Bee was always a little awkward when she was uncomfortable, in an adorable, didn't know what to do with her hands, kind of way.
It wasn't what she was doing that surprised me.
It was what she was wearing.
A fucking black hoodie.
Zipped all the way up to her fucking throat.
Just looking at her wearing that thing brought up fond memories of when we first met, and broke my fucking heart at the same time.
She was retreating internally, and I was already forming an idea on how to pull her back out.
I just had to get out of that shit-hole prison first.
Bee's red hair was well past her shoulder blades on the way to her waist, and unlike Georgia's adorable yet unruly curls, Bee's hair was naturally stick straight. She still didn't wear any makeup, her insanely big blue eyes and spattering of freckles were more than enough to dress up her already perfect pale skin and naturally full pink lips.
A year had passed so quickly, just a tiny blip on the radar of the length of time I really wanted to spend with Bee and Georgia. We were just getting started on the forever I'd promised them.
I couldn't lose it all now.
I couldn't lose her.
Ever.
Bee deserved better than me, but I was drawn to her innocence, and she was drawn to my darkness. Together, we made a whole lot of no sense, and it was just the way I liked it.
Lightning striking is too cliché for the moment Abby Ford appeared out of nowhere and literally fell into my life. It felt more like she had me on my knees with a knife to my throat and had me begging for my life, but a new kind of life. One with her in it.
A life worth living.
A person worth living for.
Every day I spend with Bee is another day she breaks my fucking heart and repairs it all over again. Being with her makes the tiny hairs on my arm stand on end and my heart drop into my stomach every time she enters the fucking room.
I LOVED her. I was OBSESSED with her.
If anyone tried to tell me a story that involved love at first sight, I would shake my head and call it a bunch of horseshit. Love in general was a sketchy concept. Instant love was just fucking ridiculous.
Until her.
The only thing with a stronger pull than the monstrous need to take the life of another was the pull of Abigail Ford.
She didn't show me that I was capable of love. She was the one who made me capable of love.
Of loving her.
Of loving Georgia.
The need for Abby was stronger than my need for anything else.
I loved her.
I still love her.
I will always fucking love her.
"Hey," She said. "You okay?"
I couldn't help but laugh.
"Am I okay?" There I was worried about her and Georgia and how I was going to protect them from inside a jail cell, and my girl, who was free to be out in the world, was asking me, her 6'1" deranged husband with a penchant for dancing with the devil, if I was okay.
"Yes," she said, answering my question, but not reacting to my outburst. Normally, Bee would have crossed her arms over her chest and asked me what the fuck I thought was so fucking funny.
"Baby girl." Kneeling in front of her, I took her hands in mine, resting them both on her lap. "I'm laughing because it's a fucking ridiculous question and because you don't ever need to be worrying about me." I pushed a stray hair off of her forehead and tucked it behind her ear. Bee's chin fell to her chest, she took a deep breath. "I'm just fine, baby," I assured her. I pulled her close and pressed my lips to hers. I wished that somehow that kiss would stop whatever thoughts were making her withdraw and snap her out of the place she went to when all wasn't right in her world.
It was a flat out lie, I wasn't okay by any means, but I didn't need Bee worrying about me. The more she worried, the more she would retreat from me and the harder it would be to make things right again. What I wanted to tell her is that without her, without Georgia, even for just a few hours, I was the furthest thing from fine.
But there was no fucking way I was going to tell her that, especially when she was wearing that hoodie. Bee's equivalent of a security blanket. The message she was sending me was loud and clear. She was freaking the fuck out. She was afraid of losing me.
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 fucking 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.
My back was against an old dusty truck, and the chick with my cock down her throat was going at me like I was her last fucking meal. I heard a rustle, but it wasn't enough to distract me from the girl working me with her mouth like it was her fucking job.
Then, there was a sneeze. I will never forget that sneeze for as long as I live. It seemed to come from nowhere.
The girl I was face-fucking didn't seem to notice.
It sounded really close.
Too fucking close.
The girl deep-throated my cock, pulling me in further than I thought possible. Before I could form another coherent thought, I was coming, and she was punching my my thighs with closed fists and spitting onto the pavement, screeching at me for not warning her I was about to come. I laughed because I grew up in Coral Pines, and there wasn't a guy I knew that hadn't shot his load in her throat before tenth grade. She stomped to the fence, and I followed her to let her out, sliding the gate shut behind her. She walked away mumbling to herself, but I was to preoccupied with the sneeze to give a fuck about what she was bitching about.