Auctioned to the Prisoners (Auctioned #4)

23

JAMES

SUNSHINE

Dear James,

I dreamed of you last night. We were lying on a big bed with crisp white sheets, and you had your arms wrapped around me and your mouth where you like your mouth to be. I was running my hands through your hair and tracing your tattoos with my fingertips. Outside the window, birds were singing softly but there was no one else around. Just us.

I don’t know where we were in my dream, but it felt good to be with you for a little while, even if it was only in my subconscious.

I miss you.

I miss the way you’d hold me tight. I miss the way you’d sing to me with your beautiful, deep voice. I miss your stories, and your laugh, and your body. I miss all the ways you made me feel good, like I was a part of you, and you were a part of me, and we could never be apart.

I don’t like being apart from you.

The days are passing slowly but I’m okay. As happy as I can be while you’re still far away.

Be patient, James. Keep those eyes the color of the forest. Imagine your hands on my skin, your body moving inside mine, your mouth making my world come apart.

We’ll be together soon.

You’ll be mine soon. And I’ll be yours.

Sunshine

The letter is under my pillow, and I pull it out to read it again and again. My cellmate, Frank, complains about the rustling, but I don’t give a shit. Lory has written to me every month since she left. I keep them bundled up in one envelope, and I pick one at random to read when I wake in the morning and when I go to sleep at night. They take me to another place and another time, where the oppressive walls of this place and the assholes around me can’t bring me down. Reading her words keeps my eyes the color of spring grass and my heart someplace else.

“You getting out tomorrow?” Frank asks me, scratching his butt.

“Yeah. If the sun shines down on me.”

You are my sunshine.

“Wonder who they’ll replace you with.”

I shrug. I don’t give a fuck. I’m never coming back to this shit hole again. I’ve wasted too many years spinning out of control, letting my darker impulses take over. I want to live in that place Lory described; the bed with white sheets and birds singing, somewhere I can make my girl feel like everything’s right with the world. Someplace the sun will shine on us both.

Another letter for me arrived yesterday.

Hope you’re keeping well, Hyde. Don’t forget about that sandwich.

Like I could. The name is burned into my brain. Valladolid . And the statue. Tuesday at 3pm. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to get all the way to Mexico, but I’m leaving as soon as they open the gates. Kinkaid has arranged for me to collect a package from a post office near where we grew up. And thanks to Grady, getting time off my sentence for good behavior, I’ve only had to wait six months and five days without Lory in my bed. It’s been the longest six months and five days of my life.

In the morning, I find Rock in the dayroom. I hate that he’s the last to leave when he’s the only one of us who didn’t do something to be here. If it was me, I don’t think I’d handle it.

He’s got me through the end of my time without fucking up and getting in trouble. For that, and so much more, I’ll always owe him for life.

“So, today’s the day.” He shoots me a smile and nods, satisfied. The man is good, through and through. It’s just a shame those corrupt pigs, the idiot jury, and the cunt judge didn’t see him that way.

“Today’s the day.”

“She’s waiting for you.”

“She’s waiting for you, too.”

He smiles again, folding his massive arms across his chest. “You keep her warm for me, okay.”

I grin, wanting to hug the fuck out of my buddy. Finding Lory is going to rock my world but knowing there’s a time coming soon when I’m going to be reunited with both my best friends is what I need for everything to be right.

“I’ll keep her warm, and when you get out, you’ll get a whole ‘no sharing’ week.”

“You better keep that promise,” Rock laughs.

“I will, brother. I will.”

***

I don’t have much to take when I leave, but I’ll take this image of him smiling in my mind. He’s happy that I’m getting out. And happy that he has a good girl waiting for him on the outside. He’ll hold it together until then. I know he will.

The Mexican air is so warm and thick that wearing a shirt is stifling. The bag on my shoulder chaffs, and my back is slick with sweat, but none of it matters. I’ve finally made it to the place Kinkaid told us about with his convoluted story. He better have a sandwich waiting for me after all this!

I can’t find the monument despite having a cellphone with GPS. Maps were never my strong point, and I’m too jacked up to concentrate.

An old woman with gray-streaked dark hair, sun-warmed skin, and a bright red dress passes me, and I ask if she can point me to the Monument to Motherhood. She looks at me quizzically, and for a moment, I wonder if she hasn’t understood me. Frustrated, I rub the back of my neck.

“ There ,” she points with a smile. “ Straight, straight, straight. You see it. ” Her accent is thick, but her directions are clear.

“Gracias.” I’m immediately embarrassed by my terrible accent, but she smiles.

“ No hay problema .”

I glance at my watch, cursing that I left it so close to get the bus from my last stop. I’ll be late, and who knows how long Kinkaid will wait past three p.m. If I miss him, it’ll be another seven days before there’s another opportunity to find them.

Breaking into a run, I sprint in the direction the woman pointed me in as the hot Mexican sun beats relentlessly against my head. My mouth is so dry, but I push through, frantically looking for this stupid statue.

And suddenly, there it is. A white statue of a mother nursing a baby and embracing a small child. And it isn’t Kinkaid waiting for me, but Lory, bent over a book, her dark hair hanging over one shoulder. I stop short, panting, as I stare at her. She’s filled out a little, making the apples of her cheeks rounder. Her skin carries a tan that helps her blend in with the other people milling around on a Tuesday afternoon. Her white dress is soft, loose, and light, and she’s wearing gold sandals and a shell ankle bracelet that make me so ravenous for her. I grit my teeth.

She’s waiting for me.

Me.

I brush my hands on my shorts and lick my lips. Maybe Lory senses me watching her because her eyes lift.

For a few seconds, which felt much longer, we stared at each other.

Then she runs to me, throwing herself into my arms, and I fucking cry because that’s the man she’s made me. Not big bad tough Hyde who’ll fuck a person up for saying one thing out of turn. But James, a man who has traveled for days to start a new life away from everything he knows. James, who wants to love a girl called Lory and become a baker because she told him it was possible.

James, who doesn’t want the darkness to take hold of him ever again.