Even if I’d come a long way since I was a kid, I never forgot how people saw me—someone with a criminal record. No matter how much I accomplished, that conviction would always be part of me. And as soon as Taylor found out, any respect she had for me would be gone. Not that I’d given her any reason to respect me. I’d refused to talk to her. But I saw the way she reacted to my body—her eyes flared and her breath hitched when I was stocking the glasses over the bar. I was the bad boy good girls like her were attracted to.
I’d dated her type before—rich, smart, with her fancy tastes and expectations. As attracted as I was to this woman, I couldn’t forget that women like that didn’t go for men like me—they never did. I was a brief distraction in their lives—not the end goal. I’d learned that lesson the hard way when I was younger. And I’d done the dumbest thing I could have done—I’d agreed to let her work in the bar.
Each afternoon for the past six months, I’d gone home between shifts to ensure Zach ate. There was always that worry in the back of my mind that he wouldn’t be able to resist the peer pressure, that he’d get arrested, or he’d be caught in the middle of someone else’s fight and get hurt. I pulled the door open to my building, bounding up the stairs two at a time, only letting out a breath when I saw Zach, his brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, in his worn T-shirt, ripped jeans, and untied high-tops leaning against the door.
Zach pushed off my door when I approached. “Hey.”
I kept my face a careful mask around Zach. I didn’t want him to think I cared too much or he’d be gone. “You hungry?”
“That’s why I’m here.” He shifted away from the door so I could unlock it.
I’d discovered he qualified for free breakfast and lunch at school so the only meal he missed was dinner. “I’m making tacos. Get out your homework. We can work on it while I brown the meat.” I held the door open for him as he walked in, his shoulders slumped as he dropped his bag on a stool.
“Do I have to?” he asked, his face pinched.
“That’s the deal we made. You do your homework—I cook.” He didn’t do any homework when I met him, and I made it a condition of providing dinner. Thankfully, he never called me on it because I was going to feed him whether we did homework or not.
“Yeah, yeah.” But he got out books and spread them on the counter.
I liked how comfortable he’d gotten coming here. He lived with his mother who was never home, so I think he enjoyed having male attention. Not that he’d ever admit it.
“What do we have tonight?” I asked, getting out a large pot to brown the beef.
“Algebra I. I don’t know why I let you talk me into it. It’s too hard. I could have taken a remedial math class.”
I opened the package of ground beef and placed it into the pot and turned on the heat. “We talked about this. Remedial math isn’t good enough.”
“Good enough for what? You think I’m going to college?” He flipped open his book to his homework.
“Why not?” I braced my hands on the counter, ready for the same argument we had almost every day. He didn’t think he was good enough and the irony wasn’t lost on me. I struggled with the same issue all my life. But it wasn’t too late for him. He could graduate from high school with a diploma not a GED. He could go to college or technical school. He could get a job. He could go through life without a record.
“Kids like me don’t go to college.” His lips were set in a stubborn line.
“Get that out of your head right now. Anyone can go to college if you put in the effort and try hard.”
“I’m not smart enough.” He kept his eyes fixed on his textbook.
“Not true. Your grades have improved since I started helping you. It’ll get easier as it becomes a habit.” He’d neglected schoolwork for years, so it would take awhile to get caught up, but I couldn’t think of a better lesson to learn than hard work. The challenge was teaching a kid who’d been told he was nothing to believe he could be anything. I was told and believed I was ‘less than,’ and it was a difficult thing to get out of your head once it was there. I wanted to place the idea in his head that there was more for him.
“Whatever.” He bent his head over his algebra worksheet, so I turned back to the stove to brown the meat. When it was simmering in spicy taco seasoning, I turned to find Zach stuffing an official-looking paper under his textbook. “What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
“It didn’t look like nothing.”
He finally sighed and slid the paper out, placing it into my outstretched hand. It was a reminder that no one had signed up for parent-teacher conferences. “My mom ignored the email so now I need to sign it.”
“You shouldn’t forge your mother’s signature.” I didn’t blame him for not wanting the teacher to know his mother didn’t care enough to sign or come to his conference. I was sure he wanted to avoid the teacher learning the extent
