Hardcore Volume 3 by Staci Hart

traditional ‘rules.’”
    He chuckled. “Yeah, I could see that.”
    “No one in school really got it. Just Jade. She’s been a spoiled fuck as long as I’ve known her. We met freshman year, and she was just so brash. Her irreverence was refreshing. It made me feel a little less alone. Like it was okay not to be like everyone else because I’d found someone so much like me. It took years for me to realize that we were more different than I’d realized.”
    “She’s who you started running with, right?”
    “Yeah. She saw a video on parkour and showed me. It was so badass. We started small, just running around the city, jumping on things. Over things. The stronger we got, the more we could do. I kicked her in the jaw once when she was spotting a back handspring.” I smiled at the memory.
    “Done that.”
    “Yeah, well, parkour’s not for pussies.”
    Van laid the chicken breasts into the sauce. “You really have to want it, that’s for sure. It gets in you. There’s always that one moment.”
    I nodded. “I was sixteen. I was running along a duct between buildings, and the city was solid, towering around me. My eyes were down, locked on the alley thirty feet below me, and I knew right then that I wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. It felt too good.”
    “I had climbed up a lightning rod on a building, way higher than I should have been for the skill level I was at. I was seventeen, and I hung off of that building somehow knowing I wouldn’t fall, feeling like King Kong. I’d never experienced anything like it — the rush, the power.”
    “And the problem solving. You look at something and you’re like, ‘How can I get over that as creatively as possible?’”
    His smile was crooked. “And with as many tricks as possible.”
    “Without being a douchebag about it.”
    He laughed. “You’ve got to have style. Can’t be desperate.” He flipped the chicken over and topped it with capers and tomatoes. “What all have you stolen?”
    I stiffened in my seat, even though there was no accusation in his voice. “We used to hit electronics stores. Jade’s twin brother was friends with a couple of petty thieves that had more work than they could handle, so they passed off jobs to us. We’d been breaking into places for years, usually to parkour. Abandoned warehouses, that sort of thing. It was easy money, money I could use to buy things for Jill. Clothes. Toys. I could take care of her. Send her to a better school.”
    “Sounds like an easy choice. What changed with you and Jade?”
    “I don’t think Jade changed. But when we started running with the other girls, she was jealous, I think. Instead of dealing with it, she acted out. Talked shit. Pushed us around. It’s just that none of us cared enough to push back. We just rolled our eyes and shrugged it off. Until you.”
    “How did that go down?”
    I paused and looked him over. “You sure you want to know?”
    He nodded. “I want to know all of it. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since you told me.”
    “All right.” I drained my drink and set it down. He poured me another as I started. “When you had me run the delivery here that day, I recognized the Rothko, and when I left here, I was freaked out and pissed. I was talking to Erin about it when I got home, and Jade overheard. She told me to steal it, and I agreed to it, at first.”
    He flinched.  
    “I didn’t want to do it, but she threatened me from the start. At first, she said she’d tell Jill I was a thief. She didn’t know, she couldn’t know. And I didn’t know you, just knew I was attracted to you. So I came to the gallery that day to ask you out because I had to. I left the gallery wanting to see you again. And when I came here that night, I decided I wouldn’t steal it. I went home the next day ready to tell Jade to fuck off. She told me she’d kill Jill before she beat me unconscious.”
    A shadow passed across his face, and his lips turned down, brow heavy and