Chapter 1
ROSCOE
“Name your price,” my friend Josh said as he crossed his arms and frowned at me. “I can tell you don’t want to go, but how often have I asked you for a favor like this?”
“It’s not just a favor. You’re asking me to humiliate myself in front of people who will record it and send it out to the masses.”
“It’s not like you’re about to get on stage and start stripping, Roscoe! It’s two fucking hours of being social, which you’re a lot better at than I am, so I’m asking for your help.”
“Why is this so important to you?”
“Because the children are going to be there. I don’t want to be left alone in a room full of them! You know how annoying they can get.”
By children, he meant the younger adults in our extended family who jokingly referred to our group as the elders.
Josh and I weren’t related, but we grew up as family.
After Dad and Papa adopted me and my siblings, and Josh and his brothers were adopted by his father, we were basically raised together.
Even though Adam, Josh, and Heath were a few years older than us, Ranger and I had spent a lot of time with them, usually because we had to form a united front against the dozens of younger kids at the functions we all attended.
“I want to put a sunroom on the back of my house.”
“You want me to exchange two hours at a fucking dance class for weeks of work putting an addition on your house?” Josh asked in outrage.
“I’d also really like to have a wraparound patio area that ties everything together. That way, you can walk out of the sunroom or out another door to the outdoor kitchen, and it will all be connected into one big outdoor living area.”
“When you were a kid and they took you to the mall to visit Santa, did he laugh in your face when you told him your wish list?”
“It’s not like I’m asking you to buy the materials or do it all yourself. I’m just asking you to put me at the top of the home improvement list,” I explained.
“Hire a goddamn contractor!”
“Fine. I’ll start calling around while you’re lacing up your dancing shoes.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Josh muttered. He stormed into my office and threw himself down on the chair across from mine before he asked, “Since you’re planning to add onto your house, does that mean you’re going to stay in the neighborhood?”
“Why would I leave?”
“You’re a doctor.”
“Really?” I asked sarcastically as I looked down at the badge clipped to my scrub top. “Is that why people keep telling me what’s wrong with them?”
Josh ignored me and suggested, “You could move into that fancy new community they’re building south of town.”
“Oh, hell no. It’s bad enough that the neighborhood has an HOA, but at least you and your brothers know it’s bullshit and don’t enforce the rules.”
“What rules?” Josh asked with a grin.
“Exactly!” I got up from behind my desk and pulled two bottles of water out of the mini fridge that was disguised as a cabinet beneath the shelves that held pictures of my family and displayed various plaques and trophies my sisters had arranged there when they decorated my office a few years ago.
I handed Josh a bottle before I perched on the edge of my desk and said, “I’ve got two patients who are probably going to be admitted sometime this evening, so even if I make it to the class, I might not get to stay. ”
“That’s perfectly understandable.”
“Why are you doing this anyway?”
“A friend of mind . . . Wait! You know Lynn.”
“Serrano? Yeah.”
“Well, he’s unofficially dating this woman. Because of some circumstances that aren’t really my business, they can’t hang out together alone, so they meet up at these dance classes surrounded by other people just so they can see each other.”
“That sounds odd.”
“I know. It’s not my story to tell, so I won’t, but he asked if I’d show up and hang out while they’re there. I told him I’d recruit some other guys to come so this woman’s friends will have men to be their partners.”
“How many friends does she have, and why are the children going to be there?” I asked.
Josh shrugged before he said, “Lynn’s woman works out at Zoey’s place.”
That explained a lot but still didn’t really give me insight into why Lynn couldn’t be alone with her. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the women who worked and lived on the property owned by our friend Zoey Duke were all ex-cons.
I knew that Lynn was dealing with some family drama caused by his oldest daughter because his younger one was a patient of mine who had cried her heart out during her last visit as she explained the situation and then blamed it on her elevated blood pressure.
“I’ll try my hardest to show up and stay for as long as I can,” I assured my friend.
“And I’ll come over this weekend to take some measurements while you tell me how much work I’m going to have to put in.”
“Ask Lynn to help since I’m technically doing this favor for him.”
“That’s a good idea!” Josh said cheerfully, happy to consider help from another professional who knew his way around a construction site. “I’m sure he’ll be open to that.”
“Then I guess I’ll see you this evening.”
“Dinner after?” Josh asked as he stood up to leave. When I nodded, he said, “It’s a plan. See you later.”
◆◆◆
SERANA
“I’ve always thought this sounded sort of fun,” I admitted as I sat down in the chair next to Moe. “I blame Save the Last Dance.”
“What? When you’re talking about dance movies, your instant go-to should be Dirty Dancing.”
“No. Back in the day, Julia Stiles was the shit. She can dance, and she was a total badass in Ten Things I Hate About You.”
“No dance movie, past or present, can compare to Dirty Dancing,” Moe insisted.
“I’m with Serana on this one,” Fiona chimed in. “You only think Dirty Dancing is the best because it’s from your time and not ours.”
“My time?” Moe asked in outrage.
“You are older than . . . well, everyone,” Taylor pointed out.
Moe scoffed before she said, “Some things are timeless.”
“You’re not. You should start moisturizing,” I said with a shit-eating grin.
Moe’s eyes narrowed, and she returned my smile, but hers wasn’t funny; it was murderous. “There are at least twenty things in this room that I can use to make a shank.”
“Oh, no! The prison badass is making an appearance! Someone protect me from her rage.”
“Rage doesn’t begin to describe the emotions I have bottled up inside me.”
“Think happy thoughts, Moe. Don’t let the voice in your head convince you to take things too far,” Fiona said supportively.
“The voice? Is there only supposed to be one?” Moe asked. When Fiona’s face showed her horror at the thought of Moe having more than one personality, Moe laughed so hard she snorted, which sent me and Taylor into a fit of giggles.
“Sometimes you worry me, Moe,” Fiona admitted.
“You shouldn’t worry, Fi. I like you. That means you're safe.”
“Still not comforting,” Fiona muttered.
“Back to the subject at hand. Do any of you know how to dance?” I asked.
Ginger looked up from her phone and shook her head before she answered, “Not this kind of dancing.”
“What dances do you know?” Fiona asked.
Ginger chuckled before she said, “The kind that includes pasties and getting singles tucked into my thong.”
We were still laughing when the class started, happy that our friend Farrah had so many people in her corner and the attention of the man she’d really come to like.
What was I thinking? It was more than just like.
When they were together, you could almost see the cartoon hearts circling above their heads.
Farrah’s new relationship was giving her joy and giving the other women like us hope.
Hope that someday we might be able to find someone who could look beyond our past and what we’d done to bring us to this place in our lives and see the woman beneath who just wanted to be loved.
All of the women who lived at Zoey’s Flower Patch were ex-cons, and most of us were still on parole or some other sort of restriction. Zoey knew that and had selected each one of us to join her project, giving us a chance to build lives for ourselves.
With her help, we were able to finally have a home of our own - a small one, but it was a space that we didn’t have to share with anyone.
After more than five years behind bars, my little home was the perfect amount of space for me.
As much as I loved it, though, there were still some things I couldn’t get used to.
My biggest problem was the quiet stillness at night.
I was used to falling asleep with the sounds of people all around me in their own beds, breathing heavily, snoring, or even just mumbling in their sleep.
There was always the hum of the fluorescent lights in the hall or the television playing in the guard’s pod at the end of our dorm.
Occasionally, there was the sound of movement in a cell nearby or the loud flush of a toilet after someone had relieved themselves in the darkness.
My new home had none of those sounds, and sometimes that made it hard to sleep.
The first few nights were the hardest, since I hadn’t slept in a room alone for more than five years.
After I was arrested, I slept in a cell with three other women for the duration of my stay in the county jail.
And then, after my trial and sentencing, I moved to a state facility and shared a cell with one woman while living in a pod that housed almost fifty others.
In the weeks I’d been living here, it had gotten easier, but there were still some nights that the only way I could get any rest was to turn the television down low and leave on a few lights so I wasn’t in complete darkness.
For five years, I had never experienced complete silence. Even after almost a year outside those prison walls, it was something I couldn’t seem to get used to.
Today, sitting in a dance studio with several of my friends and acquaintances I’d met through Zoey Duke or my boss at the bakery, Janis Grissom, the noise level was almost comforting.