In Your Corner Read Online Free PDF

done? We’ll talk.”
    There’s that word again. Talk . Drake and I don’t talk. We have sex. That’s what friends with benefits do. And I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to think. I just want to lose myself in the void of mindless physical pleasure.
    I make my disapproval audible with a soft grunt. Drake snorts a laugh.
    “You’ve been drinking. All the more reason to stay home and let the doctor take care of you. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Might not be until the early hours of the morning though. Just don’t go out and do anything stupid. You don’t sound like yourself, and this is the kind of situation that often leads people to self-destructive behavior.”
    “Sure.”
    After he hangs up, I stare at the clock and the half-empty bottle of vodka. Then I call a cab.
    ***
    “So, where are we going tonight?”
    The cab driver pulls away from the curb and into the endless traffic of the Marina District as he glances at me through the rearview mirror. With his soft, round face, brown hair fading to gray, and twinkly blue eyes, he looks like a family movie dad.
    “Hellhole. It’s a bar in Ghost Town, you know, in West Oakland.” I want to get drunk since my earlier buzz has worn off, and I want to get laid, and I plan to take home the first decent guy who wants nothing more than to show me a good time, no strings attached. And there is no better collection of commitment-phobes than in Hellhole. Rough, gritty, but not particularly dangerous since I know the staff well, Hellhole is only a few blocks away from Redemption but suits my mood to a tee.
    “A nice girl like you shouldn’t be going to a place like that.”
    Ha ha. Little does he know the girl in his cab is anything but nice and not-nice girls belong in not-nice places. “It’s not that bad. When I lived in Oakland, I used to go there for drinks with my friends. They spin the best metal and thrash.” And right now I’m in the mood for some down and dirty.
    “You sure? It’s changed over the last coupla years. Gone downhill. And it’s a half hour drive over the bridge on a good day. Ten o’clock on a Saturday night means you’re looking at at least forty-five minutes through traffic.”
    I fall back in my seat with a groan. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
    We drive through the city for no more than five minutes before he starts again. “I have a daughter around your age. If I found out she was going to Hellhole, I’d be down there in two seconds to drag her home. And then I’d have something to say.”
    “If someone told my dad I had gone to Hellhole, he would sit at his desk and start typing a new version of his ‘I’m bitterly disappointed in you’ speech.”
    Lights flicker around us, blurring as we whizz through the streets. I close my eyes to block out the sight of irritatingly happy people. Finally, I begin to relax. Maybe I should have called Makayla, but she would talk me out of indulging my sorrows in meaningless sex, or worse, offer to come along. And the last time that happened, she almost lost Max. I couldn’t do that to her again.
    By the time I open my eyes, the Foster Hoover Historic District aka Ghost Town is in sight. Broken lights. Rundown buildings. Youth gangs lurking in the alleys. We pass Redemption and my chest tightens at the sight of the unassuming metal warehouse with the new Team Redemption logo painted on its side.
    “That’s one of the top MMA fight gyms in the Bay Area.” The cab driver slows the taxi to a crawl. “My son trains there and teaches some of the classes. He’s with the Oakland police. My wife and I are so damn proud of him. Neither of us finished high school.”
    My mood takes an even deeper nosedive. I hate proud parents.
    “What’s his name?” Not that I care because I will never step foot in Redemption again, but curiosity is an insatiable beast. “I used to…hang out there. My best friend is going out with the owner.”
    He glances at me through the rearview mirror. “My