Chapter 7
Focusing on anything but Dean is proving far more difficult than Ava anticipated.
She picked up her car from the shop, drove it ten miles home without incident, and parked it in the driveway where it continues to put a dent in the concrete. Only now she’s watching the drip, drip, drip of oil from the underside hit the ground with a disgruntled frown.
Whatever they did to repair one thing broke something else. Her first thought, when she’d seen that long stain travel to the end of her driveway, wasn’t how upset she was about another repair. Her first thought was Dean and how she should crawl under there with her phone and snap a few pictures to present to him later.
Of course, that would be stupid. Calling the shop to demand they fix it is the only right option. And she still might do that, if the irresponsible part of her that whispers in her ear about this being an opportunity would kindly shut the hell up.
When she showed him the photos before, it offered him a chance to feel useful, to think of something beyond the prison bars and forget for a moment that he’s trapped in there for half a year. If she can offer that distraction again, why wouldn’t she? Sure, there’s the pesky detail about breaking one of the few rules they have in place, but since when did anyone at work give a shit about those?
Screw it. She crawls under the car in her sweatpants and snaps those forbidden pictures, getting a nice close-up of the source of the drip and only narrowly missing a splatter of oil to the face in the process.
Ava crawls back out, wiping the grime from her pant legs with a sigh, and pops open the hood to capture photos of that too. Just in case. At least this thing has one positive purpose, it can be a long-distance project for one of the inmates. She wrinkles her nose at how wrong that sounds even in her head. If they were on the outside she’d never bother Dean with this. It would feel like taking advantage of someone’s time and asking for free service, but now it feels less like a bother when he has nothing but time and little to fill it.
Her neighbor appears with an eager wave and Ava suppresses a cringe. The moment she allows any conversation, Mrs. Nelson will attempt to shove a kitten at her again and there is no chance she’s taking one. She can’t be responsible for something so small and fragile. That innocent creature deserves a better chance in life than ending up with her.
She abandons the car, escapes her neighbor, and heads back inside to distract herself with terrible Netflix shows in an attempt to avoid fixating on her slip of the tongue the last time she saw Dean.
“When I could see you on the outside instead. Stupid,” she mumbles to herself.
As if he would have any desire to see her on the outside. It’s only her mind playing tricks on her, pointing her toward the one man she’s felt any sort of interest in since those first stirrings of desire formed for John decades ago. Back when he was charming, sweet, and easy to like. Before the mask dropped and she saw who John really was. By then, it was too late.
‘No one else will ever love you but me.’
‘Only good for one thing and you can’t even do that right.’
‘Stupid, ugly, useless. Can’t stand to look at you.’
She won’t make that mistake again.
Even if Dean turns out to be different, she is only kidding herself to assume he’s interested. Still, it’s difficult to deny that he has filled most of her waking thoughts lately. She wonders what he’s doing back in the pod, if the others have left him alone by now, and if he’s eaten enough. All pointless pondering that she never has about the other inmates. She doesn’t bring work home with her and the fact that it’s become a problem now is something she’d discuss with that non-existent therapist she hasn’t hired yet.
Not today. No, she won’t be hiring anyone today, instead she’ll continue thinking about how she hasn’t seen Dean for a week. His previous two visits fell on her off days and the one before that got rescheduled due to an emergency with a different inmate. She worries that she’ll find him ten pounds thinner and even more disheveled after all this time.
It’s hard to see how the others treat him and do nothing, but he insisted that telling someone would only make it worse and maybe he’s right. There’s a different set of rules in there and being a snitch would only enlarge the target on his back. Still, she feels awful, especially now that she knows he doesn’t deserve any of it. That is, if she takes his explanation for what landed him in prison at face value, and she does. She believed him right away, and that’s either because he’s easy to trust or because she really is as dumb as John always said.
So, she verified his story with Greg, since trusting her own judgment doesn’t come easy. When he confirmed that Dean was telling the truth, it felt like a blessing and a curse. Part of her hoped he lied. It would be easier to dismiss him outright and assume him like all the others. It’s so much harder to do that now that her initial reaction to him being safe is validated.
He isn’t a killer. He isn’t violent. He is a normal person in an unfortunate situation and this all would have been so much easier if he were a lying career criminal.
They are just friends, she reminds herself. Nothing more. He could use one and she could, too. She doesn’t imagine any of her friends with their faces pressed between her legs, though, and that’s exactly the image she conjured up of Dean the last time she made use of her vibrator. It’s unfair to him and herself and she won’t do it again. She only felt guilty afterward. It’s a new thing, these flickering embers of desire. Lain dormant for so long, she thought them long dead, but they sprung up like those flowers through the prison fence, full of hope that she might not be as broken as she feared.
* * *
Today will be the first time she’s seen Dean in a week and she’s already overthinking what to bring him. She spent way too long at the cafe she goes to for lunch, standing in line and staring at the menu, wondering what he’d want. It is calm and cozy with dark woods and soft chairs, plenty of places to tuck away into a corner with only her phone for company.
It’s peaceful, except today she feels no peace. Only anxiety about what to feed a man who isn’t hers and who she shouldn’t be feeding. She finally settles on a turkey sandwich with all the fixings. It’s her favorite and on the off chance he’s already eaten, she’ll save this for her dinner tonight.
The bag feels like a ten-pound weight with a blaring siren attached the entire way back to work until she places it in the mini-fridge beside vials of medication, hidden like contraband.
When Ava sees him again, he looks better. Much better. There’s color in his cheeks and the hollowness of his eyes has evened out. He’s not on the road to starvation like she feared, and that’s a welcome revelation that settles her nerves.
She watches as he’s secured to the railing before Nick disappears down the hall. “How are you today, Dean?”
“Good. Really good. Been eating every meal again.” There’s an embarrassed edge to his tone mixed with relief at having good news.
“That’s great but—”
“But why? Why’d they back off? Honestly, I ain’t got a clue. Don’t feel like it’s over, but right now I’m getting served in line and that’s all I care about. If something else happens later I’ll deal with it then.”
She nods, letting the corners of her mouth turn up in agreement. “We won’t question good fortune. I brought you something, just in case, but if you’re not hungry…”
His face lights up, then falls again. He still wants the food, but she suspects he might feel even worse about taking it now that he doesn’t need it to survive. Why did she bring it up? He’d never have known if she kept her mouth shut, but now she’s put them in an awkward position.
‘Bringing him food, fantasizing about him, you’re one step closer to digging a hole through the prison floor to help him escape.’Lori’s echoing voice in her head provides a much-needed scolding.
“I could eat, but if you want it? Maybe if you wanna eat it later or something? I don’t need it.” He finishes with plenty of false confidence. She might believe him if she didn’t know exactly the kind of slop they’re fed in the mess hall.
“It’s a big sandwich.” She grabs the container from the mini fridge and pops open the cover to reveal the massive amount of food inside. “I didn’t have time to eat much for lunch. Share it with me?”
And that’s how they end up sharing food in the infirmary like it’s some sort of picnic. Only instead of enjoying their meal in a sunny park on soft grass, they’re illuminated by flickering florescent light and serenaded by Dean’s cuffs clinking against metal.
“How’s the pain today? Is anything hurting? Step in any toxic waste?” She offers him his prescription pain pills. “You’re almost near the end of these.”
“Feel ‘bout the same. Ribs hurt worse than my toe if you believe it. Feels like they’re taking forever to heal.” He swallows the pills and chases them with a large bite of his sandwich. “Damn, this is good.”
“I got it from this little cafe about a block away. They make the best everything. Not just sandwiches, but their coffee is amazing, and the pie, oh my God, the pie. Dean. I cannot begin to explain the pie.” She’s taken on a wistful tone, thinking about the slice of apple pie she got there last week when she realizes how inconsiderate it is to tell him about things he can’t have. “Sorry, that was rude of me.”
He shrugs, unbothered. “Nah, you’re fine. Good pie, that’s something worth talkin’ about. Maybe I’ll check that place out sometime. You know, after.”
“You should.”
She wants to offer to show it to him, but that’s too forward a thing to suggest and it would feel like tempting fate for rejection and reality for a slap upside the head. He doesn’t want to eat pie at a cafe with her, and even if he did, she has no business thinking that could lead anywhere good.
They stare at each other for a beat, the moment heavy in a way she doesn’t know what to do with. She fears he can see every thought in her head written clear across her face, but then his attention shifts down to her lips, lingering only a fraction of a second before finding her eyes again. He swallows hard and a flare of heat flushes her skin, rushing from her neck down her body to rest between her legs. She ignores the urge to rub her thighs together, averting her eyes back to her food.
“Maybe we could go together?” he says. His leg starts to bounce, and he backtracks before she has a chance to reply. “Shit, I’m sorry. As friends, I mean. If you want to, but if you don’t, I get it. You can forget I said that.”
He might face-palm if he could, but his cuffs keep that gesture at bay. He does want to go there with her, even if he has trouble saying so, no matter how ridiculous and inappropriate this entire line of thought may be. As friends, she reminds herself, and isn’t that exactly what she was thinking the other day? That he could use one and she could, too. It’s all innocent and rational and perfectly fine if they’re only friends, and so she latches onto that with a hard grip, ignoring the slight, ridiculous pang at the confirmation that he has no desire for her otherwise.
“We could do that,” she replies softly.
His brows raise in surprise. “Yeah? Ok, sure. That would be good. I don’t really go out much. Always working. Don’t know any of the good places even though I live here.”
“Well, I don’t get out much either, so I’m not an ideal tour guide, but I do know where most of the best desserts live and I’m happy to show you.”
“I never met a dessert I don’t like.”
He offers her a shy smile, and she returns it with one of her own while little hummingbirds beat inside her chest, fluttering against her rib cage.
“So, how are those cats doing?” He says around a mouthful of food, changing the subject and saving her from over-analyzing every word spoken between them.
Ava laughs. She was expecting him to bring up the car, or something mundane like the weather or more food talk, but he went straight for those fluffy babies. “I may or may not have additional photos to show you of said cats.”
“Nice. This is a good day.”
He’s so genuinely happy to look at her slideshow of poorly taken photos that she responds before she can stop herself, her voice low and gentle. “Yeah, it is.”
“Where’s that one hiding?” He points at the tail of a half-hidden kitten.
“Behind the toilet. I have no idea why they like it back there. They’re just starting to toddle around, getting into everything now that their eyes are open.”
“Still think you’re not takin’ one, huh?”
She shoots him a mock glare and accepts her phone back once he’s finished scrolling through the current pictures. “That’s not what I think. That’s what’s happening. I don’t need a kitten. They’re a lot of work. You have to feed them and clean up after them. Another one of my plants just croaked. I can’t be trusted with something more complicated.”
“Okay.” His tone tells her he’s not convinced. “You take a lotta pics of those things for someone that doesn’t want one.”
She opens her mouth to protest but closes it again and narrows her eyes with a huff. He has a point, she supposes. People who don’t want cats don’t fill their phones with cats. “Dammit.”
“Hey, no judgment.” He smirks in amusement.
“No cats.” She shoots back, a tease in her voice. “Keep it up and there won’t be any dessert for you either.”
He hisses through his teeth. “You ain’t playing fair now.”
She’d almost forgotten for a moment where they are. She’s caught in light banter with a handsome man, talking about kittens and dessert dates that aren’t really dates, but when Nick returns, it all washes over her again like a wet blanket.
They aren’t having lunch together, discussing coffee and pie and the pros and cons of pets.
They’re in prison.
Six months isn’t that long, she thinks, as he’s led out of the room. Maybe she should stop worrying about where they are now and start thinking about where they could be in a few months time. At that little cafe together, two friends eating pie and drinking coffee, talking about normal things like normal people. She doesn’t allow herself to think too hard about what makes this man different from all the others who have made her similar offers.
‘Go on a date with me, Ava. I’ll be out soon.’
‘Buy a pretty lady a drink on the outside?’
‘Wanna play doctor when I get out?’
It’s par for the course in here and she brushes off the requests, never thinking twice, never taking them seriously. In most cases, they repulse or offend her. There has never been a single time when she considered meeting one of these men in the real world and yet here she is, so fucking excited to have dessert with Dean when he’s finally set free.