Chapter 15

“This is so wrong, Abby.”

She smiled, her lips pressed up nearly against mine.

“Shut up,” she breathed against my mouth.

I smiled. “Someone could walk in that door any minute and catch us.”

“You're really bad at your whole criminal persona, you know,” she said. “We've managed to go a whole two months without anybody catching us.”

“Stealing a peck on the lips at the desk every now and then when we know no one is watching – it's a little different than me having you pinned up against the file cabinet.” I laced my fingers through hers, feeling the cool metal of the cabinet on the tips of my fingers. “It's a shame that there's all these handcuffs around, and I can't get my hands on a pair.”

“Yeah?” She smiled again coyly. “I'm sure my cousin would let me borrow his, especially if he thinks you're being unruly.”

“I'll have to brush up my criminal persona, I guess.”

She brushed her lips against mine briefly, but ducked out from beneath my grasp.

“You can have it your way, criminal,” she said, looking back at me while she walked away. Before she turned her head, I swore I saw her grin.

I groaned and leaned my head up against the cabinet, where my hands were still pressed.

“Not fair, Abby.”

She turned around and looked at me again with that grin.

“Life's not fair,” she said as she leaned against her counter. “Now get back to work, slacker.”

I sighed, feeling frustrated at the lack of power I had in situations such as this. I turned and looked at her. She had her back turned toward me, working on something at her counter.

“One thing before I get back to work,” I said as I started walking to her.

“And what's that?” she asked without turning around.

I grabbed her wrist and turned her to face me, and before she could protest I picked her up and sat her on top of the counter, connecting my lips with hers.

“I had to remind you that I love you.”

She looked me in the eyes for a few seconds, in complete shock, before I pulled away and started walking back towards my desk.

“Nice power play,” she said as she jumped off the counter. “I was right – you do feel the need to take women by surprise and sweep them off their feet.”

“Only when they torment me first,” I said with a laugh as I sat down in my chair. “I can't take four more months of that.”

In reality, if that was all I could get for the next four months of my sentence, I could live with it. The first week had been uncomfortable for both of us. It took a few days for Abby and I to find our comfort zone with each other. Once we found a balance in whatever this relationship was, there was nothing uncomfortable about it. I felt great; the best I had in years.

It was a weird relationship, definitely one of the weirdest I had ever been in. I had become aware of what Damian had talked about, and now had to watch how I looked at Abby and what kind of affection I showed her in front of the guards. Most of them knew that we were close friends, but we both had to pretend that it was nothing more. A kiss or simple touch was out of the question unless we absolutely knew we were alone. We both had far too much to lose if we were caught.

The only person we didn't have to be so careful around was John. It was hard to believe that after so many months I hadn't known they were cousins. It was even harder to believe that when Abby told him every detail about our relationship, that he hadn't tried to kill me. In fact, he was incredibly cool about it.

The two of them were close; he and Abby had even been roommates while she was in nursing school and him in academy. I thought the fact that she told him everything as if they were brother and sister would hurt us, but it had been the opposite. He had been quite an ally of ours, from helping us keep things under wrap from the other guards to helping Abby tell her parents.

From what I heard, telling Abby's parents had been quite an adventure in itself.

“Is your dad still threatening to pull a shotgun on me?” I asked in amusement, as the lull in conversation in the room had made me think about it.

“No, he's coming around,” she said, then paused.

“I sense a 'but' coming.”

“But you might want to watch out for random BB's.” I raised my eyebrow at her. “I'm working on it,” she said. “I'm wearing him down.”

“I'll use John as a human shield. He won't mind.”

“That's a good idea,” she said with a laugh. “Speaking of dads...Bailey asked about you again yesterday.”

I sighed. Bailey had grown close to Abby in the past two months and every week Abby took her out to do something new. They loved spending time together – the only drawback was that it seemed like every week I heard how increasingly hard it had become for Bailey to accept my absence.

“I dodged it,” she said. “I'm running out of excuses though.”

She walked over to the table and grabbed an envelope of photos out of her bag.

“Her preschool put on an adorable play last night.” She grabbed the handful of photos out of the envelope and handed the top one to me. “Cutest bunny rabbit in New York, I think.”

I looked at the photo she had handed me – Abby was holding Bailey in her arms. She was wearing a headband with bunny ears, her nose and cheeks painted to look like a bunny. It seemed like even though it had only been three months since her visit here, she had grown so much in that time.

“I'm missing everything,” I said to Abby as I looked at the picture. “The night before I got arrested, she had the flu. I was running on so little sleep because of Bray already and then Bailey kept me up all night...I put her to bed watching Tangled because it's one of her favorite movies. She said she wanted to grow her hair out like the princess in the movie.”

Abby looked at me quietly.

“I told her by the time her hair grew that long she'd be too old to use it to sneak boys into her room. I know I only have four months to go, but it feels like by the time I get back to her, she will be sneaking boys into her room, Ab.”

“I'll tell Joey to cut her hair and install bars on her windows,” she said, smiling slightly. “He'll be on it like white on rice – no boys will be sneaking in on his time card.”

Even though seeing the picture made me sad, I laughed.

“We'll make up for it,” she said. “Four months and then we can make up for a whole year. The park has ice cream and cotton candy. We'll fill her full of the stuff and make her ride the merry-go-round so many times that she throws up all over the place. We'll take her to the zoo every day, so she gets sick of seeing the elephants and monkeys.” She grabbed the picture out of my hand and used a pin to stick it to the board above her desk. “Four months, Lance. Four months until she forgets that this ever happened.”

I looked up at the picture – she had placed it directly in my line of sight, so I would see it every time I sat at the desk.

“We'll make it through that – remember?”

It seemed like an eternity to have to wait four months, but I had already been here eight. Looking at the picture reminded me what I was going to walk out to.

The simple thought of it made me smile.

“Yeah,” I said to her. “We'll make it through that.”

She smiled back at me in satisfaction. It was the same smile she gave me every time she “won” against me and snapped me back into a good mood. She was good at it, in fact it was one of her specialties.

It was one of the things that I loved about her. It was only one of the many things, but it was one of the best.

As she walked away from me, I grabbed her wrist and pulled her back over to me. She spun and ended up in my lap with a strong laugh.

“You're keeping me from doing my work, you know,” she said as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders.

“What work? No one's here. No one's ever here.”

“There's still work to be done. People can get hurt here at anytime. And I'll remind you that I can't fix people who are hurt if my paperwork isn't being done.”

“Move in with me,” I said, ignoring her. “After I get out of here.”

She paused. “Lance, I can't do that.”

“Yes you can.”

“You have a family.”

“And it includes you,” I said. “I love you, my daughter adores you...”

Abby loved her independence. She took care of herself and she did it well, and it was something she prided herself on. She hated it when anybody else wanted to take care of her.

“I don't make a good 'kept' woman,” she said.

“I don't want to keep you. I want to borrow you and never give you back.”

She chuckled at me. “Isn't that the definition of keeping me?”

“Not if it's your choice to be kept.”

She looked at me with confusion in her eyes. I could tell that the proposition was torturous for her. Her independent side wanted to stay that way, not feel like it was giving up the freedom she was so attached to. Her other side told her she wasn't giving up anything.

“I'll think about it,” she finally said. “That's all I can give you right now.”

“That's good enough for me,” I said.

A clearing of the throat from the doorway took us by surprise and we moved apart quickly.

“I didn't see anything and I didn't hear anything,” John said as he peeked into the doorway, although I could tell by his facial expressions he was lying. “I have to learn to knock before I come in now.”

Abby smiled as I stood and tried to gather my composure.

“You have a phone call,” he said, looking at me. “It's apparently important. 'Life or death'.” He used air quotes and rolled his eyebrows in skepticism. Then he smiled. “Unless you're too busy here to take it.”

“No.” It worried me that he said it was so important. The only thing I could think of was that something happened to Bailey. “No, I'm good. I can take it.”

“Come with me, I'll take you down there.” He looked over at Abby in amusement. “You okay here, Abby? You'll be okay on your own without him?”

“I'm glad you think it's so funny, John,” she said sarcastically. “I'm fine – although I think I need a 'Do Not Disturb' sign.”

“Yeah, that wouldn't be hard to explain away to the warden at all,” he said as he closed the door behind me.

Once the door was closed, he turned to look at me.

“Sorry, man,” he said with a smirk. “You know I have to give you shit. But seriously, you guys might want to be a little more careful from now on.”

“Yeah,” I said, and sighed as we started walking off towards the phones.

“I think we need a code knock or something.”

I laughed.

“What, like knock three times when you're alone and knock four times when you're with someone else?”

“Make fun all you want, I think it's a good idea,” he said.

“You know, I didn't come in here a criminal, but you and Abby make me act like one more every day.”

As we got closer to the phones, I got more nervous that something was wrong with Bailey. I didn't get a lot of phone calls, only the occasional call from my mom or Joey. If they weren't calling because something was wrong, they wouldn't say it was “life or death”.

John led me over to the phone and I sighed as I picked it up and put it to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Hi, baby,” the familiar voice said from the other end.

“Bray.”

I garnered attention from John, who was standing next to me. He was familiar with who she was and the games I had endured with her for so long.

“How are you?” she asked in a sweet tone.

“Well, I was better before I picked up the phone.”

“Lance...”

“What the hell do you want?” I asked her. “I don't have the patience for you today, Bray.”

I waited a few moments for a response; I heard some noise in the background, what I thought might be the jangle of a bracelet she was wearing and a couple people in the room talking.

“I'm in trouble, baby.”

“Don't call me baby,” I warned. “I'm not your baby, Bray.” I lowered my voice to barely above a whisper. “I have a girlfriend. That's my baby, not you.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw John smile. It took her a few moments to talk again.

“I'm in trouble,” she repeated.

“What's new?” I said with a scoff. “And why is this my problem anyway?”

“It's Jason,” she said.

“And I care why? What'd he do, break up with you like you broke up with me? Screw you over like you screwed me over?”

I couldn't hide my anger towards her, even though she sounded truly upset.

“Lance, he hit me.”

As angry as I was, I softened my tone of voice.

“What do you mean, he 'hit' you?”

“He lost the job that his uncle gave him.” From her voice, I could tell she had been crying. “He ran out of money and he couldn't afford drugs. His friend took him to the bar and he came home drunk last night. He wanted me to give him some of my jewelry that you gave me so he could pawn them to get high. When I wouldn't give them to him, he accused me of still loving you. He got so mad...and he hit me.”

“Did you go to the hospital? Or the police?”

I heard another muffled breath come from her.

“He'll hurt me if I do. I waited until he went out this morning and I left. But I don't have any money or clothes, or anywhere to stay. My mom is on vacation; I don't know where to go. I don't have any money for a hotel. I have to leave California, I'm afraid he'll find me and try to kill me.”

“How long has this been happening?” I asked.

“A couple months. He only hits me when he can't get high, but since he hasn't had a job he's been doing it a lot more often.”

I sighed and pinched my forehead, feeling a headache coming on.

“And what do you want me to do it about it, Bray? I'm in prison – which you should remember, since you put me here.”

“I just need some help,” she said with a sniffle.

“What do you need?”

“Money,” she responded. “I can go stay with my aunt in Canada if I have money to rent a car and a hotel room for the night. Maybe I could buy some clothes and food, too.”

I couldn't help but wonder if she was lying to me. She had lied to me before, obviously. I wanted to think that she wasn't the kind of person who would lie to me about being hit by Jason, but with her past I couldn't be sure. Still, she was the mother of my child and it was unspoken that nobody hurt her. If she was telling the truth, I couldn't pretend like it wasn't happening.

“So you want me to give you money to get out of California?” I asked.

“Please, Lance,” she begged. “I need you right now.”

I caught John looking at me and immediately thought about Abby. I couldn't start playing a back-and-forth game between her and Brayden. But I couldn't let Bailey lose her mother if she was telling the truth.

“Take what you need,” I said with a sigh, cursing my soft side. “There's still money in the joint account. I never got a chance to close it before I came here. It should be enough for you to rent a car and hotel and get a few things you'll need. If you need more...” I hesitated. “...my extra debit card is on the dresser at home. Only take what you need, Bray. Don't bleed me dry.”

“I know.”

“When you get to Canada, you need to find other arrangements.”

“I know, Lance,” she insisted.

“You need to go to the police, Bray – before you leave California.”

“I can't,” she said quietly.

“Brayden,” I said insistently. “If he hurts you, he could hurt Bailey.”

I heard her sigh deeply.

“You have a girlfriend, then,” she said, suddenly changing the subject.

“Yeah. I do.”

“I thought you loved me,” she said. Her voice was still sad, but in a different way.

“People change, Bray. Feelings change.”

She didn't say anything for a while. It had been the first time I had talked to her since she had visited me. I couldn't understand why she was surprised, but I had told her then that I still loved her and had even tried to mend things with her. It was probably a shock to her.

“I better get on the road,” she said after a long pause.

“Please go to the police. And be careful – don't go back to him.”

“I'm sorry, Lance,” she said, barely above a whisper.

I didn't want to think about the fact that she had screwed up my life and I was still caving in for her.

“Just be careful, Brayden. I have to go.”

I hung up the phone, and John looked at me quizzically.

“Problems?” he asked.

I sighed. “You have no idea.”