The Marriage by K.L. Slater (any book recommendations TXT) 📕

White Hart Street in Mansfield. The two men were ejected by security staff after a disagreement escalated between them inside the venue. The fatal assault then took place outside the rear entrance.

The Guardian understands that Jesse Wilson was hit by a man known to him. Police have arrested another eighteen-year-old local man, a middleweight professional boxer who recently qualified for the East Midlands Boxing Championships due to be held in February next year.

Police are appealing for witnesses.

Three Tom

April 2019

The prison staff had done a good job, Tom thought. They had made a sterling effort.

The officers had prettied up the small, drab inmates’ chapel with a swathe of white satin draped artfully around the door. Small vases of freesias and pink roses adorned the windowsills and scattered red hearts brightened the small table where he and his new bride would soon sign the register.

Tom had surprised the prison governor when he’d applied for the marriage licence. ‘There hasn’t been a wedding here for over ten years,’ he’d told him. ‘But if that’s what you want, it is your right and we’ll do our best for you.’

He’d proposed to Bridget six months earlier. Put in a special request for a private visit. As he was almost at release date, he was granted use of the small visiting room for one hour. It was a space usually reserved for sensitive visits from family – to notify a prisoner of a death or news of a birth, that kind of thing.

Painted in an awful glossy green, artificial plants dotted the corners. A low coffee table with peeling veneer sat in the middle of a few scratched chairs. But there was a window overlooking the fields at the rear of the prison. While he waited for Bridget, he’d stood staring out at the grass, the sky, a scattering of gulls that swept through the expanse of grey cotton clouds as if to remind him of the size of the world out there. A world he’d soon be part of again.

‘Why a private room?’ had been Bridget’s first words when the officer escorted her in. Her beautiful face looked taut and concerned. ‘Tom? Is everything OK?’

‘Everything is perfect.’ He’d smiled, and they’d taken their seats.

‘I’ll be just outside the door,’ the officer, Barry, said meaningfully. It was against the rules for him to leave Tom and his visitor unattended, but he had been around for Tom’s entire sentence and he knew the reason for the visit. He left the door slightly ajar.

Bridget looked back over her shoulder, concerned. ‘You’re scaring me now, Tom,’ she whispered. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong, Brid. I’ve asked you here because …’ He stood up and moved to her side, falling to one knee. ‘I want to ask you: will you marry me?’

A small sound escaped her mouth and her hand flew up to cover the bottom half of her face as her eyes glistened. ‘Oh Tom … yes! The answer is yes, of course I’ll marry you!’

They both stood and he embraced her, for the first time in the two years she’d been visiting. He buried his face in her clean, shining hair, inhaled the shampoo smell of almonds and vanilla. She pressed against him and his entire body responded, seeming to fill with raging desire as he held her closer, feeling her warm, firm thighs against his.

The door creaked open slightly and Barry craned his head around, raising his eyebrows to show it was time to sit down. Tom took a step back and let out a breath. God, he wanted her so badly. It had been so, so long.

‘I secretly hoped you might ask,’ Bridget said, dabbing at her eyes. ‘But I thought it would be after your release. I never expected this!’

‘I … I had to ask you now. I’m sorry there’s no engagement ring yet but I’ll put that right as soon as I can,’ Tom said, his body still tense and hot. ‘I think the last six months of my sentence is going to feel like six years, but now that I know we’ll have each other when I’m out, it makes it all bearable.’

They’d sat back down and talked about practicalities.

‘I can organise everything my end. We just have to decide when,’ Bridget said. ‘When and where and … how we’re going to tell our families.’

The stubborn throb of desire drained from Tom in seconds.

‘Yeah, I know,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking about that.’

They agreed it would have to be done soon after his release. ‘There’s going to be a backlash,’ Bridget warned. ‘Best not to give them too long to think about how they can cause enough trouble to change our minds about the wedding.’

When Bridget left, Barry escorted Tom back to his cell. ‘I’m guessing congratulations are in order, judging by the lady’s reaction.’ The officer winked.

Tom grinned and nodded. ‘We’ve just got to decide how to tell our families now. I’ve got six months to work out how to stop my mother starting World War III when she hears the news.’

On the landing outside Tom’s cell, Barry hesitated. ‘You know, don’t quote me, but you could get married in here. Mind you, your good lady might not be impressed. I mean, there are definitely more romantic venues, but it’d solve your problem about family kicking off, ’cos there wouldn’t be a thing they could do about it, would there?’

He opened the cell door and went off along the landing whistling the ‘Wedding March’.

And now here they were, just minutes away from their nuptials.

The prison staff had more than risen to the wedding challenge.

One of the senior officers had brought in his son’s navy three-piece suit and a white shirt for Tom to wear, and Barry had loaned his own brand-new brown leather brogues for the day. Tom’s neck felt uncomfortably damp under the starched collar of the shirt.

Jesse’s face flashed into his mind’s eye, the way it often did when he was nervous. Since the moment nearly ten