Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1)(10)

“Not really.” Not the class. More like my mind. Even my body. He keeps popping into my thoughts in a sexual way, and I’m not really a sexual person. Don’t have time for that sort of thing, anyway. “The prisoner… Grayson…he’s a good student. He’s magnetic, persuasive, and clearly very intelligent. A bullshitter, though. But even his bullshit is…haunting.”

“How so?”

“With the other students, their stories were boastful. Lifestyles of the rich and famous.” I pause, thinking about his telling detail—the baseball point guard. There’s no such position. And he’s right handed—he wouldn’t wear a right-handed mitt. “Grayson talked about baseball in his piece, and even though he obviously grew up in America and everything, he got it all wrong. From what he said, you’d think he never played it. That’s how they used to bust Russian spies, you know? Because what American boy doesn’t know baseball?” As Esther nods, I go on. “It’s eerie. Even the poorest American boy knows the sport. Even kids in juvie. It’s one of those lies that reveal too much.”

“He has a story,” she offers.

“I guess. But somebody else can help him better than I can. Anybody else.”

“Is that your job? To help him?”

“No,” I say, feeling petulant. I know what’s coming.

“No, your job is to give him a safe space within which to tell his story. That’s the gift of the class.”

She doesn’t get it—I don’t have a space large enough for Grayson. He feels endless and frightening, full of secrets and strange magnetism. Like a black hole where, if I go near the edge, I might fall in and never find my way out.

She leans forward, brow furrowed with concern. “He didn’t…touch you, did he?”

A little zap of surprise jolts me. “He never touched me.”

Even if a glance felt more intimate than a touch.

“Okay,” she says. “If you want to switch up projects, I’ll look at your joining Callie at the senior center.”

She’s trying to hide her disappointment, but I can feel it, and I’m suddenly pissed at myself. I’m better than this. Stronger than this. Last class time, I’d made that nice connection with the guys, and what if one of them really needs to tell his story? What if Grayson does? Nobody threatened me. Nobody touched me.

Nobody ever can.

I sit up straighter. “Never mind. I’ll stay.”

Her expression clears. “You’re sure?”

“I’ve gotten this far. I’ll finish it out.” There are just a few more weeks. I’ll ignore Grayson and focus on the journal. I’ll get it done and get on with my degree, with my life, and forget I ever met a prison inmate named Grayson.

*

I sit at my post in front of sixteen desks and chairs that will soon be filled with my students, including Grayson, who will take my chair and desk, as he did the last time. No, he won’t just take it—he’ll own it. He’ll watch me while he does it, enjoying every second.

We’re doing private conferences today. The conference with Grayson will be hardest. I shuffle through their papers, marked in red but hopefully not too much. My heart pounds.

The men are to read silently under Dixon’s watch—I’ve photocopied an essay by James Baldwin I thought they would enjoy, and I’ll pull them out one by one to discuss how their final projects might evolve from the seeds they’ve sown during the exercises. We’ll conference at the small table at the far side of the resource area. Not exactly private but removed enough to have a quiet conversation. I’m hoping to get through them fast so I can duck into the little office and hide out with a book.

The clock hits 1:59, and I go to stand at the edge of the space. I’ve worn a suit jacket today. Armor. I hadn’t needed it until Grayson.

I greet them by name as they file in. Jordan. LeShawn. Roman. Teke. They take their usual seats.

Grayson’s always at the end of the line. At first I thought it was because he likes it that way, the bad kid sitting in the back of the bus. Now it occurs to me that it lets Dixon keep a closer watch on him. Like Grayson is dangerous, or some kind of escape artist or something, so big and brutish and insolent.

He comes around the corner, fixing me with an amused gaze. I look down at his thick wrists, chained loosely together, and at his muscular forearms and the white scars etching his skin. Raised scars, and it’s definitely a design. Did he do that? Or did somebody else? My heart pounds as I imagine what it would feel like if I touched it—smooth? Rough? Hard? He seems hard all over, but of course there would be soft parts of him too.

My cheeks heat.

“Hello, Ms. Winslow,” he whispers as he passes by, and the intimacy of it steals my breath. Like he guessed my thoughts…and some dark part of me finds that exciting.

I swallow it down.

“Hello, Grayson,” I say, grateful that he’s under guard. He’s too big, too beautiful, too dangerous, too everything. He steals the show. He fills the room. He leaves a wake of pure energy in my belly as he continues to the front.

I hand out the essays, and I relate the plan for the day, the way my professors sometimes do. “We’ll be conferring on which of the exercises to develop and polish. I’ll choose a few to be published in the journal—anonymously, and only if you want to be included.” I’ve said this before, but I want to make sure they understand. “You’ll get class credit for doing the work. Being published in the journal is just an extra, okay?”