Page 26 of Minnie: Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

I’m self-conscious about my appearance without Formula M, but the way he looks me over makes me forget what I’m wearing, and where we are. Literally everything floats away, and it’s just the two of us, alone, in our own bubble.

“Minnie. It’s so good to see you!” Zachariah grins and envelops me in his arms.

He hugged me the first time I brought Natty for a visit as a baby, and it’s been our thing ever since.

Zachariah has really filled out during that time, too. I could practically feel his ribs, but now his body is solid, and his chest hard beneath my cheek. He makes me feel warm and safe, like I belong… even though I don’t. I don’t belong here in prison any more than I belong on the outside.

I don’t think there’ll ever be a place that’s right for me.

Chapter 14

Minnie

A prison guard clears his throat loudly, the sound echoing through the visitation room. I’m not sure if the warning is meant for Zachariah and me, or for someone else, but we pull apart anyway.

My cheeks flood with heat. Anyone looking at us probably thinks we’re in a relationship, but I’m no one to Zachariah. Just the girl who offered to raise his child and fell in love with them both, knowing full well that one day, he’d take his little boy and leave me behind.

Natty and I settle across the table from him, and Zachariah breaks into another one of his signature wide grins. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You too,” I say, my cheeks still pink.

He turns to Natty. “You look so much bigger than last time I saw you.”

“I’m so big.” Natty stretches his hands up in the air and I have to grab his waist so he doesn’t tumble out of his large metal chair. It’s bolted down far enough away from the table that there’s a gap large enough for Natty to fall through. And since the prisoners have to sit at the other end of the table, and Zachariah isn’t allowed to reach across it, the role of Natty Rescuer falls to me. But I’m used to it, and catching the boy is now pretty instinctive.

“Want to sit on my lap?” I ask Natty.

“No. I want to sit here.” Natty points at his own chair.

“Confident kid,” Alyssa says from her spot at the next table. “I like him.”

Zachariah nods. “You’re doing such a great job with him, Minnie.”

His words send another wave of heat traveling up my neck and flooding my cheeks. I swear I spend a good chunk of my visits with Natty’s dad blushing, and without Formula M’s usual effects, I know I always turn as bright as a tomato. Yet another reason he’ll never be attracted to me.

“Natty is an amazing kid,” I say. “I can’t take any of the credit.”

“Of course you can,” Zachariah says, but he’s wrong.

“Thanks.” I do my best to make my smile seem real. But deep down, I know that all of Natty’s good traits he got despite having me as a guardian, not because of it. Because even if I do my best, I’ll never be confident or well-adjusted or smart or any of the things I want Natty to be. The best I can do is not completely screw him up.

“What’s with the glum face?” Alyssa asks me.

She always calls it like it is, and I wish I had half the confidence that she does.

Zachariah reaches across the metal table, but stops himself before a guard can rush over and do it for him. “I mean it, Minnie. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for us.” He smiles softly at me, his brown eyes filled with warmth. “I’ll never be able to repay you.”

“Having Natty in my life is payment enough.” I plant a kiss on the boy’s soft hair, inhale the smell of the conditioner we use at the community pool, and try not to think about the fact that my days as Natty’s guardian are numbered.

Two years. That’s all the time we have left.

Then, Zachariah will be free, and he’ll take Natty and move away. There’s no way he’ll want to stay in Silver Springs and see the people he robbed, day in and day out. Even if he has worked hard behind bars and returned every penny he stole.

He leans forward in his seat, huge biceps bulging.

“Do you spend all day doing pushups?” I ask, my eyes glued to them. Then I realize what I just said and turn beet red.

Alyssa snorts. “She’s into you, Ri, like a…” Her gaze slides to Natty, and she closes her mouth against whatever snarky and probably X-rated thing she was going to say that isn’t safe for a child’s ears.