Page 47 of The Sharpest Edges

She backs away far enough to see his face and finds sincerity laced into his features. Such a familiar thing by now, something she’s gotten used to seeing in him from the very start when he was shoved into her infirmary and into her life all at once. “I know you are. I already know.”

He isn’t expecting her to say it back, she can already tell. He’ll let this go and spend the rest of the morning quite literally holding her together without ever getting the same reassurance in return. He deserves so much more than he’ll ever ask for and she isn’t about to let him doubt how she feels, not for a second.

She ghosts her fingers down the side of his face and places a soft, tear-stained kiss on his lips, whispering her words into his mouth and feeling the truth in them for the very first time. “Me too. I’m in this one hundred percent.”

Surprise registers on his face, quickly replaced with something that looks like confidence.

“Gotta work today, but I can stay till then,” he says with a hint of regret, like he wants to call in from the job he only recently got back to stay home with her and wait by the phone about their sick cat.

Their cat. It hits her then that she thinks an awful lot in terms of we and us lately. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.

She snuggles up to his chest, her ear over his heart and her hand bracing on his ribs, tears drying on her skin. “Have to name him when he comes home. Something cute, but not too cute.”

“How ‘bout popcorn. Or Oreo….chip….potato chip….tater tot….”

She can’t help but laugh at his monotone suggestions that sound like a grocery list. “Are you hungry?”

“Could go for some of them Oreos.”

“Sorry to disappoint. I did the last line before you came over.”

He sucks some air between his teeth in fake outrage. “Damn. Hey, that cat looks like a skunk. Should name him Pepe.”

“He’s not French, and he’s not a skunk, he looks more like a panda. Oh, Dean, let’s call him Panda. It fits right?”

He hums out a sound of approval, his thumb fluttering back and forth over her upper arm. “Yeah, it fits.”

19

Chapter 19

A photo of Ava holding the cat looks back at Dean from his phone. She’s smiling into the camera, her cheek nuzzling soft black and white fur. The text message attached reads,‘Look who’s home. Can you come over tonight?’

He replies with a‘yes’, followed by a cat emoji and their flower.

It’s only been half a day, but if it were up to him, he would take up residence in her house or invite her to do the same in his. He is tragically attached to her and how she makes him feel. Wanted. Safe. Enough.

It’s a high better than any hit of pot he’s ever taken and even better than the pills Boone forced down his throat one day in an effort to turn him on to the finer things in life. Dean spent that evening floating in an opioid-induced fantasy, light as a feather and sleepy as fuck. Invincible.

He saves the photo with a flick of his thumb across the screen. It’s the only thing in his album that doesn’t look like the inside or outside of a car. The only sign of a new life taking shape.

He still has to remind himself that none of this is a joke.That this sort of thing, what he always assumed was meant for other people, is happening to him too. Somehow, here he is, with a photo of a beautiful woman on his phone and the real thing waiting for him in person. If someone told him when he was walking into that prison that he’d leave with his other half, he would have laughed.

When the phone rings again, it startles him and for a moment he thinks it might be her. Who else would be calling? Everyone he knows is right here in the shop, or on the other end of Ava’s text message. He almost doesn’t answer, convinced it must be a spam call when the word‘unknown’flashes across the screen, but then curiosity gives way and he hits the button.

An automated message from the Georgia State Correctional System asking him to accept a collect call makes him sneer. His brother is calling and it can’t be anything good. Still, Boone is the only family he has left, so against his better judgment he accepts a call from Hell and presses the phone to his ear, prepared to get irritated and upset before the conversation is over.

“Baby brother! Heard the good news. How’s life on the other side?”

Boone’s voice is all fake cheer and happiness and Dean scowls into the open space of the shop, leaning against the Mini Cooper he’d been working on. “Life on the other side is a hell of a lot better than it was in there. What do ya want?”

“Good to hear it. Lotta rumors floatin’ through the grapevine about how you got out early. Like an episode of Dateline and a game of telephone in here with everyone tryin’ to piece that shit together.”

Dean huffs, wanting to get to the point, knowing theremust be one. Boone wouldn’t call him just to say hello or to congratulate him on getting out early. “What do you want?”

Boone chuckles on the other end like this is all quite funny. “Alright, alright. Need you to load me up on some commissary. Food in here is shit, soap is shit, toilet paper doesn’t even wipe up all the shit. You know well as I do how bad it is.”

“Speaking of shit, I ain’t doing shit for you. How about that?” He barks out the words, frustrated that Boone would ask for money after being the reason Dean got locked up in the first place.

---