Vindicate (Recovered Innocence #1)(74)

I don’t meet his gaze.

“Goddamn it, Cora. You gotta stop this shit. Get a life. You’ve put yours off for too long because of me. Go get him back or else I’m not going to talk to you when I get out.”

I jerk my head up. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say that. You finally believe you’re going to get out of here.”

“It only took two thousand one hundred and—”

“Fifty-three days,” I finish for him.

He stares at me in disbelief. “Fuck me, Cora. You may as well be doing time in the cell next to me.”

I feel almost as though I have.

“That’s it.” He gets up from the table. “Don’t visit me. Don’t write me. Don’t talk to me until you get your shit together. I have enough to deal with in here without being responsible for f*cking up your life too. You’re not putting that on me.” He storms out without a backward glance.

I can’t move. He’s never spoken to me like that before.

A guard approaches the table. “Time to go.”

“Right. Okay.”

I get up and go through the routine of getting out of this hellhole. The drive through the desert is a blur. I don’t remember the songs that played on the radio. I take the wrong freeway and keep going. I’m going to get my life back.





Chapter 36


Leo


I hate my criminal law professor. I should be at a party with my roommate, getting shitfaced. Instead, I’m working on some bullshit side project that gets me an in with him but doesn’t do shit for my grade. The doorbell rings. Finally. I swear. For as many times as we order pizza from this place, they never seem to get it here while it’s still hot.

I swing the door open, my hand on my ass ready to pull my wallet out, and freeze.

“Hi.” Cora. On my doorstep. “Can I come in?” She shifts from foot to foot, her gaze sweeping the interior of my apartment.

“Ahh, yeah. Sure.” I hold the door open for her. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” She walks past me and her scent hits me with memories.

I close the door and point to the couch. “Have a seat.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you want something to drink?”

“No, thanks.”

We’re so f*cking polite.

We sit in awkward silence. It’s been sixty-three days since I’ve seen her. You’d think her impact on me would’ve been lessened by them, but no. I’m just as f*cked where she’s concerned as the day I watched her drive away from Mike’s house.

“I saw Beau today.”

“Yeah? How’s he doing?”

“Good. I told him the good news.”

“He must be relieved.”

“Yeah, he is.”

“I’m glad. I hope everything works out with the hearing.”

“Me too.”

“Why are you here?” I think I have the right to ask that after everything.

She rubs her palms on her jeans. “I came to tell you that you were right.”

“About what?”

“Me. Us. Everything.”

What does she expect me to say? There is no “us” for me to be right about.

I jab a thumb over my shoulder. “I have a project due Monday.”

“Right. Sorry. I’ll get to the point.”

She digs her palms into her thighs. I notice all of her fingernails are bitten down to nothing. The makeup around her eyes is smudged and missing in places. There’s a tear in her shirt. She’s lost weight. And her hair, always so perfect before, is black before the blue starts. But there’s not a woman in the world who compares to her.

She turns her body fully toward me. “What I said to you that day on the beach. It’s true. It’s more true now than it was then. Everything with Beau isn’t settled. The hearing might not go his way. I’m going to take a chance here because if I don’t he might never speak to me again.”

“Is that why you’re here, because he made you come?”

She shakes her head. “No. Beau’s never been able to make me do anything. Pisses him off.”

“I know the feeling,” I mumble.

“Anyway, he said something that was a lot like something you said and it got me thinking. About life and about how I’ve been doing time like him except on the outside. And I realized that even when he gets out I’ll still think of reasons why I can’t move on until he does. It could be forever, maybe. Or not at all, if the judge decides there’s not enough evidence to free him.

“I looked into the future and it scared the shit out of me. I can’t go on like I have been. And I especially can’t go on without you. Because I love you and I want you in my life. I want you to be sitting next to me, holding my hand, when the judge delivers his decision. And I want to go home with you and deal with whatever that decision is. So I’m here asking if you still feel the same about me and if you’re willing to walk through the uncertainty with me.”

My body moves before my brain tells it to. I’m kneeling in front of her, taking her hands in mine. They feel small and strange and familiar all at the same time. She’s crying when I kiss her. I can’t believe I went so long without touching her and kissing her.