Jay Crownover - Charged

I wilted. I couldn’t help it. My knees folded and relief blindsided me so strongly I couldn’t stand up under the weight of it. Quaid’s strong arm was around my waist before I fell all the way into him and he gave my hip a little squeeze before setting me back on my feet.

“Ms. Walker.”

I sucked in a breath and tilted my chin up at the judge as he said my name again.

“Yes, Your Honor?” There was a tremor in my voice but I didn’t bother to try and hide it.

“My advice to you is to wise up. Stay away from anyone else involved in the situation that landed you here and start using your head.”

It was good advice. People always had good advice for me, if only I was wired to take it.

This time around I was determined not to let my father down, so I nodded. “Thank you, Your Honor.”

Quaid put his hand on my arm and turned me so that I was facing him. “Your dad is going to post bail and then pick you up from the jail. It’s going to take the rest of the afternoon to process you out. I’ll give you a couple days to settle in at your dad’s and get your head on straight, then we need to have a strategy meeting. The State is going to have a plea bargain on my desk sometime this week and I need to know where we’re going with all of this.”

I scowled at him and shook his hand off my arm. “I’m not taking a plea bargain, Counselor. I’m not guilty.”

He heaved a sigh at me and gave me a look like I was being ridiculous. Before he could say anything else, a man, large enough to block out the rest of the room, was between us. I was pulled into a barrel chest with my face buried in a beard that was as much of a legend in Denver as the man that wore it.

I never wanted to hug my dad so badly in my life. As soon as his tree-trunk-like arms folded around me, I couldn’t hold it together anymore. Tears started leaking through my closed lids and my lashes weren’t strong enough to stem the flow. My shoulders shook and my cuffed hands curled desperately into his faded Harley-Davidson shirt.

“I’m so sorry, Daddy.” I wasn’t sure how the words made it out over the lump in my throat as one of his massive paws curled around the back of my head and pulled me closer.

“I know you are, Sprite, but we gotta get to a place where you don’t have to be sorry like this any more.”

“I know.” I breathed the words out and pulled away as someone cleared their throat. My dad dropped his hand onto my shoulder as the bailiff inclined his head towards the doors that led to the prisoner holding area.

“You can have her back in a bit, sir. But right now she has to come with me.”

My dad practically growled at the man, which made him fall back a step. He released me after giving my shoulder a squeeze and a kiss on the top of my head. I let the bailiff take my arm and peeked around my dad’s broad frame so I could see my mom. She could only meet my eyes for a moment and when she did I saw the heartbreak and disappointment clouding her gaze.

“Thanks for coming, Mom. I’m so sorry for all of this.” The bailiff started to guide me away as Quaid ushered my dad back to the part of the courtroom reserved for the families and audience.

“Saying you’re sorry and actually being sorry are two very different things, Avett.” She got to her feet as my dad reached for her hand with a hard look on his face. She shook her head at me, and even though I could barely hear her because she spoke as they were calling the case after mine, her words hit their mark.

“Sorry” rolled off my tongue so easily and frequently that the words hardly held any meaning anymore. This time around I needed to actually be sorry for what I had done, even if what I had done was nothing. I had a lot to prove, a lot to make up for, and my track record for doing the right thing was shit. I didn’t want my mom to barely be able to look at me. I didn’t want my father to have to borrow against his retirement to bail me out of jail. Saying sorry wasn’t enough; this time around, I was actually going to have to change.

I went back into what the bailiff referred to as the “pen” and took my place between the murderer and the drug dealer. They both turned to me with envy and annoyance in their eyes. I was going home at the end of the day; they were going back behind bars.

The druggie lifted her eyebrows at me and stuck her tongue out, licking her dried lips. I cringed involuntarily, which had her giving me a crooked smile that showed all of her yellow and chipped teeth. “That guy representing you is hot. How much does he charge an hour? Are you fucking him? I would fuck him. I bet he’s expensive and good in bed. That hard-ass judge denied us all bail, except for you.”

I felt my eyes widen and I looked at the woman on the other side of me; she seemed as interested in my answers as the drug dealer.

I cleared my throat and shifted uneasily on the hard wooden bench. “I didn’t pay for him, so I don’t know how much he charges, and no, I’m not sleeping with him. I only met him yesterday.” Which didn’t explain why everything inside of me turned gooey and warm when he unleashed that grin of his. Or why I instantly felt better when his elbow briefly touched mine. It was a totally inappropriate reaction seeing as the man was a decade older than me, noticeably from a different background and social class than I came from, and had only ever seen me in jailbird orange while he was trying to keep my ass out of the slammer. My hormones must have missed the memo that the rest of me was in deep shit and Quaid Jackson was the guy holding the shovel to dig me out.

“I would fuck him.” This from the possible murderer on my other side. I wondered if Quaid knew that the entire female criminal population of Denver considered him fuckable.

I clicked the metal snapped around my wrists together to distract myself and muttered, “I don’t think we’re exactly his type.”

I imagined guys like Quaid preferred women that didn’t know what real handcuffs felt like when they were used for their intended purposes, and I couldn’t see him getting all hot and bothered over a chick with pink hair, even if mine was quickly fading and turning more rose colored as my natural dark brown took over at the crown.

“Girl, I’m every guy’s type if the price is right.” The druggie licked her lips again and I wanted to curl in a ball and make myself as small as possible to get away from both of them and the way they were talking about my attorney. I didn’t like it. Furthermore, I really didn’t like that I didn’t like it.

Luckily, there were only a couple of cases left and soon enough we were all being herded into the van and heading towards the jail. I was dreading having to sit behind bars again, but instead of taking me back to the cell with the scorned spouse, I found myself in a room similar to the one I had spoken to Quaid in the day after my arrest. The clothes I was wearing the night of the robbery were brought to me and I was told to change and sit tight.

I happily shed the jumpsuit and scrambled back into my own clothes. I never thought torn jeans, a stretched-out cotton T-shirt, and battered Vans could feel like the most expensive evening gown with designer heels. It wasn’t haute couture, but man, did it feel luxurious compared to the scratchy jailhouse jumpsuit. There was even a hair tie in my pocket, so I wrestled my thick and colorful hair up into a messy top knot, then did what I was told to do and sat tight.

It was only a few hours, but it felt like days. I counted the tiles on the floor, memorized the pattern in which the flickering fluorescent light above my head was going to flash, and I had plenty of time to go over every single fuckup I had made on my way to this point. The right thing was always there, always right in front of me screaming, “Pick me! Pick me!” and I was always the defiant moron that ignored the best option and went chasing after my downfall. Now that I had officially caught it, I could confidently say it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Falling meant I had to land eventually. The falling was scary and endless, but the landing … that was where things really got rough. That was what left a mark.