Carrying Hope Read Free Page B

moments to spare. I scanned the patrons, unsure of whom I was looking for. A grizzled old man at the end of the bar raised his bearded chin, beckoning me. I hesitated for a moment, eying the stranger carefully.
    He had a long white beard that extended well past his navel and a mane of shaggy gray hair that fell to the middle of his back. Clad head-to-toe in denim, he looked more like an escaped mental patient than a valuable informant. Beggars can’t be choosers, though.
    With more than a little bit of trepidation, I approached the old man and extended my hand to him.

Chapter 3
    I had a couple of hours to myself before Kevin was due to be home, so I tried to use the time to prepare myself. I was terrified that he was going to be angry at me or blame me for losing my job. Maybe it was partly my fault, but I was capable and hard-working; surely I could find another job quickly.
    Thinking of ways to soften the blow, I decided that cleaning the house would be a good start. He couldn’t be angry at me if everything was clean, right? I knew that wasn’t realistic, but cleaning helped me burn off some of the nervous energy that was bubbling inside of me.
    Our apartment wasn’t anything special, just a small one bedroom with barely enough space for two people. I set to work scrubbing the kitchen, cleaning the stove, mopping the floors, and emptying out the fridge.
    I was just beginning to do the laundry when I heard the jingle of keys in the front door. Kevin came in, kicked off his work boots and dropped his lunchbox at the front door.
    “Hi sweetheart,” I called from the laundry closet.
    “Oh, hey,” he answered distractedly.
    Our relationship had never been particularly affectionate. We met when I was still running with a bad crowd. Kevin was, at the time, driving a delivery truck for one of the more well-known mob bosses. I never asked what kind of things he delivered and he never offered up any information. The first time I laid eyes on him, I was completely smitten. His sandy blond hair, blue eyes and boyish dimples made my heart melt. What I didn’t realize until years later was that looks could be deceiving. He was the picture of cherubic innocence, but inside he was as dirty as they came.
    I was willing to overlook a lot of things for the sake of stability and the relationship that I never thought I’d be able to have. No other man had given me a second look; well, at least not in a meaningful way. Plenty of men on the streets wanted one thing from me, but I wasn’t willing to part with that so easily.
    Kevin was different. He talked to me like I was a normal person. He didn’t talk down to me because I was young or a girl. He didn’t care that I was involved in shady things, because he was too. I flirted shamelessly with him, but it took months for him to finally get the hint.
    Finally, we started dating and I was convinced that our relationship was going nowhere. He wasn’t the romantic type: we never went on real “dates”, he never bought me flowers or took me out to dinners, and we only ever “hung out”. He didn’t want to label our relationship and after a year or so of feeling like I was being strung along, I tried to end it.
    It was then that he confessed that he had trouble letting people in, but he really liked me and asked me to move in with him. I was the happiest girl in the world in that moment. I never thought that anyone would care about me that much. I thought that we would be together forever.
    For the first few months, things were great. We had sex every day, we laughed until we cried, and he went out of his way to make sure my needs were taken care of. But eventually, complacency kicked in. Now, he treated me more like a roommate than anything else, but I was still clinging to the hope that one day our relationship would be strong again. He just needed time. If we didn’t have to stress about money all of the time, maybe he would be happier and more affectionate.
    There were times