It’s crisp and rejuvenating, yet chilling to the bone, seeping through my jeans thanks to the frosty bench I’m seated on. A deep exhale sends a cloud of white dissipating into the evening air as I tip my head back and gaze up at the grey sky.
Fresh flakes fall, dampening my face and joining the field of untouched snow spanning all around me. They remind me of my new beginning. It’s my chance to cover all the past shit and move forward with something—someone—better. Calla lily white while being as untouched and fragile as the flower—and my girl.
All of this—the smell, the chill, the bustle of noise from the busy street not even twenty feet away—means I’ve won. The temperature is cold bred from nature instead of stone; the noise comes from normal society, not my cellblock; and the air is fresh rather than tainted by sweat and dirt. It all means I’mfree.
Two days ago, I walked away from prison as a free man. Sentence served. Restitution paid and all that bullshit. One of my guys drove me back to the city, and I’d never been happier to see the inside of a vehicle—one that wasn’t a prison van used for transporting inmates.
After a year of planning my reunion with my little obsession, I’m more than ready to put it all into motion, even though my actions may very well get me tossed right back into the same cell. If she were to press charges, anyway—and she won’t. I won’t allow it.
She’ll welcome me with open arms and explain whatever “personal” reason took her away from me. Months of theories have concluded she was nervous. It was too much too soon, and she needed time to adapt. It’s okay. After a year of distance, she’ll now be able to, and all will be as it should have been.
I curl my fingers from where they rest on the bench’s backing, rolling feeling back into them. Numb from winter is better than numb from boredom—which has been years of my life. Prison fucking sucks and can drive a man mad within the first year.
As mad as a five-foot-three decade younger woman named Aspen has made me. Everything I’ve yet to learn about her filled my thoughts during the nights. My mind padded the gaps, inventing facts about her life, only to be annoyed she cut me off.
I draw my right hand back onto my lap and rub my knuckles warm again, careful around the sensitive skin, still a bit red but beginning the initial stages of healing that come with fresh tattoos.
Maybe it’s as insane as claiming a woman I hardly know—one smart enough to protect herself from me—but I decided months ago that after being freed, my second stop will be to my old tattoo artist, Sal, to mark my claim in the only way possible for now.
My thumb lightly brushes against the five letters of her name, each one tattooed on a different finger. When she sees them, she’ll know. She’ll understand.
Once I find her. Not knowing where exactly she works has held me up—annoyingly enough. My crew has kept away from me this week, realizing pretty early on their mugs aren’t the ones I want to see. Hers is, but she feels farther away than ever, even when she’s in the same damn city.
Oh, sweetheart, stop hiding. It’s fruitless.
It’s only a matter of time—especially now that I’ve called in a favour from the man we keep on the inside. A little bribery here, a threat there, and like that, the cop named Miles Moore—because of course he comes with a name like that—becomes a dirty cop in my pocket.
He’s already helped me once. He did a little digging of his own last year and found her address for me. I was able to get one of my trusted confidants to deliver the flowers to her last Valentine’s Day.
Having her address is one thing, but knowing everything about her means knowingeverything.And every fucking time I make it to her place, she’s already gone for work. Since Ottawa has too many florists, shy of sending my guys to stalk every single one, Miles is making his badge useful once again.
As the sun dips below the treeline, my new cell phone vibrates with a text.
MM
A year and a half ago, a call was made to 911, from one Aspen Tate in response to an attempted break-in at Petal & Stem Boutique on Wellington Street. You got what you wanted. Leave me out of whatever you’re about to do.
As if I’d include him more than he already has been. No matter the shit we have over him and his family—and the threats from our bosses, to boot—he’s a cop first. He could very well be the one Aspen files her reports to.
Oh, the fucking irony in that.
Grinning, I open a search engine to locate the exact address of her workplace. It’s only a fifteen-minute walk from the park I’ve been sitting in for the past hour, so with a quick pace, I find the shop, reaching it just as a woman steps from it and shuts the door.
Aspen.
There are certain things a person goes through withdrawal over when first incarcerated. Usually, alcohol, drugs, or sex. Companionship eventually. Entertainment soon following.
For me, although it was only the final year of my imprisonment, she’s been it. She’s my withdrawal, the substance injected into my veins with her little smirks and big heart.
As she slips a key into the door’s lock, my eyes greedily devour her, head to toe. Her grey coat reaches mid-thigh, her legs appearing bare from the distance. It draws a smile; the appropriateness of her outfit is almost poetic. She was wearing a dress when we first met, so it’s only right she’s in one now too. Such clothing in the middle of February isn’t wise, nor are the heeled ankle boots against the icy sidewalks, but I’ll soon teach her to better care for herself. Her hair’s longer than last year,nearly reaching her waist. It’ll be the perfect handle when I keep her in place and prove why we’re so good together.
I harden as I envision it. How, in only a moment, I’ll cross the street towards her. She’ll turn, spot me, and immediately smile. It’ll be as it always should have been. She’ll apologize for abandoning me in her fruitless attempt to find herself or some shit, and we’ll go to her house.
As she turns away from the shop, I inch towards her, jolted into movement. She’sright there. I can finally snatch her and make my every fantasy come true.
But first, to punish her for her teasing. She lured me in with sweet letters, sweeter chocolates and homemade cards, and the sweetest face, all to push me away. She’s a tease, so I’ll teach her the actual definition of the word when I bring her to the edge so many fucking times, the bed will be drenched with need, her sobs her musical apology.
All I have to do is cross the street and make myself known, but as she starts walking away from the shop, I trail her instead, to learn her route. Her head bows against the February bite as she hikes her purse higher up her shoulder, and her steps speed up.
