I keep my hands to myself like a perfect gentleman.
“When I leave this bathroom, I’m going home.” She doesn’t look at me as she says it. Slowly, she turns on the water, puts soap in her hands, and begins to clean them.
I scowl, not happy about that.
“My driver will take you.”
“No,” she says, cleaning each finger. When she’s done with her hands, she dries them. “I’ll get my own car.”
“I’m not finished with you yet. We still have some cake to finish. Remember how wet it was on the inside? It practically melted on my tongue.” I smile at her pleasantly.
She stares at me, a hint of anger in her eyes. “You shouldn’t have followed me in here.”
“And you shouldn’t have ridden my hand and licked my finger clean, but here we are.”
“Right, okay, that happened.” She takes a breath and closes her eyes, composing herself. “But it doesn’t mean anything, okay?”
“I’m hurt. You’re really going to use me like that?” I try not to laugh as she glares at me.
“Look, this was a dumb mistake, okay? You came in here and started talking and touched me and I just—” She stops herself, grinding her jaw, and starts to fix her bun, gathering all the strays, flattening it out, getting frustrated when it won’t look the way she wants it. “This just didn’t mean anything, okay? When I leave the bathroom, please don’t follow me. Count to twenty. I’ll be gone when you get back to the table.”
She nods to herself like she looks good enough and I lean against the wall, watching her, wishing she would’ve left herself a mess. But she looks more respectable now, less like she let a man finger-fuck her in the bathroom. When she faces me, it’s almost like this really didn’t happen.
“Thank you for dinner, Carmine. Despite everything, I had an okay time tonight.”
“I’m glad you did.” She walks to the door, but I grab her arm before she can go. She looks like she wants to cut my hand off. “You might still hate me, but you’re not going to forget tonight, are you?”
I let her go when she doesn’t answer. She pushes open the bathroom door and disappears.
I remain behind and start to count to twenty.
Chapter6
Brice
The limo bumps along the uneven pavement. Sara looks at me and I do my best not to squirm. Her dark eyes are intense, her pretty face is pinched, and I know what she’s thinking.
I’m about to break down and start crying at any second.
But she’s wrong about that. I feel hollow and empty right now, like taking a limo to a minimum-security jail is totally normal, like going to visit my father behind bars is just another Tuesday afternoon. I’m numb, sterilized and cauterized, a white room of nothing.
That’s why I brought Sara. She’s the steadfast one, the serious one, the person I call on when I need shit to get done without endless conversations about feelings. When I need to talk about my emotions, I reach out to Robyn or Cassidy, but Sara?
She’s my ice queen. She’s everything I need.
It also helps that she’s a high-powered lawyer that doesn’t take bullshit from anyone.
“Do you know what to expect once we’re inside?” she asks casually when the jail comes into view.
Huge fences with barbed wire. A two-story building made from red brick like a high school. There are cars in the parking lot and a security officer sits in a car parked near the entrance, looking at his phone. He barely glances up as the limo parks and Sara shifts to face me.
“I researched online,” I admit and start to tug at my hair anxiously, but stop myself. That’s not how a Rowe behaves. I sit straighter and compose myself. “But walk me through it.”
And she does, without asking how it makes me feel. When she’s finished, I exit the limo and make sure the only things in my pocket are my ID card and my phone. Sara comes with me, and our heels clack on the pavement as we walk up the steps and into a small waiting room.
There are old plastic chairs bolted to the floor along the windows. Straight ahead, a tired-looking woman sits behind a tall desk with a computer and a phone. She doesn’t bother looking up. There’s an older couple sitting on the chairs, looking miserable. The floor’s grimy, black and white tiles. A metal detector looms to my right and a locked glass door is on the left.
The security guard checks us in, takes our IDs and our phones, and instructs us to wait. Sara sits next to me and puts a hand on my thigh when it starts to jostle. “Do you want me to wait out here or should I come back?”