Free Hard Time by Cara McKenna

modest. Doesn’t want you to know he’s a volunteer firefighter.”
    “And that he reads to orphans on the weekends,” said the bartender.
    “Doesn’t want you to know he’s actually a millionaire.” Jumpsuit again. “He’s keeping it a secret ’til he knows you love him for who he is.”
    The bartender lost it on that one, laughing as he said, “Man, that’d be the goddamn best-kept secret. If I wanted to hide a millionaire, I’d sure as shit stick him in Darren fucking Michigan.”
    Try Cousins Correctional Facility.
    “That’d be like hiding a diamond down a porta-potty.” Jumpsuit just about doubled the bartender over with that. “Last place you look, man.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Good night, boys. Thanks so much for your sympathy.”
    As I headed for the door the bartender called, “Hey!”
    I turned and raised my brows, faking annoyance.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Anne. Annie,” I corrected, for no good reason.
    “Annie, I’m Kyle.”
    “And I’m Rodney,” said Jumpsuit.
    “Come back and let us know what happens,” Kyle said as he ran a towel over the bar, sounding sincere.
    “Yeah. We wanna see the engagement ring,” added Rodney, and Kyle whapped him with the towel.
    “Seriously,” Kyle said. “Let us know.”
    “It’ll cost you a shot,” I told him, wanting to leave with the last zing.
    “Deal.”
    “Y’all have a good night.”
    I headed out and up the side entrance to my apartment, flipping three bolts and switching on the weak overhead light to illuminate my little living room. I dropped my bag on the couch, grabbed the remote, and switched on the TV.
    I was wiped. Thoroughly buzzed. I ought to be excited for the weekend, but in truth I wished I were working. The last thing I needed was time to think too hard about everything. Everything Collier had written, and every decent question the two perfect strangers downstairs had thought to ask about him. Questions I’d somehow managed to avoid confronting on my own.
    I pulled out his letter and read it again.
    If you got a man already . . . tell him I said he’s real lucky.
    It was things like that, and his promise to leave me alone if I chose not to wear red next week, that made this dangerous. I had no way of knowing if these scraps of deference were sincere or not. All they told me was that he was smart enough to know I deserved them, which could either make him a gentleman or a con artist.
    “Who are you?” I murmured, staring at those careful, measured letters. Then I snatched my compact out of my purse and stared at my own face, flushed from the heat or bourbon or from Collier, maybe. “And who the fuck are
you,
anymore?” I squinted at myself. “You’re drunk, that’s who. Eat some dinner, stupid girl.”
    I tossed the compact on the coffee table and flopped along the cushions with a sigh.
    “I don’t own anything red,” I told the room. “I look awful in red.”
    Did I? I wouldn’t even know. I’d never owned anything red aside from maybe socks or a hair band.
    “Whores wear red,” my grandma had told me once—she’d walked in while I was watching
Pretty Woman.
I must have been fifteen. I’d told her, “She
is
a whore, Gram.” And she’d nodded sagely and said, “Stands to reason.”
    I’d thought about it and realized my mom and my aunt never wore red, either, not that I could remember. Funny how mandates you don’t even agree with can still chisel themselves across your subconscious.
    If I wanted to hear more of whatever Eric had to say to me, the decision couldn’t be made without a concerted effort, a mindful purchase. A premeditated crime.
    Shopping with the intent to seduce a dangerous felon.
    Staring up at the ceiling, I told the fan, “He wants me to be his whore.”
    It didn’t reply.
    “I think maybe I want that, too.”

Chapter Five
    By Thursday, I still didn’t own anything red.
    It was rainy and muggy, and Karen and I were cooking alive in the bookmobile. School was out but