3
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein skids across the steel table. My palm slaps down on it before it can topple off.
His eyes lift to mine, dry amusement twinkling at the corners.
He’s forty-one. I don’t know what he looked like going in, but prison has not softened him. If anything, it makes him more contained. Watchful.
The sleeves of his white crewneck hug the definition in his arms more thoroughly than I remember, and there’s fresh ink curling beneath one bicep in narrow script. He keeps his shoulders too loose for me to make out what it reads.
It does not help that I observe the shift of muscle with every movement.
I don’t like how quickly I notice it.
‘If you’d told me it was a chick book,’ he mutters, voice sanded raw from sleep, ‘I’d have told you not to send it.’
It’s a growl more than anything, as if I’d woken a bear from hibernation and it hadn’t quite decided whether to tolerate me or bite.
I’d scheduled the first available slot – eight a.m. His drowsiness still clings to him in soft folds – makes his eyes less cutting, rounds the unforgiving edges of his jaw. He looks… almost adorable if not for the whole ambience.
‘Frankenstein is not a chick book in any way,’ I counter and send the paperback sliding back towards him. He lifts a palm to stop it, and the book comes to rest with a quiet sigh beneath it.
Twisting the lens onto my camera then, I let the click punctuate the sentiment.
His gaze flicks to it briefly with a low spark of disdain. Most people have an almost theatrical reaction when I lock and load my weapon. But he just watches like I’m cleaning a blade he’s already decided to let me use on him.
‘It’s basically the first dark romance novel ever written,’ he says dryly. ‘That has “chick book” stamped all over it. If someone sees me with this, I’ll pay for it.’
The grin that pulls at my mouth feels wrong – too wide and way too pleased.
The number of words he’s used on me has increased and this visit has barely started.
Not that I’m counting.
Because I am.
‘It’s an emotionally loaded gothic novel,’ I correct, nailing him with a pointed look.
‘Ah,’ he murmurs. ‘Those emotions again.’
‘Once you finish reading it, I’ll let you apologise to me,’ I offer, chin lifting in challenge.
His eyes dip to my lips. It’s quick, yet it lands like a hand around my throat instead. Then his mouth curves, showing teeth too bright for someone who lives in darkness. His beard only half-hides his smile.
For one disgraceful second, I wonder what that beard would feel like beneath my fingertips. Regret follows close behind, and I rub my hands together to rid them of the phantom tingle – as if I had actually touched it.
And now I’m fighting the rush of heat to my cheeks.
Ron never grew a beard – couldn’t, really. His always came in patchy and awkward, so he kept his face clean-shaven.
Safe and predictable.
I recoil at the thought – I’ve never framed Ron that way before.
In hindsight, I’m not even sure I like men with beards. Which makes the fact that I’m thinking about Crane’s at all slightly concerning.
I doubt he gets much choice in how it looks in here. The idea of asking the prison staff what he’s allowed feels too much like wading into a bog to see how deep it goes, so I shut it down before it gets too far.
‘You’ll let me?’ The way he says it sends a pulse through my gut, but at least it jolts me out of my own head.
As I open my mouth to say something irrevocably sarcastic, sunlight cuts through the narrow window high on the southern wall. It catches his face, then his eyes – and the blue refines itself in the light.
Air refuses me. My mouth closes.
My finger finds the shutter before I’ve properly decided to move.
And I take two pictures.
Officially, I’m allowed to photograph for the programme. The red indicator of the surveillance camera overhead flashes as a reminder of that. Unofficially, I’m creative enough to dance around what qualifies as programme-related.
A frown settles across his face like a storm cloud that’s forgotten its place. His eyes narrow at the camera as if he might bite into it just to stop it from doing that again.
‘Thank you for letting me do this.’ I lift the offending item slightly, my voice low and thin. I know he can just as easily make them take it away.
‘What do you do with the photos?’ he asks warily.
I let the camera drop against my sternum where it hangs from its strap as I lift my hands to the table in silent reassurance that I won’t be taking more pictures.
For now.
‘Depends. Some I sell as stock. Some go to a gallery. Some get bought off my online shop. I shoot mostly digitally, but I print the ones I care about. Some of those prints… are just for me. Like these, once I get clearance.’
His gaze climbs to mine again, but not before grazing my cheek like a breath held too long, lingering briefly where a strand of hair has slipped forward.
Something rakes up my spine. I don’t know if it’s from the heat of his gaze or the chill of its colour.
And I’m not exactly comfortable being studied like that by a man accused of murder.
But then again… it’s been a while for me. Long enough that I’d forgotten what it feels like to have a man’s attention settle somewhere. Long enough that, apparently, one cold blue stare is enough to make something under my ribs twitch back to life.
I glance down, trying to shake it off.
‘Lucky fellow,’ he mutters then, his voice sinking – turning husky and feral.
My eyes snap up to his just as his flick down—
—to my engagement ring.
I’ve been absent-mindedly rotating it. I didn’t even realise.
I do that often. Anna and Marina have already pointed it out.
It still circles my finger thirteen months after I called off the engagement.
I don’t have a good enough explanation to offer them, either.
‘Oh…’ is all I manage to say, and even that snags on the jagged wound that suddenly reopens in my chest.
I don’t owe him answers, I rationalise to myself.
I don’t have… answers, the truth bellows right after.
‘How much longer do you have left here?’ I ask, desperate to breathe past the weight in my lungs.
‘If I’m convicted? Life. If not… who knows? When’s the wedding date?’ he fires back, just as fast.
‘Winter,’ I reply automatically – too fast. Too trained.
It was supposed to mean next month. It had meant that, once.
I make a mental note to revise that if Crane and I are still here by then.
‘He’s letting you do this shit?’
The edge in his tone startles me, but I coach myself not to flinch where he could see.
‘He doesn’t have a say in it.’
‘I wouldn’t let my woman near this place.’ A tick ripples over his jaw muscle, and his eyes beam brighter.
The caveman undertow of my woman is far more enticing than it should be. Worse, the words now cling to the inside of my skull and start playing on repeat.
Instinct swallows the logic and my hands lift the camera again. The shutter clicks.
‘What was that for?’ he asks, voice harder.
‘Anger,’ I answer with delight.
He draws his thick brows tighter together, a shadow falling over his hooded eyes as it does every time he tries to read me. He looks scarier that way. ‘My question made you angry?’
‘No. My answer made you angry.’
His mouth shuts with a clean click. The uncertainty melts from his face and gives way to something else.
A beat might have passed. Or a lifetime. His eyes brighten, his nostrils flare just once, and I’m struggling to take my gaze off his.
‘Guard!’ he calls.
I scoff, folding my arms. ‘Seriously? For a big bad wolf, you’re awfully touchy.’ The joke comes out too easily.
‘People always said I’m more of a big scruffy bear,’ he supplies.
The crack of tension in the room sends my eyes rolling.
Was that a joke?
Humming in amusement, I let the sound curl behind my teeth while packing away the camera. I rise just as the pot-bellied guard swings the door open.
‘What, no kiss?’ George jeers at Crane, who simply slides back into that same posture I’d found him in on my first day – a man retreating inwards to someplace no one else is allowed.
His arms settle heavily on the table. His shoulders curve forwards, his head dipping until the light reaches only the unforgiving black of his curls.
A soundless fortification against the world – and me. And yet, something about the way he holds his head down makes me wonder if this is what he looks like even when no one’s watching.
I bite down the words rising to my lips. But I know they’d only make things worse for him.
And I’m not sure I want him to lose points with the guards.
Hours later, the conversation leaves me too restless to focus on anything else. I keep seeing him whenever my attention slips – the set of his jaw, the sudden flash of that smile, his eyes dropping to my ring.
By the time I’m back home from a studio photoshoot, I barely make it through the door before my eyes lock onto the laptop calling me from the coffee table.
My coat is still hanging from one arm. I haven’t even taken my shoes off. Yet I’m already readying myself to type his name into the search bar.
I fucking know better.
But something in me keeps telling me he shouldn’t be in there. That it’s wrong for him to cast his gaze towards the world he can only see through bars.
It feels like I’m circling a hollow space every time we talk, every time he calls the guard to cut my visit short. As if a crucial piece of the puzzle sits upturned and I have no way to flip it back.
Is he afraid of what he’ll say if we stay past the threshold of his comfort? Am I afraid of what I’d do if he did?
Half an hour later, I prop my feet on the coffee table and settle the laptop across my knees, while my tea steams between the camera and my ankle.