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tisked before leading me through the entryway into a huge kitchen coated in marble and white. “He’s keeping you waiting. He needs to apologize. Why don’t you wait here at the kitchen table? It’ll be nicer for your meeting anyway. Less stuffy than his office. I can fix you something to eat. Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
    “No, thank you.”
    “Alright, I’m on my way out the door, but help yourself to whatever you find in the refrigerator.”
    “I will, thank you.”
    I wasn’t moving from that chair. The whole house made me nervous, especially when she left me alone. Were they insane? They didn’t know me! I was a kid from the hood with a brand new arrest record. They shouldn’t have even let me in the front door.
    I started to feel cagey the way I did when I was cornered in the ring. My hoody felt hot and too tight, like it was sucking all the cold air from the room and turning it to pure fire around me. It was strange feeling this way alone in the open, but I couldn’t fight it. The tension was building. It was surging through my veins. I suddenly hated everything about that white kitchen and the pale wood of the table under my battered hands. I felt like a psycho sitting in a sanctuary. I was losing—
    A young girl walked into the kitchen, freezing when she saw me. I pegged her age around thirteen. She looked just like her dad – just like Dan. Her hair was long, dark, and thick. Her eyes were round and gray with the same blatant open, honesty as his. Even though her mouth was different – full and pink like her mom’s – I knew her smile would be his.
    It was that – the fact that she was familiar to me before I even met her – that would forever shape the way I felt about her.
    She looked at me for a long time without saying anything. Just stared at me. At my face.
    As I stared back, I heartily hoped that this was not the sister Callum had warned me was hot. She was cute, no doubt about it, but she was a kid. If Callum had a chub for her, I was going to have to rethink our bromance.
    “Hey,” I said, lifting my hand to wave at her. To try and break the spell.
    “Hi.”
    That was it. One word, then it was back to staring blankly.
    I was used to it. I got it from women of all ages all the time. An ex-girlfriend had told me it was because I looked like a cologne ad had dirty sex with an underwear model, producing a freakishly sexy baby that was raised by a Calvin Klein billboard.
    And I was that baby.
    A baby this girl couldn’t stop staring at.
    "I'm Kellen,” I said, fighting a smile.
    Her eyes narrowed and her backpack came down on the table in front of me with a serious slap! She knew I was laughing at her.
    “Jenna,” she said firmly. “Are you here to see my dad or my sister?”
    “Is she pretty?”
    “Prettier than my dad,” she shot back.
    My smile broadened. “I wish I was here to see her, then.”
    Her eyes flickered to my knuckles, catching the damage before I could hide them. Kid was quick. “Did you get in a fight?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What was it about?”
    “Something stupid.”
    “Then why’d you fight about it?”
    “Because I’m a guy,” I answered, feigning helplessness.
    Jenna scowled at me, unhappy with my obvious dodge. “That’s not an answer.”
    “When you’re from my neighborhood it is.”
    “That’s dumb.”
    “I already told you that.”
    “Was it about a girl?”
    “Do you mean over a girl or for a girl?”
    “What’s the difference?”
    “A lot.”
    “Tell me.” She started to sit down, then burst from her seat to head deep into the kitchen. “Oh, wait, hold on! Do you want a soda?”
    “I shouldn’t,” I answered as she opened the fridge, but I wasn’t entirely talking about the drink. What I knew I shouldn’t do was talk to a kid about fighting. Definitely not a kid who lived in a house like this with a mother like hers. My violent life was a dark shadow passing through this place, one that I hoped wouldn’t leave any marks on the