need that shit.

  And hearing his father’s grunts and groans coming faster, as well as the pained cries and, “Jeff, hold on a second, honey,” he decided he didn’t need this shit either.

  So to make a quick getaway, he grabbed what he did need, opened his window, climbed out, and took off.

  Carson Steele walked a lot since his father got shitty for some reason, tossed Carson’s bike in the Dumpster, and beat the snot out of him so he knew not to go out and retrieve it.

  Now Carson had a job. He was saving up for a car. He didn’t care how beat up it was. The minute he could afford one, he was going to buy one.

  First step to freedom.

  He’d fix it up too. Linus was a mechanic, and sometimes when Carson was over at Linus’s house he helped Linus in his garage, getting Linus tools as Linus tinkered with an old Trans Am he was fixing up to sell. He watched, Linus showed him things, let him do things, he learned.

  Which was why Carson went where he went. Moving through the residential streets of Englewood, Colorado, he found Broadway and walked north. Block after block. He saw it from a distance: his destination. The American flag on the flagpole on top. The white flag under it with its insignia, the words around it, Wind, Fire, Ride, and Free.

  His place, even if it wasn’t his. It still was.

  The only place he felt right, even standing outside the fence.

  So he walked right to it and stopped when he hit the end of the fence.

  He stood there. His body on one side, he craned his neck around and looked into the forecourt of Ride. It was an auto supply store up front on the street but they had a garage at the back.

  And the day got better even as it threw Carson right into a yawning pit of hell.

  That was because the cool guy with the dark hair and kickass goatee was working in one of the bays.

  And he was doing it with his son right by his side.

  The best.

  And the worst.

  Since Carson spent a lot of time watching, he’d seen that guy—and others, all members of the Chaos Motorcycle Club—around Ride, the store and the custom car and bike shop at the back, all of which they owned and ran.

  The best and worst times were watching the goatee guy with his boy.

  His kid had to be Carson’s age. Looked just like his old man, like Carson looked like his.

  But Carson would bet the three hundred fifty-eight dollars he’d saved that the kid he was watching was proud of that fact, where Carson absolutely was not.

  He’d seen them grin at each other, they did it a lot, and Carson couldn’t remember one single time he’d smiled at his old man.

  And he’d seen the goatee guy laugh at something his kid said. Or he’d smack him on the shoulder in a way that wasn’t mean. Or, the best, he’d grab him by the side or back of the neck and tug him close, swaying him around.

  It was a hug. A motorcycle guy hug for his boy. Carson knew it, even though he’d never felt anything like it. The kid had done something his father liked. Or made him proud. Or maybe it was just because he looked at his son and couldn’t stop himself from showing some love.

  Right then, they were bent over the engine of a car, hood up, one on each side, doing shit. Every once in a while they’d look at each other and say something. Or smile. Or laugh.

  Carson watched a long time. Until they quit and walked through the garage, disappearing in its dark depths.

  Probably they were off to some house Carson figured was clean and nice and maybe even decorated good. They’d have dinner together. Maybe with the pretty dark-headed girl he’d also seen around who could be none other than that guy’s daughter and that kid’s sister.

  They’d get home and have dinner and that guy would ask his son if he’d done his homework. He’d give him crap about the girls he was dating. The good kind. The my-boy’s-becoming-a-man-and-I-like-how-that’s-happening kind.

  The kind Carson never got.

  On this thought, he took off. Kept walking. Found a spot and dug the book out of the back of his jeans where he’d shoved it, and took the nubs of pencils out of his pockets. He sat with his back to a tree in the park, his ass to the ground, and flipped through.

  Sketches.

  His.

  Drawings of Linus’s bulldog, Ruff. Carson loved that dog. He looked like a bruiser, the way he waddled was flat-out hilarious, but he always seemed like he was smiling. As he would, the love Linus showered on him.

  There were also drawings of Mrs. Heely’s house.

  She lived across the street and one down from Carson and his dad. She had an American flag on the flagpole, aimed high but stuck at a slant on the house at the top side of her front door, the edges tattered.

  He mowed her lawn for money. He also did shit around the house for her because her son, and only child, was gone and so was her old man, so she didn’t have anyone else to do it.

  She was a great old broad. Made him cookies. Noticed when he was younger and alone because his dad was out carousing and would bring him over a plate of food, warm food, good food, with vegetables and everything. Sat with him while he ate and made him eat his vegetables and watch Wheel of Fortune with her and other shit before she’d hear his father’s car in the drive. Then she’d put a finger to her lips, wink, grab his
dirty plate, and sneak out the back door.

  He’d asked about that flag. She’d said they gave it to her at the funeral after her son died “over there.” She put it up and it stayed up, wind, rain, snow, sun.

  She told Carson she was never going to take it down. It would fly out there until she died. She didn’t care how tattered it got. Beaten and worn. Faded.

  “He would too, you know, if he’d been able to live his life,” she said. “Age does that to you. All’s I got is that flag, Carson. I didn’t get to watch him be a man. Make his life. Grow old. So I’ll watch that flag do it.”

  After she said that to him, Carson thought that flag was maybe the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  So he drew it.

  Ten times.

  He flipped the page and at what he saw, his throat got tight.

  The flag might be the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, but on that page was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.

  Carissa Teodoro. Cheerleader. Dated the quarterback. Long golden brown ringlets the color of honey, warm dark brown eyes, sweet little tits, tiny waist, long legs, heart-shaped ass. He knew. He’d seen it in her cheerleader panties when she flipped around.

  The golden girl.

  Half of the golden couple.

  It was too bad her boyfriend, Aaron Neiland, was a total fucktard.

  The guy was good-looking and his dad was loaded so he got it.

  But he was still a fucktard.

  Carissa wasn’t. She smiled at him in the halls. She smiled at everyone. She was nice. Everyone liked her.

  Carson did too. Carson wanted to make her whimper.

  He also wanted to make her laugh. Throw her head back and laugh real hard, like he saw her do at lunch sometimes. Or at games. Or in the hall. Or whenever.

  She laughed a lot.

  He was glad she did.

  Pretty girls like her who could be bitches but weren’t deserved to laugh.

  He turned the page in a notebook that was filled with drawings. Drawings of things that Carson thought were beautiful. Things that made Carson smile, inside, the only place he let himself do it. Things that gave him a little peace.