But they threw the book at me.
Ten years.
They wanted ten years of my life for a mistake of misplaced trust.
It was a whirlwind that day.
The sentence was handed down. The next thing I knew, I was on my way out of Jersey and into Pennsylvania to the minimum security women's prison.
It was not what I had been promised from the women in county jail.
Did we have the right to get jobs, to load up on commissary, to have better visits, more access to things like the small library, better outdoor spaces for exercise, and some classes? Yes.
But we also didn't even get the relative privacy of a cell with a single roommate.
Nope.
We lived in one large room full of low beds where you got to store your things underneath and in a footlocker.
Forty women.
In one big room.
That was why I could never sleep. That was why their crying or nightmares or talking kept me awake night after night. It was hard enough to adjust to sharing a room with one woman, but to share it with thirty-nine others was a whole different beast.
During the day, the noise was loud enough to drive you half mad most of the time. People talking, yelling, laughing, singing.
I was the only new woman in our unit, so everyone else already had their cliques, their alliances, their friends. And while I wouldn't say they were opposed to the idea of new women trying to join in, I guess I just never put in the effort.
I never felt like I fit in.
I wasn't a criminal.
I hadn't done the crime everyone thought I did.
And while everyone liked to boast their innocence when guards were around, when we were all essentially left to our own devices, they would admit the truth to their friends.
They all knew they belonged there, that they had to do their time, even if they maybe didn't agree with the length of their sentence, or the laws themselves.
I didn't.
I didn't belong in the first place, and found it hard to try to act as if I did.
So I did what a few of the older women around did.
I behaved. I read when books were available. I took any classes that would get me out of our common area for a while. I took my time outside to walk the yard, get some exercise. When I had been there long enough to do so, I got a job in the kitchens.
I was behind bars when Thaddeus finally got the courage to come out. Though I had known for years, it was the first time he had openly admitted it. It was big. And I should have been there for him when he did it. When my aunt disowned him for it, when he had to face that rejection all by himself. And I knew how that felt. I knew how lonely that felt.
I wasn't there when he got his physical therapy certification. Or his fitness certification when he decided that helping people rehab from injuries wasn't what he wanted to do with his life, that he wanted the fun and freedom of helping people get in shape, in making his own hours.
He was, at first, all I had. He was the one filling my commissary. He was the one writing letters and calling, visiting when he had the time and money to travel.
He had believed me.
When the courts hadn't, when my aunt hadn't, when - it seemed - Colson hadn't.
And he had been the one trying to keep me grounded, trying to remind me that I would still be young when I got out, that there was no reason to feel like I lost my whole life because of this. He wanted me to think of the future, of what we would do when I got out, what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
I suspected it had been Thad that finally got through to Colson as well. I had never asked. But one day, there had been a letter. A week later, a call. And as I found out, I hadn't hardened up enough that I didn't need my big brother, didn't crave that calm, steadfast energy he had always had, something that had only grown in time as he got older, matured, got his life worked out.
Their calls and visits had been bittersweet for me.
Sweet because they were all I had, all I had ever had really.
But bitter because their lives moved on without me while mine stayed stagnant. Thad got so busy that his visits became less frequent. Colson found out the stick turned blue, and his life needed to be about something much more important than me.
I convinced myself it was for the best.
Because the longer I was there, the more time I had to think about Tanner, about how his life got to just go on while mine got ripped away from me.
I had been a good girl.
I didn't cut class.
I didn't drink.
I didn't do drugs.
I had only had sex two and a half times.
"Wait wait wait," Virgin cut me off, lips twitching. "How do you have sex two and a half times?" he asked. I sent him a lifted brow look that made him shake his head. "Got it," he agreed, clearly amused by Tanner's lack of prowess. "Go on. You were thinking about that shithead."
I did a lot of thinking about that shithead.
And the pain that had once been there, the aching, crippling betrayal, was suddenly gone.
All I had left was rage.
Oddly, the rage helped. It kept a fire burning in my belly, helped me get through the endless days and the longer nights.
"You didn't make any bonds inside? In all that time?" There was a silent question there How the fuck did you cope without connections?
It wasn't like I didn't talk to anyone. I did, obviously. You couldn't spend a decade in prison without speaking to anyone. Well, one woman could. None of us could tell if she was deaf, or maybe out of her mind, or simply had no interest in interacting with any of us. She'd been there before I got there, was still there when I left. But I wasn't like her. There were times when I craved normalcy, when I did reach out.
I let one of the girls who worked as an esthetician on the outside put homemade face masks on me out of commissary items - honey and Pepto or aloe and cold cream. I helped some of the girls make a 'spread' - a special food dish made out of items entirely purchased from the commissary - to celebrate birthdays or holidays.
Then there were the women in the kitchen.
We became our own little community twice a day - brunch and dinner always being served - three-hundred-sixty-five days a year. When we were there, we felt like we had a little more freedom. Sure, we had a schedule. And the knives had to be unlocked and then accounted for before we were allowed to leave after a meal, but we could move around without anyone scrutinizing us, do things we had been able to do in our old life.
Cooking for a prison was a challenge too.
There was, roughly, a sixteen-cent stipend per inmate per meal which meant we generally got the cheapest of everything to cook with. Rice. Boxed potato flakes. Beans. The crappiest, grisliest, fattiest cuts of meat. Canned or frozen vegetables. Limited spices. No salt. We had to be heart-healthy, after all, according to state guidelines.
So we had to somehow figure out how to make something even halfway edible out of those ingredients. We had lucked out with a kitchen manager who was open to suggestions, not stick to the 'toss everything in the pot and serve everyone a gruel-like substance' rule most prisons were known for.
Chili was a favorite - meat or veg and beans, depending on the day. Soups - vegetable, minestrone, potato. Black bean and lentil loaf.
I had always enjoyed cooking, but there in prison was when I had truly fallen in love with it, with its potential, with the fun that was trying to make bland foods tasty. I had entertained the idea for a while that when I got out, I might try to get into some sort of culinary school, find a cooking job somewhere.
But then as the years stretched on, as more time passed me by, things like plans and hopes and dreams slipped away.
Who would give me a loan for school?
And even if I had figured that out, who would want to hire me?
Tanner had fucked me.
Not just out of the ten years the law demanded of me.
But my life.
All of it.
Exactly.
So there was no use trying to, as Thad had suggested, map out the rest of my life.
That was when the plan started to form.
That was when I decided I had to make Tanner pay for what he did to me.
And the determination I found in that decision was what had helped me get through the rest of my sentence.
"You know where he is now?" Virgin asked after the waiter had taken our plates, making me realize I had barely tasted what I had eaten. First, I had been too engrossed in Virgin's story, then too overcome with memories of my own to try to figure out what the cooks used in their sauce, if the ratio of garlic and parsley to butter in their garlic bread was perfect, or even think to try out Virgin's dish.
My first time at a fancy restaurant and I had zoned out while eating.
"Tanner? No," I admitted, reaching for my wine. Virgin had politely tasted his glass, but hadn't touched it since, apparently not a wine drinker.
If I were being honest, I hadn't even been looking very hard. The woman I had been behind bars would have chewed me out for wasting my time building bonds, getting my hair and nails done, screwing around with new dishes at home to maybe suggest to Abby someday. The woman who had been caged like an animal would have been pissed that I was even thinking of 'someday,' when all I should have been doing was searching for Tanner, making him pay.
It was interesting what a little space from that hellhole managed to do.
Restore things I had forgotten.
Love. Hope. Plans. Possibilities.
I wasn't sure there was enough of that old woman left in me to do anything even if I did happen across Tanner.
I didn't even know if I could find the strength to approach him, have my say, make it clear what he did to me since he clearly hadn't spared me a thought in all the time I took a fall for him.
Let alone do what the dark, ugly parts of me had dreamed of as I sat up in bed at night.
Thoughts that involved guns and bullets and shots fired and cuffs on my wrists and the rest of my life behind bars. This time for something I had actually done.
"You think he is still in town?" Virgin asked, tone almost a little cautious? But why would that be? Because he was worried I might find my lady-balls and do it after all?
"I haven't seen him here, but it is a big town. There are so many people. He could still be here. Or, for all I know, he is locked up."
Which was another thing I had never considered while I wasted all those years in hate and loathing.
What if his ways had already caught up with him? What if he was serving time for his crimes? Behind bars where I couldn't even get to him if I tried.
"What's he look like?" Virgin wanted to know, something that made my brows go down, wondering why he would want to know. To look out for him for me, maybe? Did I even want him to do that? Open up that possibility for me?
"Ah. This was a long time ago. He could look a lot different now. But he was tall, but not as tall as you. Maybe five-ten? On the thin side. He had this really badly done spiderweb tattoo on the left side of his neck. Brown eyes. Kinda on the small side. Dark hair."
"And white," Virgin specified.
"I thought that was implied when I told you his name," I said with a smile. I couldn't claim to know everything about every culture, but names like Tanner did tend to belong to the lighter complexioned folks. "My school didn't have much diversity back in the day. In fact, I think my brothers and I and the adopted girl from India were the only people in that whole place who had any color."
"Imagine growing up in MCs," Virgin commiserated with a smirk. "You can't really find a less diverse group of people. The Henchmen have been the only club I have been in where I wasn't the only person of color, aside from my dad. Got Roderick here," he explained.
Roderick. I rolled through my mental Rolodex of names I had thrown at me while at the party, vaguely remembering a tall, well-built, stupidly good-looking Hispanic guy.
"The Henchmen are an interesting group, though. Cam who doesn't speak. The guy who practically lives up in that glass room..."
"Roan."
"He looks like a lion." As soon as the words were out of my mouth, my lips pressed together, eyes going big, realizing how incredibly silly that sounded. A lion? Who said a person looked like a lion?
"Never thought about it, but he kinda does," Virgin admitted. "All that hair, the beard, that wild look in his eyes. Wanna hear a secret about Roan?"
"Yes," I decided immediately, leaning over the table a little.
"He used to be a spy."
"Like... an actual spy? Secret stealing and all that?"
"Yep."
"How do you go from a spy to a biker? I mean, that sounded judgy, but that seems like an odd career move."
"I think a lot of people who work secret government type jobs end up doing things afterward that aren't exactly legal. But in his case, he got burned. Someone claimed he was working for the other guys," he explained when I obviously had no idea what getting 'burned' meant. "The government freezes your assets, pretends they never met you. So, essentially, you start over with no money, a giant gap in your resume, and all these skills that really are only good for less than legal purposes."
"That's kind of cool. I mean, not for Roan. That must have sucked. But interesting. Does everyone in the club have crazy backstories?"
"Pretty much," Virgin admitted, suddenly sliding around the table, reaching out to grab my wrist, pulling me with him until our sides were pressed close, something that made my chest start to feel tight. "But I kinda don't want to talk about my brothers on our date," he told me, his hand sliding down my arm, resting over my hand. Not exactly holding it, not in the traditional definition of the word, but covering it, staying there.
"Oh, okay. Ah... what do you want to talk about then?" I asked, keeping my eyes forward, knowing if I looked at him, I wouldn't do so great with the whole stringing thoughts together thing.
"How about what you want to do once we leave here?" he suggested, his finger starting to trace over the back of my hand. It was a chaste, nothing little contact, but it was sending off shocks through my poor system.
"What do you mean?" I asked, knowing damn well what he meant.
"Lots of options that are clearly up to you. We could end things here. Drive you home. That's that. We could go for a drink. For dessert."
The idea of ending things here brought about an instant and unanimous objection from every single inch of my body.
"Dessert sounds good," I admitted. "But maybe I can make it," I suggested.
It was as close to an admission of wanting him to stay the night that I could make myself say.
Luckily, Virgin wasn't exactly dense.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his lips tease up at one side.
"Whatcha gonna make me?" he asked, reaching with his free hand for his wallet, deftly pulling out a card, throwing it onto the book the waiter had discreetly dropped off without a word.
"What do you like?"
"Watching a beautiful woman make me something sweet," he said casually. "Or so I would imagine," he added, reminding me how new he was to all of this too in a way.
And, somehow, the knowledge of that was enough to make me feel a lot more comfortable with the situation.
"So... it looks like brownies," I decided when we got home and realized that I really needed to hit the grocery store.
Brownies weren't exactly a wow-factor dessert, but if you did them right, they were kind of hard to beat in terms of deliciousness. I couldn't count the number of times Thad, Colson, and I would sit and eat a whole batch. Right out of the pan. Like a bunch of animals without even a hint of self-control.
"Sounds good," Virgin declared im
mediately, dropping his big body down on the couch, his gaze focused on me.
"Are you really going to sit there and watch me?"
"I'm really going to sit here and watch you," he declared shamelessly.
And so then he did.
Never had I been more acutely aware of every single one of my movements as I was while I moved around the kitchen, grabbing ingredients, bowls, a tray.
Flustered, I reached for the iPod Thad kept in a dock on the counter, picking his Smooth Like Molasses playlist at random, not realizing until it was too late that the playlist was straight up sex music. Of the classy sort, but sex music all the same. And I couldn't change it because that would seem like it bothered me. Yet leaving it on might be seen as forward, right?
Never before had I so thoroughly overthought a playlist as I did while I broke eggs into flour, cocoa and baking powder, sugar, salt, and butter.
"Relax," Virgin's voice demanded.
But not from where it should have come from.
Not from the couch, a safe distance away.
Oh, no.
His voice was directly behind me.
Even as I realized this, I could feel his body move in close.
Big hands came down on my shoulders that were, admittedly, tense.
"You mix," he suggested, thumbs pressing into the knots in my shoulders. "I'll work on the relaxing part," he suggested, his hands working magic across my shoulders, neck, upper back.
Then, as I poured the batter into the pan, the center of my back, lower, over my hips where I didn't think it was possible to hold tension, but hold it there I did, the muscles loose, lax by the time his hands slid forward.
I sucked in a shaky breath, not realizing I was leaning backward until I felt my shoulders press into his solid chest.
His hands paused at my hipbones, seeming to give me a moment, to pull away, to push him away.
Virgin didn't strike me as a passive man, a take things slow kind of man.
But it struck me that he was being careful, going at my pace. Because he knew it had been a decade. Because, as he found out over dinner, I had barely gotten a chance to engage in the physical sides of a relationship with a man even before I went away.
Realizing how unexpectedly sweet that was, my heart skittered around in my chest, chasing away the nerves that had situated there sometime early in the morning in anticipation of this reality.
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