I can’t believe I did that! First, I tell him I’ve been watching him, and then I hit him; I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe it’s because I’m not used to being around men, at least, not men who aren’t wearing a prison guard uniform.
I squeeze my eyes shut tight as I remember his face when he found out who I was. Livvy had told me not to outright explain to people why I’m here, but I couldn’t help it. My mouth has a mind of its own and I can’t control it.
I stand in the corner of the office, my arms straight by my sides, my shoulders slumped and my back against the wall as I try to take myself to the safe space that I’ve been so used to.
When I was first taken to the seg ward, the only thing inside the room was a small toilet bowl and a mattress on a flimsy metal frame. I never felt safe on the bed so instead I would stand, just like this, in the corner of the room, watching the door constantly.
It’s a habit: a habit that I want to break, but I don’t know how. Right now, I just need to get his shocked face from my mind and wait for him to leave the building before I can come out of my corner.
A vision of his eyes springs into my mind causing mine to snap open, wanting to get them out of my head. The honey color of them with a starburst pattern had held me captive. I’ve never been held by a pair of eyes before, they rendered me a bumbling idiot.
No, Lexi, you can’t be thinking like that. He thinks you’re scum. Remember his face when he found out who you were. There was so much distrust in his eyes.
I shake my head, trying in vain to rid myself of all my thoughts.
“Knock, knock.” I gasp at his deep voice, the gravely tone making goose bumps spread over my arms.
“Who’s there?” What? Really, Lexi?
He steps inside, his head tilting to the side as a smirk lifts up the corner of his lips. “You know I could totally make a joke here.”
I cringe at myself and push my back further into the wall. His eyes flit over my face, his lips dropping into a frown.
“I erm…” He lifts his hand to the back of his neck and rubs it. “I didn’t mean…” He points out of the office.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “I know what people think.” I try to pull my lips up at the corners but by his reaction, I’d say the smile I’m trying to achieve came out looking more like a grimace.
“Shall we start over?” he asks, holding his hand out on front of him.
I look down at his large hand hanging in the air and back up to his face. He tilts his head, encouraging me to step forward.
You can do this, Lexi, just act normal.
I push my back out of the corner and walk toward him like a scared animal—that’s exactly what I feel like. Being sent to prison at fifteen meant that I didn’t have my teenage-turning-to-adult years outside. I had them locked behind the concrete walls of a prison where every day is the same as the one before it.
It’s hard to adjust to being out and trying to be the adult that my age tells me I am, all while having no adult experiences.
I slowly push my arm forward, clasping his and gripping tight.
“Not so tight,” he mumbles.
“Shit! Sorry.” I let go quickly but he steps forward as I go to step back and takes my wrist, placing my hand back in his and shaking it—like a normal person.
“Like that.” He winks and I get a funny feeling in my stomach, almost like butterflies.
He watches me for several seconds that feel more like minutes, his eyes narrowing and trying to read me. As soon as I realize what he’s doing, I push my walls up, not allowing him to see any further.
Stupid, stupid, Lexi. What are you doing?
I yank my hand out of his and pace past him, misjudging the space between him and the doorframe. “Owww!” I shout as my shoulder slams into the wood.
“Oh, damn. You okay, Lexi?”
“I’m fine,” I say through gritted teeth, continuing to walk out of the office and toward the kitchen. “I better get a move on… I still have cleaning to do.” I spin around when I get to the end of the hallway and take one last look at him as he leans on the doorframe, his hands in his pockets. “Nice to meet you, Evan.”
“Pleasure is all mine.” He smirks.
I shake my head and laugh, a snort escaping as I walk into the kitchen before leaning against the wall, gritting my teeth at the deep throb in my shoulder.
* * *
“Ah, Lexi! There you are!” I startle at the sound of Livvy’s voice as soon as I step into the house, my hand flying up to my chest.
“You stayed up?” I ask, wincing from the movement in my shoulder.
Her eyes flit between mine before tracking down my whole body. “Lexi?” The concern in her voice is loud and clear as she lifts up out of the chair she always sits in to crochet or read. “What’s the matter?”
“I—it’s nothing, honestly.” I smile but can’t quite make my lips lift. Once I heard Evan close the main door behind him, I gave it two minutes before I locked up and walked home. I couldn’t even pick up the rag to dust, so there was no way I was going to be able to mop the wooden floors in the room that he was using.
“You don’t look fine.” She comes to a stop in front of me and I huff out a breath.
“I knocked my shoulder on the doorframe at the center. It’s just a bruise.”
She pulls down the corner of my sweater, her cold fingers causing me to jump and shiver. “Oh Lord have mercy! Your shoulder is…”
I try to twist around to see but any movement causes pain to flow through my shoulder and back.
“Come on.” She grabs my other hand and practically pulls me back out the door, not giving me a chance to refuse wherever she’s taking me.
She locks the front door behind us and takes hold of my good arm, walking us down the road and turning left at a driveway that looks familiar. I’ve walked this road quite a few times since I moved here over a week ago, but I haven’t met anyone other than Mal.
She comes to a stop outside a door with the numbers 109 on it and raps her knuckles on the door, not letting up until she hears the click of the door unlocking.
“Liv—”
“No time,” she interrupts, stepping into his house and bringing me with her. “Is Cal here?”
“Cal?” Mal asks, frowning at Livvy and then turning his eyes to me. “What’s going on?”
He closes the door and walks past us, waving his arm at us to follow. He walks through the second door on the left which leads into a giant kitchen complete with gray slate tiles on the floor and glossy black kitchen door cabinets paired with marble countertops.
“Is he here?” she asks again, still not telling neither him nor me what she’s doing. I stay silent, even though I’ve met Mal briefly, I haven’t been in his home, and I have a feeling if he knew who I was and where I came from he wouldn’t want me here at all.
“Livvy?” A deep voice echoes around the kitchen as we walk around the countertops to a pair of glass doors that lead out onto a wooden terrace. My eyes widen at the sight of the man standing there. His ink-black hair is styled to perfection, not a hair out of place and his baby-blue eyes sparkle with both concern but also wariness.
The top button of his dress shirt is undone, showing a smattering of chest hair that leads up to stubble on his face.
This must be Cal—the lawyer. That thought has my stomach dropping and my hands sweating.
“Thank God you’re here!” Livvy gasps. “You need to look at Lexi’s shoulder.”
“I—What?”
“Cal, this is Lexi. Lexi, this is Cal.”
He raises a brow as he looks from me to her. “Lexi?”
“It’s a long story, anyway… she’s hurt her shoulder at work and… just look.”
She lets me go and gives me a small shove toward the giant of a man. I try to tilt my head back to look up at him—he has to be at least six foot three—but the pain in my shoulder stops me and I make a noise in the back of my throat; the first noise I’ve made since I walked in here.
“What happened?” Cal asks after watching me for several seconds.
“Well… I… erm…” I look back at Livvy where she stands next to Mal, watching me and Cal. “I met someone at work today, he was teaching. Then I told him I was watching him, not in that way of course.” I roll my eyes at myself and wave my hand in the air. “Anyway, I tried to introduce myself and accidently hit him with my offered hand.” I hear a chuckle come from behind me but I ignore it and continue. “Then I fled to the office and he came in; he didn’t knock on the door, he literally just said, ‘Knock, knock’—”
“Are we getting close to what actually happened?” Cal asks.
My eyes shoot to his, his lips are in a straight line but I can see something sparkling in the depths of his eyes. Is that laughter?
“Yeah, sorry.” I clear my throat, cursing myself internally. “We had a conversation and then I walked past him but slammed my shoulder into the doorframe.”
Everyone is silent for several seconds, and when I look up, I find them all having a silent conversation with only their eyes. I start to shuffle on the spot, feeling uncomfortable.
Cal’s gaze turns back to me, his brows rising on his forehead as he rolls the sleeves of his shirt up and pulls a chair out from the giant glass dining table that has eight chairs sitting around it. He tilts his head to the chair. “Take a seat.”
I shuffle forward, perching on the edge of the chair he’s pulled out. “It’s nothing really,” I start saying as he pulls the sweater off my shoulder. “It happened all the time inside. I used to push it back in myself because they wouldn’t let me see the medical staff.”
“Inside?” he asks, touching my shoulder, his voice seemingly bored.
“Yeah.” I forget where I am and who I’m around, my mouth just opens and everything floods out. “I just got out of prison, I’ve been inside since I was fifteen. I’ll be twenty-one in a few months.”
“So, you’ve just gotten out on parole?” He moves his one hand to just above my elbow while his other one rests on my shoulder.
“Yeah, Livvy took me in. I’m in a special program.” My eyes track the grout in between the slate tiles on the floor. “I mean, I didn’t kill anyone.” I laugh but it’s not humorous. “I was just trying to get my gran her pills, they stopped them because she couldn’t afford them anymore. She needed them. I had no—Holy fucking shit!”
The sound of my shoulder popping back in the joint where it’s supposed to be has me both in pain and instant relief. I work my shoulder in a circular motion, thankful that I’ll be able to work tomorrow. There’s no way I could have called in sick when I’ve only just started and trying to prove myself.
When I look up, I’m met with another staring contest between Livvy, Malcolm, and Cal. This one is different though, the atmosphere tense.
“What did you do, Liv?” Cal asks, his voice low.
“Well…” She looks off to the side nervously and then pushes her shoulders back. “You’re the one who mentioned the program.” She points at him accusingly.
“I did,” he admits. “But not for you to do! Jesus, you don’t know a thing about her!”
“Actually,” she whispers, her eyes meeting mine briefly before looking away. “I do. I know exactly what she was put in prison for. I also know that they tried her as an adult. It’s ridiculous! Had she had a lawyer like you, Cal, she probably wouldn’t have even done prison time!”
He watches her carefully, the whole room feeling like the air has been sucked out of it. I’m scared to move even the slightest inch. There’s several tense seconds before Cal turns back to me. “You need to wear a sling for a couple of days.”
I’m shaking my head before he’s even finished his sentence. “I can’t. I have to be able to use both of my arms for my job.”
“You’ll have to take a couple of days off.”
I push the hair behind my ear that has fallen in my face. “With all due respect, sir. I can’t do that. If I’m going to make a life for myself, I can’t be losing my job after only a few days.” I stand up and step toward him as he watches me with narrowed eyes. “Thank you for putting me in my place—I mean putting my shoulder back in its place.”
It’s my turn to be under his intense gaze. Jesus, why am I squirming so much? It’s like he can see right through me, almost like—no, don’t go there, Lexi.
“I think I like you.”
“Oh, damn,” Mal gasps, coughing to cover it up.
“What?” Cal snaps, turning to face him.
“Nothing! Nothing.” Mal smirks and holds his hands up in the air in a gesture of peace. “I said nothing at all.”
“Right,” Livvy announces. “Now that my girl is all fixed up, we’ll be getting out of your hair.”
She threads her arm through mine and walks back the way we came, down the hallway with the mushroom-painted walls full of framed photographs. “I trust I’ll see you for Sunday drinks?” She shouts over her shoulder, turning back to face them as she opens the door.
“You will.” They both answer in unison.
“Good, catch you laters, alligators.” She snorts at herself and I can’t help a chuckle slip through before I turn back to them.
“Thank you, again.”
“More than welcome,” Mal replies but Cal just nods.
Damn, he’s intense. How can someone as free spirited as Mal put up with all that broodiness?
It’s not until we’re halfway back to the house that Livvy says something.
“Lexi. I have to say, not everyone will be as understanding as Mal and Cal. In fact, most people won’t be.” She pushes the front door open and closes it behind me when I’m inside. “Now, I’m not saying you need to lie to people, but maybe just don’t go telling them your whole life story in the first five seconds of meeting them?”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “It just comes out, I can’t help it. When I’m nervous I tend to word vomit and it doesn’t matter how many times I try to stop it, I just can’t.” I twist my hands together nervously.
“Listen, lovely. I’m not telling you off. I just want you to be able to have the best start here as possible and that means letting people know you before you tell them all the gory details.” She smiles reassuringly and rubs my arm. “People will love you for you, Lexi. They don’t need to judge you solely on your past. Let them see you. The real you. Not the one that you’ve had to be for the last five years.”
“I understand.” I really do understand. I get what she’s saying because as soon as someone hears where I’ve spent the last five years, they’re going to instantly judge who I am without even getting to know me.
“Now go and get a good night’s rest. We have gardening to do tomorrow.”
I step forward, my body working on automatic as I wrap my arms around Livvy. “Thank you so much.”
“Anytime,” she chokes back, rubbing her hand up and down my back before I pull away and spin around, heading toward my room.