Eli (Mallick Brothers Book 4) Read online

  5 years -

  It was wrong to think.

  I knew that.

  I knew that there were men in here, men with women and children they desperately wanted to get back to, but likely wouldn't until the kids were grown, if ever at all.

  They would kill for it.

  To be on their last leg.

  To be one foot out the door.

  And here I was, half not wanting to leave.

  What can I say, after over five years, even a place like prison can start to feel like home. You get used to the rhythms, find a certain comfort in the sameness. Nothing changed. Faces did, power dynamics as well, but every single day was almost identical to the last.

  It wasn't the routine, though, that had a fist of trepidation settled in my stomach. I liked my old life, being able to come and go as I pleased, eat what I wanted, go to bed if or when I wanted, go for a drive, see movies, buy shit without a strict budget set in place by someone other than me.

  It was what I knew would be waiting for me when I left.

  Hell, I would bet my left nut that someone - if not a group of them - would be sitting outside the jail on release day.

  The letters still came.

  Even the ones from the adults.

  And now it wasn't just Becca, Izzy, Mayla, and Jason.

  Now there were new names too.

  Jake. Joey. Danny. Ford.

  And, to top the cake. Eli. Little Eli.

  If I had any heart left, that would have fucking sank it down in acid.

  One of them, and I had no idea which, had named a child after me. Even after not seeing me, hearing from me for five years. Even after having letters and gifts sent back. Even after I turned my back on all of them, they still had hope.

  Only fools had hope.

  I didn't have hope anymore.

  I had plans.

  I had goals.

  I had a system of things to set in place to make a new life.

  A life I couldn't allow them into.

  A life they wouldn't want to be in if they knew the man I had become.

  Or, knowing them, they would still want in, but only because they thought they could fix me, they could undo the five years, the shame, the humiliation, the regret, the disappointment in myself.

  There was no fixing that.

  But they were good people, and they loved me, so if they found me, they would work their asses off to get me back.

  Unfortunately, I was getting paroled to Navesink Bank, so I had no choice but to set up shop there.

  According to my lawyer who was the only connection to my old life I allowed, my family had kept up my apartment for me to go back to. I thanked him, not telling him that that wasn't my intention. I would deal with it eventually, but I wasn't going back to it, right where they would look for me.

  Instead, I had had Bobby, who was surprisingly not back in a cell yet, work out a duplex for me in a crummy area of town. They were somewhat secluded, and I could come and go without being seen. He was in one of the duplexes across the street with his girl and, if he was being honest, working a straight job. I figured he wasn't being honest, but I needed someone on the outside who wasn't connected with my family to help me arrange shit for release day.

  Once I was out, I had my accounts to get me going.

  Then I had my plans to work selling my art to keep me going.

  Would I be living as large as I used to? No. But it would keep me from that world, keep me from becoming that man who could transform into some rage-monster without warning.

  And it would keep from hurting my family when they realized what I had to become to get rid of the person they once knew.

  I knew it would happen eventually, a run-in.

  It was inevitable.

  The town wasn't exactly small, but it wasn't a big city either.

  I would see one of them.

  And then I would have to rip their hearts out like I had needed to my own.

  The difference was, theirs would mend. They would sew one another back together. They would be mostly whole again.

  That simply wasn't in the cards for me.

  TWO

  Autumn

  "Is it another letter from Prison Blue Hottie?" my sister asked as I came through the front door with a small stack of bills in my hand.

  Okay, so... I couldn't tell you why the hell I wrote him at all.

  I really had no idea.

  I mean, the first time was because I knew he loved his dog, and would want to know that he was okay. That was just the right thing to do.

  I would have sent it sooner had I realized who he was. I had heard his name when he got arrested, but among rushing to get dog supplies, dealing with Randy, texting my sister to tell her we had a new pet, going to work, coming home to clean up the mess that Coop made, yeah, I had totally forgotten his name.

  It wasn't until I was out with friends one night at Chaz's, celebrating the big three-two (every single year after thirty, in my humble opinion, called for adding 'big' before the actual number), I had seen a man walking around who looked a suspiciously lot like Coop's former owner. He had the same tall build, the dark hair, the light eyes.

  Then someone had yelled out Hey, Mallick!

  And the name flew right back into my head.

  Eli Mallick.

  That was his name.

  And if you had a name, you could do a computer search that would tell you about his crime, his trial, and where he was going to prison.

  It was maybe only a matter of days between getting the name and his letter being in circulation.

  That letter I understood completely.

  The second one? The Halloween one? Yeah, man. I had absolutely no idea where that came from.

  Okay, fine.

  It was maybe, just maybe born out of the fact that once I had his name back, and, ah, did a social media search, yeah... that gorgeous face and those amazing eyes - let's not even discuss the body because there was a poolside picture of water dripping down his abs that had nearly made my ovaries freaking explode - had been haunting me. They crept in in quiet moments. You know, between weighing the pros and cons of various floggers to a newbie to BDSM and having to explain to a set of obnoxious barely-eighteen-year-olds that, no, the Ben Wa balls were not for some weird BDSM beating, that they, in fact, got inserted into the vagina to strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor, a fact that shut them up and had them promptly leaving the store.

  In the moments when the store was quiet save for the music overhead, constantly set to an ever-growing sexy playlist because it would be weird to walk into a sex store to hear, I don't know, Taylor Swift playing.

  Don't get me wrong, I love me some Swift, but yeah, it wasn't exactly the kind of music you wanted to hear while picking out your first Wand.

  You had to keep it sexy.

  Even if you heard the song about 'riding' for the four-hundred-and-thirty-thousandth time.

  But yeah, when the store was still as it often was in the afternoon and early evening, he crept into my mind.

  Blame sexual frustration while around a room full of toys meant to ease it.

  I could have been fantasizing about the hot UPS guy and his little short shorts and muscular ass. I could have thought about the guy in the leather cut who said 'baby, fucking gorgeous' in a very matter-of-fact way as he passed me on the way out of She's Bean Around. I could have even gone back to my favorite go-to, the silver fox who once stopped - in his expensive suit! - and fixed my busted tire. I never even got the poor man's name. Boy, would he be surprised how many times I slipped on a finger vibe with his image in my head.

  But they weren't where my mind went.

  No.

  It was all about those ocean eyes, that dark hair, that amazing bone structure, that smooth voice. And, well, the damn dripping abs too. They couldn't be left out.

  Maybe it was because we, sort of, shared a dog.

  Maybe it was because he was in prison for doing what, in my opinion, wa
s the right thing.

  Whatever it was, he was there. In my head. A lot of the time.

  When I looked at Coop, sometimes his image would flash up of him trying to make the dog sit. He totally did sit. And lay down. And come. Other than that, he was a wild freaking animal still.

  When I saw that asshole cop cruising around, yeah, then too.

  And, well, when I started watching reruns of Oz when I really, really hated watching violence, and the show was full of it, so I could only blame the fact that I knew of a real-life prisoner, and was a bit curious about life behind bars.

  In fact, I had just gone off a pretty serious prison documentary show binge the week before Halloween.

  Maybe that was it.

  Maybe it was all the stories of all the men who had been abandoned in the penal system. Who had no one to write them. Who had no updates on the outside world.

  What can I say, I was always a sucker for that type of thing.

  So I sent him a picture of the costume my sister had made for Coop - because she was quirky like that - and sent it off, not expecting anything.

  One could say I was a bit, well, floored when three days later, I got a letter back.

  Autumn,

  Thus far, no one has been crucified to the gym floor.

  We got that going for us.

  - Eli

  He wrote me back.

  He even referenced the show I mentioned.

  Granted, it was only two sentences, but it was a response. And, I felt, maybe a bit of a cry for help. If he was responding to me, a complete and utter stranger, then maybe his family had disowned him, or just slowly lost touch.

  He was trying to reach out.

  I just figured... what harm could it do to keep in touch, right?

  I mean, maybe I had laughed at the people who kept prison pen pals before, thinking it was a little strange to keep up a relationship with someone you never met who was in for a violent crime.

  I guess I never fully understood it.

  Until I was faced with it too.

  If someone who was locked up for five years needed some lifeline on the outside, and you were the one holding it, could you really hold back from tossing it out there?

  I knew I couldn't.

  At first, I always started mine with comments about Coop and the occasional talk about some prison TV show or even the weather. But before long, once he seemed to loosen up a little - and once I did as well - they were just letters.

  I learned the names of the prisoners he talked about and what their respective 'hustles' were, noting that all the ones he mentioned seemed to have legit businesses, not selling drugs or prostituting themselves. I jokingly asked what his hustle was, if maybe he was the in-house Hallmark Card writer.

  In response, he sent me back a folded-up piece of sketch paper.

  With me on it.

  I was sitting outside the coffeeshop, leaned back in my chair casually, frappe in front by my chest, straw in front of my lips like I had just taken a sip, my mouth curved up in a small smirk, eyes dancing, hair kicked up slightly in the wind.

  Like I had been when I had been watching him and his crazy ex.

  And, God, it was good too.

  It was better than the art I had on my walls that I paid an arm and a leg for at a gallery featuring local artists. It was leaps and bounds better than the portraits my family had had commissioned of my sister and I growing up, shelling out thousands of dollars for work this man could do inside concrete and barbed wire from memory.

  That was insane.

  I wondered how he used it to make money, and even told him about wondering. He'd informed me that prisoners would pay a pretty penny for family portraits to have in their cells, or to send home to family members. He even told me that he had designed a piece of artwork or two for tattoos, but that wasn't something he liked to do, saying that that was 'a job for another brother,' and I got the distinct impression he meant his own. He was careful to never speak of them - his family. I didn't know - and didn't feel it was my place to ask - why.

  So, instead, we stuck to more neutral topics like prison life, like TV, movies, and music. Like the weather. Like what businesses were popping up in and around Navesink Bank since his departure. When I had once mentioned She's Bean Around, his response had been almost immediate, though we usually went weeks or months between letters.

  Autumn,

  No shit? They actually did it? The coffee truck girls opened the shop? How is it?

  - Eli

  It was maybe the first letter I had ever received from him that hadn't had a sort of disconnect, a coolness, that showed actual excitement about something.

  But there was no way to describe how amazing She's Bean Around was. It was the kind of place - and coffee! - one had to see to truly appreciate. With my caffeine addiction, I had been to many a coffeeshop in my day, all to varying degrees of corporate or indie. None had even come close to the flair Jazzy and Gala gave their shop.

  So, aside from describing the decor that I warned was often changing, that was what I told him - that it needed to be one of his first stops when he got out. That the salted caramel hot coffee was the stuff caffeine addicts wet dreams were made of.

  His response had been more of a typical one for him, telling me simply that he would keep that in mind.

  After that, there was nothing for almost six months, until I had a Coop Christmas card to send.

  I had actually even looked into sending him a package, believing that everyone should get a little something for Christmas, but the rules had been vague, but strict at the same time, leaving me too confused to make a decision. So I just stuck with the card.

  Autumn,

  How the fuck'd you keep reindeer horns on him for long enough to take a picture?

  Also, who the hell are you sending an entire box of finger vibes to for Christmas?

  - Eli

  My eyes went huge as I scrambled to my fridge to get the Christmas card, you know, the Christmas card I sent out to literally everyone I knew. And, yep, sure enough, I had a supply box of multi-colored finger vibrators sitting off in a corner. They actually were a Christmas promotion for the store. I had a loyalty card for frequent customers. And the top twenty of them got a free gift at Christmas and Valentine's Day. I had brought them home to package up so I didn't have to stay late at the store.

  And there they were.

  In my Christmas card picture.

  Granted, they were off to the back and barely in focus, but there nonetheless.

  Oh well.

  Anyone who knew me knew - whether they liked it or not - that I owned a sex toy store. They would just chalk it up to me being quirky like that. Or as proof of my descent into the fires of hell. You know, whichever.

  I looked back down at the note, at his somewhat slanted, but small and neat writing.

  And there wasn't, there absolutely was not a fluttering sensation in my sex at seeing the words finger vibes from him.

  Nope.

  Because that would be nuts.

  No matter how long a dry spell I had been in.

  I had written back something witty, brushing the subject away, knowing if I said anything suggestive, that it would get tossed out and he would never receive it. I mean, not that I was thinking of saying anything suggestive.

  Fine.

  I thought about it.

  I thought of about fifteen suggestive things to say.

  Then needed a goddamn session with my own finger vibe after.

  But then... that had been it.

  Suddenly, I didn't get another letter.

  And I had no reason to write him, so I didn't, not wanting to seem like I was being pushy or whatever.

  That was December.

  This was April.

  And, apparently, I still looked at my mail hopefully every day if my sister's response was anything to go by.

  "Just bills," I said as I moved into the kitchen, dropping them on the small island with the special, shiny,
white quartz countertop I had finally saved enough money for over the winter.

  The apartment had been a special project over the past year. I guess I had always seen it as a transition for me when I moved in, figuring it was a stepping stone to a townhouse or just a house someday, something that I owned with a yard and some equity. As such, I hadn't been overly concerned with fixing up the apartment. But, it seemed, I was likely in it for the long haul, and I had even started to be completely okay with that.

  But if I was staying, it needed work.

  So I set to it.

  I had the carpets ripped up, and laid wood flooring. I skimmed the walls, then painted them a soothing light sage color. I ripped out all the old kitchen cabinets that were straight out of the seventies, and replaced them with nice, clean white ones. The apartment didn't get a lot of natural light, so I tried to keep everything inside it as bright as possible.

  The couch my sister was sitting on was a light cream color and still on a payment plan as were the two accent chairs, end tables, coffee table, and the cream and green carpet beneath them.

  Slowly, but surely, it was all coming together.

  My room was my current project, but I had hit a snag with, well, money for the new furniture. I would get there eventually. Then I would do the renovation of the bathroom.

  "Don't try to act like you're not disappointed. You can put on a good show, but these here walls are thin," she said, waving her book around in the air. "I hear those good vibrations when you get a letter. You want that bad boy D. And, well, who wouldn't? Just think of the solid dicking you would get after six years of abstinence in prison. You wouldn't walk right for two weeks. Man, maybe I should get me a Prison Blues Hottie of my very own."

  My sister was, well, a character.

  We had been raised in a very, ah, what's the nice word here, conservative household where we were taught abstinence-only education, had purity pledges (ha!), weren't allowed to wear any shorts shorter than our knees or any tank tops at all. We had eight o'clock curfews all through high school where we weren't allowed to wear makeup, listen to inappropriate music, or, of course, date.