7 YEARS LATER WinonaI never should have ended up at HJ’s bar. My day had been long though. One of my oldest friends had stopped in at the coffee shop that I still worked at long after graduating from college. She mentioned HJ and how she worried about him.I almost asked her what the hell for? HJ was a beast of a man and could take care of himself. Yet, the only reason she worried about him was because over the years I’d mixed up our friend groups. My self-destructive side that didn’t care about a thing in the world reared its ugly head every time I thought of him ignoring me, acting as if he didn’t know me.So, I kept showing up at his place of business, goading him to disclose that we knew each other through the family.He never did. HJ protected the family at all costs, even if he’d kissed me in a bathroom all those years ago.We passed one another with hatred and longing in our eyes but acted like strangers in front of everyone. Over time, our friends had us down as tolerable ac

Winona“Unless it’s a damn taser and a bodyguard, you’ve got nothing,” he argued, like he truly believed there was no way I could be prepared if someone jumped me.“I take self-defense classes. Dante’s been training me for years. I’ve been in enough dicey situations to get out of most of the ones I encounter now. If not”—I shrugged and reassured him—“I’ll live. Because if I don’t, I’ll die, right?”He grunted at the words he’d said to me so long ago.They’d echoed through me. They’d ricocheted around in my head for years, even in the darkest nights when Marvin and the men who paid him stood over me, when Jimmy held me down, when I was sure death would be a better option than life.The tube lighting of Crowned Ink glowed a bright red as we neared the shop. Their logo was a red crown with bold colored skulls in a pile below it. I pushed open the heavy glass door but didn’t hold it for HJ.He grunted, but I ignored it. I took in the wall of magazines and, next to it, a large display of t

WinonaIshouldn’t have slept with him. I should have walked away and never indulged the pull I had toward him.HJ said I wouldn’t feel anything, and I normally never did.Except with him.With him, I felt every stupid thing I never wanted to feel again.Pleasure and pain.Hope and dread.Longing and fulfillment.Hate and love.I told him I was going to the bathroom and slipped out the back door into a dark alley behind Heathen’s Bar. Cole was out there smoking a cig and offered one to me. I let him light it and pulled in a hard drag before turning from him and walking away.“Winona, sort of wanted to talk while you enjoyed the cig.”I waved over my shoulder. “Another time, Cole.”His laugh carried down the alley as I turned the corner quickly. I didn’t need to stay any longer and face HJ. His dark stare would grate my raw nerves, and I would have to admit to enjoying him screwing me in the back of the bar more than I enjoyed sleeping with most men.I sighed and took another drag of t

WinonaThey left a bodyguard outside my room the whole night.Which was overkill, considering I got the surprise of my life when I peeked out my door to find HJ staring at it from a chair he’d slid over.I opened it wide to glare at him. “What are you doing? You should face the other way in case someone tries to kidnap me.”“That’s what our bodyguard here is for. I’m here to watch for the real danger: you sneaking off and doing something stupid.”I slammed the door as loudly as I could. Then I opened it wide and slammed it again for good measure.Still, I slept like a baby wrapped in a very safe cocoon. Was this what it felt like when my father was still living? Was this the family dynamic I missed so much?The next morning, he was gone. I was left with just the security. “Dante, can you stop staring out into the abyss and make yourself useful this morning?”“Winona girl, you’re going to wreck this family, you know that?” he said as he turned to me with a sparkle in his greenish-blue

WinonaWe got along more than fine.Sebastian moved mountains for me when he needed to.He wasn’t home much, but food was brought in most of the time for me. The dayshe was home, he cooked. Like, gourmet-meal cooked. He made pesto chicken with arugula and prosciutto one night, and I seriously almost took him to bed.We’d lived together two weeks, and the man was pretty much a saint every time he walked in. He removed his shoes, was quiet if he returned at night, cleaned up after me and himself. He even let me watch the shows I wanted to. Georgie always had on the news and wanted to talk politics, and Jimmy wanted to watch porn and do things a teenage girl shouldn’t be doing.Sebastian was incomparable to the others. He was like a Stepford boyfriend.“Want me to change the channel?” I asked one night while he scrolled his phone, sprawled out on the oversize chair near the couch. I realized that a historical romance with a duke telling the main character he wanted to marry her might n