Dark Needs(11)

I wasn't afraid of that. She was never ever going to lose me.

I was going to fix this. Fix her. Did she need me to? Probably not, Abby always came out of it on her own with a little time and she was always stronger for it. But this time, this time I was going to be more than her vigilante. This time, when and if I got out of prison, I was going to be her hero.

"No prolonged contact!" A high pitched voice warned. A skinny guard with a red pointed mustache stood by the far wall and glared at us. As much as it pained me, I pulled away from Bee and took a seat next to her, our hands folded together on top of the table, our knees touching underneath. It was the closest I could physically get to her, and I was going to savor every minute of PG contact that I could.

"Your lawyer should be here tomorrow morning," Abby said, reminding me of why we were in that room in the first place. "Have they told you what they have against you? What the evidence is?"

I told Abby what I knew. Which wasn't much. The DA had put me in one of those windowless rooms meant to intimidate, and tried his best to get me to confess, until he realized the only answer I had to any of the questions he'd asked, including if I wanted some coffee, was "I'm not talking without my f*cking lawyer." Finally, he'd thrown his arms up in frustration, grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair, knocking it over in the process, and left the room, slamming the door behind him and told them to process me. Next thing I knew, I was in a van and headed north to the jail in Logan's Beach.

What I did learn during his failed interrogation was that the evidence they had against me was enough to charge me with murder in the first degree.

Enough to seek the death penalty.

I didn't mention that to Abby.

"Why are you wearing that again?" I asked her, gesturing to the hoodie.

"It was cold," she said meekly, looking everywhere but at me.

"Hey," I said, turning her chin to me, forcing her to look me in the eyes. "It's okay that you need to be comforted right now. It's okay to feel shitty about this entire situation because it is a shitty situation." I rubbed the pad of my thumb over her cheek. “But it’s not okay to check out on me, Abigail Ford. You can’t leave me. Ever.”

"I'm not..." she started.

I interrupted, "The only thing I like about that hoodie is how it reminds me of how we met. Do you remember that night, Bee?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"I loved you then."

"No, you didn't." Her eyes turned glassy. I was getting to her so I kept going.

"Yes, I did. I loved you that very night, and I've loved you every single night since, baby." I wiped the tear that fell from the corner of her eye, she leaned into my touch.

It wasn't much, but reminding her of how we got our start was the only thing I could do to help her stay present while I was locked away.

I was making a list of all the shit I was going to do once I was free because my number one priority was going to be making sure my wife knew that I was there to carry her burdens for her and make sure that the life I gave her was one she never felt like she couldn't deal with.

When I got out, Abby and I were going to have a couples’ therapy session.

Jake Fucking Dunn style.





SIX


[Being locked up gives you only one thing: time to think.

And since Abby's visit, the only thing on my mind was how remembering the night we met had made her tear up. A huge victory when it came to the fragile emotional state of my wife.

She was both the most vulnerable and the strongest person I knew. My very own living breathing oxymoron.

I knew I would get her to react when I brought up the night we met because my own reaction was always strong when I thought about that night.

The night I almost put a bullet in her head.

More felony than fairy tale.

But it still made me smile every time I recalled the first moment my eyes landed on the little ball of attitude who would eventually become my wife.

My world.

I was getting my cock sucked by some girl I went to high school with whose name I barely remembered then or now. I didn't want to bring her into my little apartment attached to the shop because I didn't want her to get the wrong idea and think that what we were doing involved a sleep over.

Or a bed.

Or more than ten minutes.

After I picked the girl up from the Bert’s, I drove to my dad's shop and led her out back to the car graveyard. Before I could fully unzip, she'd already thrown her purse onto the asphalt to use as a makeshift cushion and dropped to her knees.