Page 167 of The Fractured

It’s only been a week…

A long week.

My heart skipped a beat when those doors finally opened, and another officer walked in. Behind him was a line of inmates in orange jumpsuits.

The first inmate beelined to a waiting family, grinning eagerly. The second inmate was an older man who approached a younger man at another table — likely father and son based on how similar they looked. And the rest did more of the same, dispersing to the awaiting visitors.

The last inmate entered the room with his head cocked back and an arch in his brows that gave him a sort of nonchalant expression.

I couldn’t contain my smile any longer, and when he spotted me sitting alone, his own lopsided grin finally cracked through that façade.

Five months in Rikers hadn’t changed Dean much, but there were subtle differences. He was working out a lot more than he ever did on the outside; his face was only a fraction gaunter, and the back and sides of his black hair were kept short, giving him a much sharper look.

I wasn’t allowed to stand until he got to my table, so I sat on my hands with my legs bouncing as I watched him walk over.

There was a small, fading cut on his bottom lip. Something he got last week after a brawl broke out in the prison cafeteria. For the most part, Dean steered clear of fights — it helped with the trial — but that didn’t stop others from attempting to fight him. The cut on his lip was from another inmate who had punched him for being a bystander.

The bruises on his knuckles, also from last week, were fading too.

“Hey, baby.” Love dripped from every syllable in his calm, deep, Brooklyn-accented voice.

I jumped from my seat the second he was beside the table and flung myself at him so hard, a small, surprised huff was knockedout of him, followed by a chuckle as he wrapped his arms around my middle, breathing in my scent while I melted against him.

He left a kiss on the side of my neck before an officer cleared his throat.

The rules were that we had to be seated for the visit, so we did just that. Another rule was that we had to sit across from each other instead of beside.

Hand holding was permitted, so long as it was done above the table.

Dean threaded his fingers through mine, drinking me in with his gray-blue eyes.

I noted the scar on the back of his right hand, a single raised line right through the middle of the crown tattooed on his hand. There was an almost identical scar on his palm from Gabriele’s blade.

We only had an hour. Don’t waste it thinking about Gabriele.

An hour a week, every week for five months — I had gotten good at summarizing life events into small portions for him to hear something good. He needed something to distract him from waiting for the trial to be over.

He had already missed so much because of it.

Seb’s 27thbirthday, Christmas and New Year's, my 23rdbirthday, Kira getting her bike license, and me starting my new job as a receptionist in an indie art gallery.

We rarely talked about the trial either, coming to an unspoken agreement not to discuss it much when he already would with his lawyer. He also didn’t like talking about his daily life in prison. The excuse was that it wasn’t interesting, but I think he was protecting me from hearing what went on behind those walls.

“Did you receive the books I sent?” I sent him six every two weeks.

He smoothed his thumb over my knuckles, following the motion with a smile in his eyes. “You’re turning me into a bookworm. Now I get why cliffhangers drive you nuts.”

“I promise not to send you an incomplete series next time,” I laughed softly, remembering the phone call I got from him a few weeks ago. “But maybe by the end of next week, you’ll be able to walk into a bookstore and buy as many books as you like.”

He hummed. “Maybe…”

Everything was riding on next week. The trial was wrapping up, and Dean would find out his fate. The possibility of him walking into a bookstore might’ve been extremely optimistic on my part, given what he was on trial for, but one of us had to stay positive.

“Five minutes.” The officer's voice cut through the room like a cold knife.

Already?

Dean’s hand squeezed mine as he searched for something more to say. Anything to make those five minutes last.