Page 44 of Deliver Me

“I guess we could,” she said. “I want to, it’s just …”

“Just?”

She hesitated, picking at her thread again. They’d never discussed this part of her relationship with Gabriel before. “We talk about it so often and there’s so muchexpectation. What if he’s disappointed?”

“With you?” Kennedy’s look was puzzled.

“With me and with everything else,” Mia said. It was hard to explain the weight she’d carried and how she had come to fear his release as much as she hoped for it. “What if he gets out and we aren’t happy? What if he doesn’t like being with me?”

“Why wouldn’t he like being with you?” Lilly asked.

“He’s had sex before,” Mia said quickly, trying to get it out before she lost her nerve. “He’s been with a lot of people, and I don’t know anything.” It poured out of her, and she looked at them, swallowing down the vulnerability that sat on her chest, threatening to smother her.

“He was so young when he went to prison,” Bryce said, “I doubt he was with that many people.”

“Hewas,” Mia insisted.

“You don’t have to be the first to be the one that matters,” Kennedy reassured her. “He hasn’t complained about anything yet, has he?”

Lilly and Bryce looked at her curiously. “Oh?” Lilly asked. “What has he had to complain about?”

“Just some letters,” Mia bit her lip hard and looked away. “And phone calls.”

“Sexyphone calls, though, right?” Kennedy asked. “Like we talked about before?”

“Wait, you’ve been having phone sex?” Bryce sat forward, scanning Mia’s face for evidence, and then letting out a low whistle.

“Not exactly,” she hedged. “I mean, he doesn’t have a phone to himself so it’s not really private. And they’re sort of recording the calls, so you never know if someone’s listening.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this,” Lilly said. “You two have been talking for so long now and you never said anything.”

Mia shrugged, keeping her eyes fixed on the bare ring finger of her left hand. “It’s embarrassing,” she admitted. “It’s all we have, all we might ever have, but we’re not married.”

“And you feel guilty,” Lilly said, pinning the source of Mia’s discomfort in a few words.

“Yes.”

“You don’t judge us,” Bryce reminded her, “and we aren’t going to judge you.”

“Absolutely.” Lilly nodded, her hand in Bryce’s. “And when he does get out, you two will do just fine. He isn’t going to be disappointed in you.”

Mia smiled tightly, but the seed of her doubt remained.

Gabriel got the official date on a Tuesday, his world fixing itself to a moment in the summertime that would determine everything about his future … and Mia’s.

She was calmer when he told her than he expected, and he knew she was absolutely focused on making sure he stayed hopeful.

“It’s sooner than we thought,” she said. “This summer! It could have taken another year. That’s awhole yearthat we don’t have to worry about. We’ve come so far.”

“Every day I spend in here is a day we can’t get back,” he said, the time between him and the trial stretching out like an eternity. So much waiting, so much time lost.

“It’s worth it,” she told him. “Every day that I spend waiting for you is worth it.”

He held tight to those words as he spent days staring at the date and time of the trial finally written down in black and white. He’d never thought he’d have this chance and now he resented it taking so long to arrive. It was selfish, but he’d always been a selfish man. He had hope and Mia and witnesses and still he wanted more. He thought about trying again to call his mother, humbling himself to ask if she’d come.

He didn’t.

Spring

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