“I love you, Ollie,” she smiled, and I pulled her on top of me to hide my hard-on growing in my joggers from the rest of the group. Her eyes bulged. My face heated, and I shrugged my shoulders.Yes, love. That is what youdo to me.
“I’m telling everyone,” I whispered to her. She knew it had been hard for me to hold in the news that she would soon be my wife. “Can I tell them? Yeah, I’m telling them.”
Mia’s hand came over my mouth, and I darted my tongue out. Her jaw dropped and she quickly pulled her hand away. “Bloody fucking truth,” I called out, sitting back up and wrapping her legs around my torso. “I’m marrying this girl,” I pointed at Mia’s head who was now hiding in my chest. I pulled her head away and looked into those coffee-colored eyes, seeing the same girl I’d fallen in love with across the mess hall since day one. “And I can’t fucking wait, love. I can’t. I don’t want to.”
Gasps spread from the group around us, but my eyes stayed on her. Jake made a comment about calling maid of honor before I’d proposed and having rights. Tyler whined about not being able to go at all and how it wasn’t fair.
But my gaze and lips touched all over her.
We kissed until the topic changed.
We got lost inside our own little world.
We held each other until it was just us two left out here, soaking in the sun, the breeze, and each other.
“The second we’re released, I’m waiting outside those walls for you, and we’re taking a car to the closest train station. We’re going straight to Gibraltar. We don’t have to wait,” I kissed her soft lips and dropped my head to hers. “Come with me. All I’m asking is for two days before you go back to the states. This will work.”
Mia ran her tongue across her bottom lip. “Ollie,” she sighed and averted her eyes.
“No, don’t say my name like that,” I rolled my forehead against hers. I felt it—the uneasiness creeping from her and crawling under my skin. “I don’t like it. Don’t pull back on me. Say you want this, too. Say you’ll meet me outside those gates on release day, Mia.”
“We shouldn’t have this conversation right now.”
“love … ”
“I’m scared,” she admitted, unable to look at me directly.
I grabbed her face. “I have you.”
“What if I go to the states and they won’t let me come back.”
“Then I will come to you. Always. Wherever you are, I’ll fucking follow.”
“What if you can’t get a passport?”
“Mia, stop. This will work out. It has to. Let me worry about all that stuff. All I’m asking is to meet me right out there on release day. That’s it. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“I don’t know if I can marry you then go back to Pennsylvania alone.”
“Then you won’t go alone. We’ll go together. We’ll go to Spain, get married, and take the first flight out to Pennsylvania.”
“You live in a fairy tale,” she smiled, “Real life doesn’t work like that, Ollie. Something will come up. We have no money. We have no car. We’ll never be out of the woods.”
I had less than thirty days to get the documents in order. Too much time had been wasted already. I sent a quick nod to Jinx, pushed through the door, and picked up the receiver to dial Travis.
“Twenty-eight days,” he greeted me, only reminding me my time was ticking.
“I need you to do something for me.”
“Yeah, mate. Anything.”
mia.
Release day—nothing like graduation days in America that you would see on TV.
I’d never had a graduation. I was homeschooled during my Junior and Senior year. My graduation day had consisted of a diploma delivered by the United States Postal Service. Not even by hand. The mailman had stuffed it into the mailbox along with the electric bill and an ad for a lawn service.
Ollie had been busy the last couple of days. Each time I’d ask him what he was up to, the only response he could give was, “Getting our shit together.”
