The warden had obviously made a few deductions.
“What do you want for this information?” he asked, sounding like the words were ripped straight from his soul.
I shook my head. “Nothing. Not really. I just want you to make him meet with me. Just this once. He sent me divorce papers in the mail, and I want to give him a piece of my mind.”
For the first time, Warden Stanley didn’t look so scary.
He looked amused.
“I can do that.”
• • •
The first time I saw him after he’d been incarcerated was nerve-wracking.
I had a very weird feeling that he wasn’t going to be happy to see me.
Especially seeing as he’d told me to stay away.
But if he honestly thought that I was going to do that, he had another think coming.
I was sitting in a room. It was wide open with no other people around.
There was a guard in the corner on my side, and there was a guard in the corner on the opposite side. A piece of plexiglass separated the two seating areas, and I was sitting at one with the phone already to my ear.
On the opposite side, the divorce papers sat, ripped to shreds.
It was obvious what I wanted him to get from this visit.
I would not, under any circumstances, be leaving.
Not until I got to talk to him, anyway.
I heard the bang and clang of a door, causing me to twist my head from side to side in hopes that I would see him come from the hallway beyond.
I did moments later.
He came from the left hallway, and through the plexiglass that I sat in front of, and the bank of windows beyond where he was walking, I could tell that he looked good.
Even in that ugly orange scrub top and bottoms, I could tell that he’d put on muscle.
He’d been beefing up over the last four months since he’d been here.
Nice.
And his hair.
It was finally getting back to the hair that I knew and loved.
I wanted to throw myself at him.
I wanted to bury my face into his neck.
Sink my fingers into that hair.
I wanted to hold on to him and never, ever let go.
Instead, I squeezed the stupid phone tighter.
Trouper finally came to a stop at the entranceway, and his face tilted back. He cracked his neck, and then turned to look into the room at the visitor area.
He stiffened immediately.
He turned to go, but the officer at his back stopped his progress.
The warden at his front, who had his arms crossed over his massive chest, started talking to him in low tones.
Then the warden gestured for him to go inside.
Trouper did, looking pissed as hell.
He tried to take a step back, but again, an officer was there.
“No,” the officer said as he stepped in front of Troup. “Don’t be a little bitch. Go talk to her.”
My lips formed into a smile, even though I was crying.
Trouper’s head hung, and he woodenly turned.
His face lifted, and for the first time in weeks, our eyes met.
His shoulders drooped even more upon seeing my face—likely the tears coursing down my cheeks—and he moved.
He had the phone picked up in a matter of moments, and he was talking to me.
“Don’t cry, Beck,” he whispered. “God, this is why I didn’t want you to come.”
I wiped the tears away. “I’m not crying because I’m seeing you like this, moron. I’m crying because I missed the hell out of you.”
He groaned and sat down, his eyes taking me in with a practiced ease that spoke of familiarity.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
His eyes rolled down to the papers that were in shreds in front of him, and for the barest of seconds, his lips tipped up at the corners in amusement.
It was gone just as fast, but I knew that seeing those papers torn to shreds had made him happy.
“I’m not going to allow you to divorce me,” I told him bluntly. “I’m in this for the next fifteen years. Then, when you get back out, we’ll renew our vows and keep on living. I’ve waited eight years for you, I’ll wait forever.”
Trouper’s eyes met mine.
“This place is suffocating me,” he whispered. “I don’t want you here witnessing that.”
“I don’t care what you want. Not when it comes to this,” I told him. “You can tell me that you like my hair long, and not to cut it, and I’ll listen. You can tell me that you don’t want me living in the south part of town, and I’ll find a new place. You can tell me that you don’t want me butting into your case some more, and I probably won’t listen, but at least I’ll get anxiety when I do poke into it. But I won’t do this. Not leave you behind.”
His eyes narrowed.
“What do you mean you’re looking into my case?” he asked.