Chapter Sixteen
Jett
My dick won’t go down. I could lie to you and tell you that it’s because I haven’t had enough sex since I came to this stupid fucking prison, but the truth is that I haven’t had sex with anyone since I got here.
At all. I never had the urge to. Sex was never and has never been at the forefront of my brain.
Until now.
I can’t stop fucking looking at Everest. I catch myself constantly stealing glances at him, and I don’t think that he’s noticed, but it’s pissing me off. I can’t control it no matter how hard I try. I get lost in thought and then suddenly I realize that I’m staring right at him.
It took everything in me not to proposition him in the shower again, but I’m not trying to piss him off. I’m sure that the last thing he wants is for me to constantly be begging him for sex, but at this point, I foresee that happening in the very near future.
It’s not just the way he fucking looks either.
It’s the way everything out of his mouth is like poetry, how smart he is, the way he talks about the outside world like it still exists for him, his sassy little attitude that he gets.
It’s everything. I want to crawl inside of him and carve out a permanent spot for myself.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Alright. Listen… don’t touch anything. Fucking nothing. They said if anything else gets stolen from here again that prisoners won’t be able to come inside anymore. There are cameras everywhere. So, just…“ I wave my hands at the pockets on his shorts. “Keep your hands in your pockets or something.”
Which makes no sense to me, because everything is fucking free. We don’t earn an income here, so we don’t actually pay for anything. According to Ollivander it has something to do with keeping record of the stock count or something. I don’t fucking know.
“Yeah,” he eyes the sliding glass doors in front of us wearily as he nods. “Alright.”
The automatic doors open for us as we step inside the employee shop.
This isn’t nearly as big as the stores outside of the prisoner wings, but it has all the basics for trading.
If a prisoner asks for something more specialized, then we have to go to the normal stores on our own time or go up to the town when we’re allowed to.
Some guards have that privilege, and some don’t.
Everest follows behind me silently. You’d think that I asked him to stay quiet, not keep his hands to himself.
I glance back at him as I walk past a couple of aisles to get where I need to be.
His eyes are scanning around the entire shop, taking in everything he can, which is perfectly fine by me.
Hopefully he’ll see something else that he’s willing to make a trade for.
I turn sharply, heading down to the section for art supplies.
I’ve never come to the shops with anyone else, but sometimes I’m early for my shift and stop in here just to wander around.
Almost anything you could ever need is in here, and it still shocks me how they managed to fit it all inside such a small space.
When I lived outside the walls, I saw petrol stations bigger than this.
I come to an abrupt stop in front of the sketch pads, scanning the limited number of options before grabbing up the biggest one.
I can feel Everest’s eyes on me before he starts scanning through items on the shelves.
He slips a hand from his pocket and starts to reach out and touch a pack of alcohol markers on the shelf before he catches himself and forces his hand back into his shorts.
I would snatch them up for him if he was planning to only make art, but he mentioned writing a letter to his friend at some point and markers wouldn’t be very good for that, so I move down farther and grab the biggest box of colored pencils they have.
He hums his approval as I tuck them under my arm with the sketchpad, and that makes me feel a bit more confident in my choice. I think it’s the only reasonable option for both drawing and writing.
“How will I sharpen those?” He asks as he follows behind me to the front of the shop.
“Lance and I both carry a knife on us, so we can sharpen them whenever you need us to.” I explain as I slide everything on the counter.
The guy behind the register eyes Everest before glancing back at me.
He’s been in here every time that I come in and wander around, and there’s always plenty of other people shopping here.
He knows exactly what this is, what this shop is for, and I don’t sense a shred of disapproval in his perusal.
In fact, he seems to be just as enamored with Everest as I am.
He turns his attention back to Everest, his eyes going places they have no right to go, and before I even know what’s happening, a threatening growl rattles up from deep within my chest. I push Everest behind me with an arm as I pull my badge from my pocket and swipe it at the register.
The cashier fucking chuckles at me as he bags up the items, but I ignore him as I yank them from him and usher Everest out the door hurriedly.
By the time we get back to the room, I think that I’m gonna get away with that little scenario, but I’m wrong.
Of course, I’m wrong.
As soon as we step inside the room, Everest pounces.
“So, what the fuck was that about? Hm?” He asks accusingly as he drags the chair behind him over to the desk, the legs screeching loudly as they scrape across the floor. He doesn’t bother looking over at me, he just plops down into the chair and opens up the box of pencils.
“He was eyeing you like a piece of meat, and it was pissing me off.” I answer as cooly as possible.
“Mhmm. Don’t tell me that you’re one of those clingy guys that gets attached after sleeping together one time.
“ He says as he pulls a couple of pencils from the box and sets them out on the desk. I watch with rapt attention as he picks up a pastel purple pencil and starts to sketch something. After a couple of moments of silence, he stops drawing and glances up at me. We stare at each other for a few seconds before I realize that he’s waiting on me to say something.
“Even if that were the case, would it really matter? It’s not like you can get rid of me.”
His eyes scan my face, but there isn’t a shred of acceptance or denial to his claim from me, and it’s for a particularly good reason.
I don’t fucking know if I am or not.
I’ve never been romantically involved with someone before. I’ve had sexual relations with men and women, but I always knew what they were from the very beginning. I had a duty outside of this prison, and I was dedicated to it. Mind, body, and soul.
Getting off was just that… getting off.
Maven is strict, but he allows us to create bonds with other people, which is something that I’ve never had the option of doing before. Am I particularly fond of the idea of falling in love? No. Am I especially fond of Everest, though? That’s a possibility.
“Don’t…” He says as he continues to stare at me intensely. “Don’t get attached to me, Jett.”
“Why not?” I raise a brow curiously as I push myself back against the wall to relax.
He turns back to his drawing, gently pushing his pencil back into the box to exchange it for a different color.
“I’m not a good person, JP. There will be an ending to anything we start, and it won’t be a pretty one.
You know those movies with the big nuclear explosions at the end?
That’s what it’ll be like. Everything will turn to dust, and nothing but memories will be left to haunt us. Both of us.”
I pause for a moment as he continues to draw. The way he explains things always fascinates me. He has this way of adding unnecessarily intricate details. His comparisons are always relatable, but they’re borderline obscene. “That was intriguingly morbid, and yet… artistically beautiful.”
He looks over at me sternly, his eyes laser focused on mine. “I wasn’t kidding, Jett.”
“Noted,” I say with a nod. “Only sex.”
He returns to drawing, and I watch quietly as he gets lost in what he’s doing. I almost miss the constant back and forth that we shared last night, but I think I’ve found that watching someone work on something they’re passionate about is just as entertaining.
Or maybe it’s just because it’s Everest.