AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Once I finally emerge, I come back out to find Eric at a table with two hot drinks in front of him.
“Oooh, what’s this?” I ask, pointing at it as I sit. It’s a creamy brown color with whipped cream on top.
“Irish coffee. It’s a tradition, you have to drink one after you ski,” he states with a smirk.
I lift it and take a sip. It warms my insides and is also sweet, but I taste liquor. “What’s in it?”
“Uh, Irish whiskey, coffee, and whipped cream. Sometimes some kind of liqueur, too.”
“It’s delicious,” I say. I point to his. “You got one too?”
“Yes, minus the whiskey.”
“That probably tastes even better,” I comment with a wink.
I’ve never seen him drink. Only the night we met at his coming home party when he got out of prison he had a beer or two. I remember I had invited myself, begging Taryn to let me come. First, because I love parties, and second because I really wanted to meet him. I didn’t meet Taryn until a few years ago through our jobs when she did tech at the law firm, and he was already locked up. I’d seen photos though, and after checking out his case to make sure he was in for what she said he was in for, I knew I wanted to meet him.
I don’t make it a habit to hang around convicted felons, in fact, in my line of work, I avoid them socially. But I’ve also learned that sometimes people basically make mistakes and have lessons to learn. Eric paid for his horrible mistake, and in my opinion, he’s going to be paying for it for the rest of his life.
“Christa.”
I glance over at him. “Huh?”
“Where’d you go? I thought I lost you for a minute.”
“Nowhere.” I put on a smile. “Just thinking about how we met.”
His smile falters a little. “I wasn’t in the best place back then. Thank you for sticking by me.”
“I always will, babe. But tell me something. How come you never tell me prison stories?” It’s a bold ask, but I want to see what his reaction will be. He never talked about things when we were first together—before he went to Africa—and I never asked. But now, I feel like we’re strong enough where I can ask him these things.
“What do you want to hear?” he asks with a smirk.
I shrug one shoulder and lift the Irish coffee to my lips. “Anything funny you want to tell me.”
“Hmm, let me think. Well, this isn’t about me, but someone else. One time, this guy smuggled a cell phone into the prison. He used to keep it on silent and would hide it under his mattress when he charged it. Well, one day, he was fighting with his old lady on FaceTime, since count had just cleared and we knew the officers wouldn’t come by to make rounds for another couple of hours. He and a couple other of the inmates were bold like that. As tempting as it was to get myself a phone, I never did. I couldn’t stand the thought of spending one extra minute in that place, let alone months or years if I got caught.”
“Smart,” I reply.
“So, this guy, he was fighting with his old lady, and we could all hear it because it was on speaker. She was telling him how she was gonna go fuck one of his friends while he was in there, and there was nothing he could do about it. Of course the whole pod could hear the conversation, and we were all listening because really, what other entertainment did we get in the place? And he told her he’d send so-and-so over to her house to fuck her up if she did.”
“Oh, my God, he did?” I ask, horrified. “Was she scared then?”
He chuckles. “No way. These guys did that all the time, even on the inmate pay phones. They have no power inside, and try to control what happens at home. Except she laughed and said, ‘Good, when he comes over, I’ll fuck him too, then.’ And we all started laughing. Then, one of the officers—he was one of these rookies who really loved to bust us doing stuff and would hold his keys flat to his pants and turn down his radio so we wouldn’t hear him coming, well, he stood right behind the inmate who was on the phone, with his arms crossed. We all shut up and waited to see what would happen. The guy was still threatening her, and when he turned around, boom! Busted.”
“How embarrassing for him,” I said, laughing and shaking my head.
“Yeah, we didn’t see him again, I think they shipped him off to a higher security prison. Heard he got charged with threatening bodily harm to his girl. You know, if he’d only texted her instead, when the officer came by he might have gotten away with keeping it by hiding it under his pillow or something. Idiot.”
“I bet you have a lot more stories like that.”
“Yeah, six years’ worth, but I don’t want to talk about them.”
I smile and grab his hand, the coffee warming me in more ways than one. “I will never ask you again. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried. I know you respect me like that.”
