Page 37 of The Mood Board

Chapter 14

Liam

––––––––

“MR. BRADFORD.”

I looked up from the magazine I was reading to see the guard at the cell door.

Mycell door—the idea that I was in jail still blew my mind, even though I was in a cell, dressed in an orange jumpsuit with steel and concrete all around me.

“It’s visitation hours, and you have a visitor.”

“I have a visitor?”

The guard didn’t look amused by my repetition of his statement, but I hadn’t meant to be difficult. I was still getting used to how things went here, and I hadn’t known anyone was coming to visit me.

The guard made a lifting motion with his hand. “Stand up.”

I did as he said, humiliated as he handcuffed me before opening the door. I hated being treated like a criminal, paraded through prison with an escort like I couldn’t be trusted.

Though I supposed, in their eyes, I was a criminal, and they couldn’t trust me. I might not have had my trial yet, but I was here, which made me untrustworthy.

“Who is it?” I asked the guard.

“Not my job to know,” he grunted back, unlocking a door and leading me through then down a long corridor. Several more doors, and we stopped in a private room, where I was searched as if this entire thing wasn’t humiliating enough—that seemed to happen quite often. The guard unlocked the final door, then led me past windows and other inmates talking to their visitors through phones across Plexiglass.

The guard motioned to a free booth, and I did as he said, watching him and the other prisoners wearily as I turned my head to see my visitor.

My heart skipped a beat. Bailey was sitting on the other side of the glass. Her face paled the moment she saw me, and her eyes shimmered with tears. My own throat felt raw and thick, and I had to swallow against the emotion.

The last time I had seen Bailey, she had been in the courtroom among the sea of faces, looking pale, exhausted, and worried. I hadn’t been allowed to talk to her, but we had locked eyes, exchanged mouthed sentiments as I was led to and from the room, and that had been it.

She still looked pale, tired, and worried, but she was also a breath of fresh air, the sunshine I had been missing, oxygen when I couldn’t breathe.

She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

We stared at one another, neither of us moving until Bailey pointed to the phone and reached for it. I scrambled to do the same, maneuvering my still-cuffed hands to take it off the cradle and put it to my ear.

“Bailey.” It left my mouth as a breath, the only word I could say out of the millions rushing through my head.

Across the glass, Bailey’s face crumpled, and she took a sobbing breath, clapping her hand to her mouth as tears began to track down her cheeks. But then her shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath, her eyes closing. When they opened, the tears were gone, her hand leaving her mouth, and though her eyes were still red and sad, I saw determination there, too.

“How are you?” she asked.

I didn’t know how to answer her question, and she frowned at my pause.

“That was a stupid question,” she sighed, rubbing at her cheek. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m holding up,” I answered. “Other than that—”

I let the rest of the sentence hang, but I didn’t think Bailey needed more description to understand.

“But seeing you makes me feel better,” I said.

She smiled, though it looked forced and wan, before a frown replaced the expression. “I’m so sorry. I tried to see you, but they wouldn’t let me. They wouldn’t let me call you or see you. They wouldn’t even tell me anything. I tried, Liam, I really did.”

“I know.” My answer was quick, too quick, but I didn’t want Bailey blaming herself for something that was not her fault. “And I swear, Bailey, I didn’t do this. I know it looks bad, but I still have no idea what could have happened. None of this makes any sense. I can’t—”