AllFreeNovel
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“No? Until three days ago, I was in for ten fucking years—”
“And I’d have stuck with you, no matter how long it took,” Miller raged back. “You don’t fucking get it, man. You and Holden, you’re my brothers. You don’t get to take a time-out from my life. I need you in it. I fucking need you…”
I hated how his words were seeping in through the cracks of the walls I’d built in prison. You don’t survive one minute on the inside unless you pack yourself in cold, unfeeling armor that is miles thick. Ten minutes free, and Miller was already tearing it all down.
“And Christ, Shiloh…” Miller shook his head, and something in his expression scared the shit out of me.
“What’s wrong? Is she okay?”
“She’s okay, but I’m not saying another fucking word,” Miller said. “You want to know how she is, then you go see her. You have to see her. I’m not fucking around.”
“She’s not going to want that.”
“As if you would know?” Miller scoffed, then his voice softened slightly. “Come on. Get in the damn car. My security is going to think we’re having a lovers’ spat.”
“You sound like Holden.”
“Someone should.”
“You haven’t heard from him at all?”
“Nope. But he wrote a book. His first book, so naturally it hits number one on every list and wins every award under the sun.”
“Good,” I said. Not for the awards but because it meant he was still alive, somewhere out there. He hadn’t disappeared completely.
At the SUV door, Miller stopped. “You good? I mean…San Quentin can’t be a fucking cake walk.”
“Not like selling out arena tours.”
He snorted. “They got TMZ in prison?”
“You’re a big fucking deal, Stratton.” I smiled a little. “No one doubted that but you.”
Miller met my gaze for a moment and then put his arms around me, clasping me tight. It was the first time in three years I’d had physical contact with anyone that didn’t have violence lurking beneath it.
“We gotta get going,” Miller said, pulling back. “I’m under strict orders to deliver the package straight to Shiloh.”
“Whose orders?” I asked as we climbed into the leather interior of Miller’s car that reeked of money and was configured like a limo with seats facing each other. “How did you know I was getting out today?”
“Selling out arena tours has its privileges,” Miller said, taking a seat across from me. “And that’s all I’m saying. Whatever you need to know about Shiloh, you have to hear it from her.”
He handed me a beer from the car’s mini fridge and popped one himself. He clinked his bottle to mine. “Happy Birthday.”
“It’s not my birthday.”
“You turned twenty-one in there,” he said as the car rolled smoothly out of the parking lot. “You’re legal now.”
I’d had three birthdays in prison, but it could’ve been ten. I was twenty-two years old and free, instead of almost thirty. The first cold swallow of beer hit my tongue. I nearly groaned.
Miller smiled. “Good?”
Good didn’t begin to describe it. I was free, sitting with my best friend, drinking a beer.
“Doesn’t feel real.”
“I can’t imagine it.”
“You look good,” I said. “Healthy.”
