got yourself a Mini Coop, huh?”
She lets out a humourless laugh at my terrible joke and bursts into tears. I throw my arm around her shoulders. “Hey, we’ll get through this together. We’ll get a house, sell pies by the side of the road and raise this kid together.”
“I’m not keeping it,” she whispers.
“You sure this is what you want?”
“Come on, Ana, you really think I’m Mummy material?”
“I think it doesn’t matter what I think. If you want to do this, I’ll be there with you. If not, I’ll help you look into your options.”
“I already made the appointment.”
“When?” I slide my fingers through hers and clasp her hand tight, the way we used to do when we were little and our only worries in life were running away from boys in the playground trying to catch us in a game of catch-and-kiss.
“Monday week.”
“I’m driving you.”
“Okay.” She rests her head on my shoulder again and we stay like that until the sky outside the window turns dark and her parents call us down for dinner.
Chapter Twenty Six
Elijah
My eyes dart around the visitors’ room and I scan every face before finally coming to rest on a familiar pair of clear, blue eyes, so much like his daughter’s. Bob sits at a round table, his chunky arms folded against his chest and a wistful smile on his face. I know he’s thinking I wish he wasn’t sitting there alone, but when they said I had a visitor today I wouldn’t let myself believe it would be her. I’m not sure my heart could handle that hope being crushed once I found out she hadn’t come. Still, it’s good to see a familiar face.
I smile and the cut on my lip opens up again. It’s probably a good thing she hasn’t come. I’m already sporting a fat lip and a nasty cut over my left eyebrow from the shit storm of a fight in the yard yesterday. I don’t need to land myself in any more trouble, and beating the other prisoners’ faces in for looking at my woman the wrong way could see my parole offer for good behaviour revoked.
The guard plonks me down in the seat opposite Bob and moves to stand near the wall to watch over his band of criminals.
“How you doing, son?” Bob asks and his eyes zero in on my face.
“Can’t complain, no one would fucking listen.” I smile and hiss when my lip opens up again.
“They treating you alright?”
“What, this?” I point to my face. “Just a couple of playground bullies. They got theirs, and now they’re both in isolation. I’m keeping my nose clean, though.”
“Good, good.” Bob nods. His eyes are unfocused, like he’s thinking long and hard about something, and then he snaps his attention back to me and says, “I brought you something.”
“It’s not a gorgeous blonde is it?”
“No. But it’s a picture of one.” He glances at the guard and indicates with his hands that he’s going to pull something out of his pocket before reaching in and placing three photos on the table before us. The first is one of Sammy and Ana huddled on the couch, stuffing their faces full of popcorn. Their attention is focused away from the camera, it’s a candid side-on shot. Ana’s not wearing any make up, her hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun and she has popcorn all down the front of her shirt, but there’s a smile on her face that’s the most beautiful fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Sammy’s head is in her lap and her hand rests gently against his hair. There’s so much love in that one tiny gesture that my heart practically splits open. I miss her so goddamn much.
The next photo looks like it was taken immediately after the first. Ana’s attempting to hide under a blanket while Sammy pulls it off of her. Her face is contorted into a grimace, but it’s still as beautiful as ever.
The third is Ana alone. The light around her is grainy and quite a bit darker. She’s asleep on the couch with her hand curled under cheek and her face slackened in sleep. There’s the barest hint of cleavage on display, her t-shirt is rucked up around her chest exposing her flat stomach and the short shorts she’s wearing show every perfect inch of her lean legs. She looks perfect and so completely fuckable I feel my cock twitch in my pants. I shift uncomfortably, clear my throat, and shoot Bob a questioning look.
“Hey, I’m not handing that one over lightly. That’s my daughter you’re erecting a fucking tent for under this table, but I know how you feel about her and I know what you did for her, so I’m making an exception this once.” He’s blushing. Fuck, I wish I had a camera so I could immortalize this moment forever. It’s funny how much has changed between the two of us. It’s hard to believe this big, blushing mountain of a man is the same guy who bailed me up against a wall and warned me away from his daughter. Now he’s visiting me in prison and handing over pictures like this.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he grunts.
“How’s she doing?”
“She won’t admit to it, but I think she’s hurting bad.”
“I’d give my left nut to talk to her. Just to hear her voice, just once.” In the months that I’d been inside I’d used my one phone call a week to talk to Bob. Seems kind of irrelevant when he visits every Sunday anyway, but I have no one else to call, and sometimes the need to speak to someone on the outside even about the most trivial of things was so great you’d sell your soul for the experience. I only ever called when I knew she wouldn’t be there to answer. Once no one had picked up and I hung on, just to listen to the message she recorded.
“If she wants to talk to you she’ll come visit. Until then, you gotta let her deal with this shit the best way she knows how.”
“Yeah, I know. I just wish she’d deal a lot quicker.”
“Court case is this week.”
I nod because this isn’t new information to me, and every time I think about her having to face that scumbag, knowing I won’t be by her side, I wanna attack every guard in this place and smash down every wall that’s keeping me locked away from her. “You’re going, right?”
“Finally getting to see that animal locked away? You bet your arse I’m going.” His eyes turn a darker shade of blue and he starts gritting his teeth. A muscle in his jaw pops.
I know how hard it must be for him to not dish out his own form of punishment when he sees that little turd-burger around town. If I were on the outside it would take a fucking miracle for me to let him walk away. I guess, in a way, it did. That night, if I hadn’t been thinking of Ana and what she’d think of me if she saw me like that, I’d have put a bullet right between his eyes and never looked back. Ana saved me from spending the rest of my days locked in a cell.
“You thought about what you’re gonna do if he gets sentenced to serve time here?”
“When,” I add.
“If. The evidence might be concrete but Turner’s got a big old pile of money and they’ve hired the best defence attorney in the state. He might walk away from this unscathed.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m up for parole in three months.”
“Son,” Bob begins.
“Yeah, I know. I just can’t have him out walking around after what he did to her, you know?”
“I know, son, but you can’t be saying shit like that in prison either.”
I glance down at the pictures in my hands and sigh. “God, I miss her so fucking much.”
“It may not seem like it, but she misses you, too.” He follows the line of my gaze and gives me a consolatory clap on the shoulder. “She hasn’t been the same since the two of you broke up.”
I inhale hard through my nose to keep the tears at bay. After Mum and Lil died I went over half my life without ever tearing up, but since I met Ana it’s like a fucking dam opened up and every couple of months I’m
