by Bethany-Kris
Or wanted to, for that matter.
265, 266, 267 …
As he drifted into his focus of counting the small gray blobs above his head, Dino was able to drown out the sounds of the cell block outside of his cell. He could push away the chattering of the inmates and the shouts of the guards when the men got too loud.
But most of all—best of all—he was able to block out his own thoughts.
It seemed like when he was the quietest, his thoughts betrayed him the worst.
Especially now that he had far, far too much time to do nothing but lie on his back and think about everything and anything that came to his mind. Dino hadn’t been much of an overthinker before prison, but being locked in a small room for the majority of his day with nothing but his regrets and thoughts to keep him company, he found he was quite capable of overthinking just about anything that flew into his mind.
He wished he didn’t have to think at all.
Actually, he wished he was more like his cellmate, Todd. Capable of shutting his body down for the majority of the day, disappearing into a dreamless state and away from the hell they were currently stuck in.
Now that … that was a dream.
Dino wasn’t that lucky, it seemed.
298, 299, 30—
“DeLuca, get your ass up, your lawyer is waiting on you!”
Dino’s gaze drifted from the stucco on the ceiling to the guard waiting on the other side of the bars keeping him locked away. He was both irritated and slightly amused at being interrupted in his little game. He had been just ten blobs off from beating his record.
He didn’t make an effort to move as fast as the guard wanted him to, not even when the guy tapped his stick against the metal, making it clang loud enough to wake Todd in the bunk below.
“What the fuck?” Todd grumbled, damn near falling out of the bed.
“Nothing,” Dino muttered, pushing off the top bunk. His laceless sneakers hit the cement floor near soundlessly. “Go back to bed, kid.”
Todd didn’t need to be told again, but he did manage to shoot a glare in the guard’s direction before he rolled back over and shoved his head under the flat prison-approved pillow. Dino wasn’t even sure why they bothered to give them the pillows. They were only allowed one, and it was about as effective as sleeping on the fucking floor.
Frankly, he’d slept on the cell floor more than once.
It was more comfortable than the metal beds with their two-inch thick mattresses, the scratchy, thin sheets, and the garbage pillows.
At least a man knew what he was getting when he slept on a cement floor.
Dino hadn’t realized how much he would miss sleeping in his bed.
Actually, that was a lie.
He didn’t give a single shit about his bed.
He missed Karen’s bed.
He missed that—her—a lot.
But since Dino knew where that rabbit hole would lead if he allowed himself to drift into those thoughts, he forced her name and face out of his mind. It was never good to be distracted in prison, he had come to learn, and Karen was most certainly a fatal distraction for Dino, no matter his circumstances.
“Come on,” the guard said after the cell door had been unlocked and opened. “Mike is waiting for you in the private room.”
Dino held out his arms, allowing the guard to cuff him so that he could be safely moved from one cell to another section of the prison for his meeting with his lawyer. When Mike came around, it wasn’t the same thing as another inmate having one of their regular visiting days.
Mike was a lawyer, and that allowed Dino some privileges with the man. Privacy being one thing, but it was probably the biggest and most important thing.
Dino’s meetings and any conversation with his lawyer were not allowed to be recorded or videoed by prison officials because of the attorney and client privilege laws. That meant instead of being shoved in front of a Plexiglas window with phones to chat through while guards sat at their backs and cameras monitored their every move, they were instead allowed a private room where Dino was still shackled to a table, but no one was privy to their conversations.
This would be only the third time Mike had actually come to visit Dino in the prison since he had entered all those many months ago. Mike had done his job as a court-appointed defense attorney on Dino’s case, and once the judge had handed down his sentence, banged his gravel, and Dino was carted off to prison, the lawyer should have wiped his hands clean.
Mike didn’t need to get involved with Dino after the case was closed.
For some strange reason, the man still did. He put money in Dino’s prison account for him to use if he needed something, and every once in a while, he’d put in a request to one of the guards to have Dino call him just to check in on things.
Their relationship should have been limited to the charges and the sentencing.
Dino thought now it was almost … friendly.
He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that.
Or Mike, for that matter.
Dino didn’t have friends.
After all, when he had been on the outside, any friends he had made never lasted very long. Ben DeLuca had made damn sure of that.
“All right,” the guard said as another barred and Plexiglas door was opened for them to walk through, “you’ve got thirty minutes, DeLuca, so don’t waste it.”
Dino didn’t bother to thank the guard, but he did give the man a nod as he was shuffled into the private room and then shackled to the heavy metal table. Two bottles of unopened water sat in the middle of the table, and the guard cracked one open, sitting it in front of Dino before he took his leave.
He didn’t touch the water, but only because he just wasn’t thirsty. The thought had been nice, he simply wasn’t in the mood. Fact was, their prison had it a lot better than others in the country did. For the most part, the guards were on the up, and they didn’t do shoddy shit to cause the inmates any sort of trouble. Sometimes, they turned their cheek to a fight, but that was usually because the fool getting his head kicked in deserved it for whatever reason.
But mostly, the guards treated the inmates just fine.
Dino had to respect that.
He just didn’t have to like them all that much.
Dino only waited another two minutes before the door buzzed and opened, Mike strolling in with a briefcase in hand and a smile on his face. The lawyer almost always smiled, though Dino wasn’t quite sure what he had to be happy about, given where he currently was.
“Dino,” Mike greeted, setting his case to the table and taking the seat across from Dino’s. “Beautiful day outside.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Dino replied, half-joking.
His seat, unlike Dino’s, wasn’t bolted down to the floor. Even the table was bolted down. It seemed like a bit much, but apparently it was all done in the name of safety. Who was he to make a fuss about something he barely had to be bothered with, anyway?
“How’ve you been?” the lawyer asked.
Dino shrugged, resting back in his chair as much as his shackles would allow. “Can’t complain. They feed me. My cellmate doesn’t talk me to death. The ceiling is keeping me entertained enough.”
Mike cracked another smile. “You have jokes today.”
“Not really a joke.”
He’d only told the truth, after all.
Mike didn’t have to know everything.
“Well, you’re not shouting at me and threatening to feed me my teeth like the last time I was here, so I will take that as a good sign.”
Dino didn’t reply to that, but only because this time, it was Mike who was speaking truths.
Three times, Mike had come to visit Dino at the prison, and one of those times had been five months earlier, just a week and a half after Karen’s surprise visit. For whatever reason, Dino had thought maybe—somehow—Mike had been involved in Karen showing up without warning. He threatened Mike with just about everything except throwing him in the oc
ean, to make sure Karen didn’t show up like that again.
It could be a very costly mistake.
With visitors other than his lawyer, Dino’s every single move was monitored. Someone was always watching. He didn’t need the officials getting ahold of any sort of information that might lead them to Karen asking questions.
And then there was the other side of that equation, too.
His family, that was.
Ben, specifically.
It caused a striking pain to grow in his chest at the thought of something as simple as Karen coming to visit him in the prison. That her innocent gesture might put her on his uncle’s fucking radar. Dino couldn’t afford for that to happen.
Honestly, neither could Karen.
She just didn’t know that was the case.
Dino knew how he must have seemed to her, all those months ago when she came to see him—cold, distant, and unaffected at her presence.
That wasn’t the case at all, at least, not on the inside.
It had taken every single ounce of willpower he had in his very being not to sit down at that visiting station and talk with her for as long as he possibly could; he’d wanted to apologize for everything that had happened, and for the shit he had put her through.
Dino had so very much to say to Karen.
He had a hell of a lot to apologize for.
Another year, he told himself.
He had one more year and then he would get every opportunity to fix the problems he had left hanging in the wind with Karen. He refused to even consider the fact that by the time he was out, she might not want a thing to do with him.
Dino would handle that when—or if—that came about.
For now, this would have to do.
“Did you do what I asked?” Dino questioned, his gaze flicking to Mike.
He’d allowed himself to think about Karen, and that was enough to hurt.
Dino didn’t want to hurt.
Not right now.
Mike nodded. “I did. I contacted her through private means that wouldn’t draw attention, explained who I was, and what you asked of her. She wasn’t happy—actually, she told me not to ever contact her again.”
Dino cleared his throat, surprised at Mike’s description of Karen’s response. She was not a rude woman, and she wasn’t the type to be purposefully hateful to someone. But then again, maybe all of this had just been too much for her, and that was her way of acting out against it. He didn’t know, and he really didn’t have any reason to speculate on the whys of it all.
“What else?” Dino asked.
“Nothing, Dino. I did as she asked. I can’t force information on her if she doesn’t want to hear it. That’s called harassment.”
True.
Still …
“She hasn’t come back since that first time,” Dino said.
“Then she did what you wanted.”
Dino wasn’t sure if that was the case or not. Had she done what he requested, or had that one and only visit and his rejection been the final straw that broke her back where he was concerned?
God knew he wouldn’t blame her if it was.
“But I did receive a letter to my office last week,” Mike said, drawing in Dino’s attention again.
“What does that have to do with me?”
Mike popped open his briefcase, pulling out a white envelope and passing it over. “I only opened it because it wasn’t personally signed to go to you, but to my office, and to me. I figured she meant for it to somehow get to you … maybe, say, in a way that the prison wouldn’t get a hold of it first.”
What?
Dino’s confusion must have shown on his face, because Mike only chuckled when he asked, “She?”
“There’s only one ‘she’ you’re trying to keep away, isn’t there?”
Dino didn’t dignify that with a response.
Mike wasn’t looking for one. “Open it. If you want, I can take it with me when I go, but I think you might want to keep it. At least, if it were me, I’d keep it. There’s not much that could be identifiable, should someone stumble upon it.”
He didn’t have any idea what his lawyer was talking about, but the second he opened the envelope and tipped it over in his hand to empty the contents out, he understood perfectly fine.
A small six-by-four, colored photograph of a baby swaddled in blue with a matching wool cap stared up at him from his hands. For a long while, Dino simply stared at the photograph of the baby boy, unsure and wary in his heart.
But in his soul … oh, there he felt warm.
Like he knew just by looking at the face of the child that this was his son.
His baby.
Dino sat there, staring at the photograph and saying nothing as he traced the features of his child with the tip of his index finger. He had so much guilt—so much regret. He’d missed too much already, he’d missed his baby’s first day on earth.
He hadn’t been sure he would even know how to be a father when he first learned about the pregnancy, but shit, he wanted to try.
He should be allowed to at least try for his son.
“Flip it over,” Mike said. “She wrote on the back for you.”
Dino did, finding Karen’s familiar scrawl on the back of the photograph.
JD Martin, it read. But I call him Junior.
The baby’s birthdate, just a week and a half earlier, was written underneath.
And then, under that, was something Dino hadn’t expected.
I’ll see you soon, Karen had written.
Nothing else.
Dino didn’t need more.
It was enough.
This was perfect.
Karen
JUNIOR barely batted an eye as the plane hit the runway a bit harder than Karen was expecting it to. She held on tighter to her six-month-old son, glancing out the porthole window to see the ground and runway flying by at a speed than damn near made her dizzy.
She didn’t particularly like planes.
Flying wasn’t her thing.
Thankfully, her son had done just fine on the trip from Chicago to California. Once he’d been fed, Junior had slipped off into one of his afternoon naps and the bit of bustle from the plane hadn’t bothered him at all. She’d heard the horror stories about flying with babies, but her boy was proving those tales all wrong.
Kissing the side of her sleeping baby’s head, Karen smiled.
Junior—though his birth certificate only stated simply “JD”—had been that way from the very moment he’d been born. He’d made his way into the world on the early morning of November 2nd, and he didn’t make a fuss about it. He barely cried at all those first few days of his life, and Karen, being all by herself, had been damn near terrified.
She didn’t know how to be a mother.
She didn’t know how to suddenly care for this baby, who needed her twenty-four hours a day just to survive.
She didn’t know anything.
But Karen learned.
Little by little. Day by day. She took each and every new thing in slowly, taking every minute she had with her son to let him teach her what he needed. Junior made it easy, but she wasn’t quite sure how he had done it.
Karen still got to experience all the exhaustion of new motherhood and the craziness that came along with that. There were days that were harder than the rest, when she wished she didn’t have to do everything alone. She struggled badly when Junior was only a month old and she handed the baby off to a respected daycare so that she could start work at a studio that needed an extra photographer.
Still, she did it.
Karen managed.
She moved forward, including getting a new apartment in Wicker that had more space and a small balcony she could sit on and rock her son when the weather was nice.
It helped that Junior was waiting for her to come pick him up from daycare every day, with his big smiles and brown eyes that damn near matched his father’s. His tiny, chubby hands would fly up high as soon
as he saw his mother come through the doors and his little fingers clenching over and over until she snatched him up and held him tight.
Oh, she adored her son.
Junior was everything that was right and good in her life.
Sometimes it hurt though, just to look at him and draw the similarities that he shared with his father. His light brown hair—almost a blond—came from Dino, as did his eyes, and the shape of his face. He shared his father’s nose, but his mother’s lips, but it was far more than just appearances, too.
Junior had seemed to take some of his father’s personality as well. And he hadn’t even met the man, yet.
For a long while, Karen had brushed off Junior’s lack of interest in other people as just his age—that at only a few months old, he was too young yet to have much interest in others. His pediatrician did not think it was normal at all, the older doctor thought the boy needed to be interacting more with children.
Karen took him to the park.
He spent six hours a day in daycare.
How much more time with other children could he get?
No, the truth was simple.
Junior much preferred sitting off in a high chair or crib by himself with a pile of toys, or better yet, in his mother’s arms listening to her talk. He was so fascinated by her voice, but he didn’t much care for the attention of others.
Just like his dad.
Strange, how that worked.
It took another twenty minutes before the plane had taxied into its gate and the pilot came on the speakers to announce the end of the flight.
“Thank you for flying with us today,” the flight attendant said as Karen passed, trying to shake her hand at the same time.
She gave the woman a smile. It was all she could offer, given she had a still-sleeping Junior in one arm, and his diaper bag she had used as a carry-on in the other arm. The flight attendant laughed and nodded, ushering Karen out of the plane.
It was only when the sudden noise of the airport started to filter down the long hallway of the gate did Junior finally stir on his mother’s shoulder. She felt the baby’s head lift, and his gentle puffs of breaths against her cheek as he peered all around.
