Chapter Four #2
But really, it was his own fault for letting time sneak away from him like that.
If Eli hadn’t wasted the time collecting him, he would have been much nearer the front of the line.
But the man wasn’t offended and reached over to ruffle his hair.
Samuel slapped it out of the air, a reflex.
Inside he was trembling. Eli had only touched him for a second, but his whole scalp was on fire.
He was still experiencing the odd tingle when they reached the front of the line.
It was Mathews again. That was good. With Mathews you could get away with more.
He nodded to the man and then twisted away, searching.
Usually Jenny’s eyes were already there, waiting to hook into his own, but his sister wasn’t looking at him.
She was talking to someone else, or rather, listening to someone else—a slim man about average height and of average attractiveness.
Almost everything about him seemed average.
The only things that stuck out about him were a long dark ponytail and skin so pale it was translucent.
He had never seen the man before, and might not have remembered if he had, except that he was certain his sister didn’t know the guy, nor why she might be talking to him.
As if he felt the eyes on him, the man turned his head in their direction and lit up, jumping to his feet, already on the move. He dodged around a mother and her child, stepped right over a chair and then jumped toward Samuel—and passed him.
The stranger was still in the air when Eli caught him, the much larger man actually stumbling back a step from the sheer enthusiasm of the launch. But Eli’s grip was sure, and he hugged the man to himself so tightly there was an audible spinal pop.
Samuel’s brain shorted out. It was impossible. There was no way, in any measure of the universe, that this average shmo could ever be—
“That’s enough! Drop him, inmate.”
But Eli didn’t drop him. He set the man down on his feet like he was the most precious treasure ever found, his crinkled-up eyes exuding so much warmth the room’s temperature went up a couple of degrees.
“Damn, Thompson. You’ve really let yourself go,” the stranger said. His hands were still hovering, wanting so badly to hold on to Eli he couldn’t seem to drop them. “I’ve never seen you uglier.”
“You’re pretty hideous yourself,” Eli said, though his eyes strongly refuted the words. “Those circles under your eyes are almost as black as me. Still not sleeping?”
“The bed’s too big, and Darren too small to replace you. You smell like fish again.”
Eli laughed, and Samuel realized he’d never really heard it before. It wasn’t especially loud or long, but the delight in it went bone deep, rumbling out of some secret place inside Eli only this stranger had access to.
“Blame Samuel. He promised to keep me well-stocked.”
“Samuel!” the man exclaimed, as if just coming back to himself. “You said he’d be here! Where is—”
Samuel found himself looking into a pair of ordinary brown eyes framed by even more ordinary eyebrows.
He was as certain as ever he’d never seen the guy before, and yet the smile that lit the man’s face could have convinced any audience they were long-lost brothers.
“‘Big and blonde,’ he tells me. Conveniently leaving out how gorgeous you are.” The stranger grabbed his hand and pumped like he was trying to wring oil from it, surprisingly strong for his size.
“I can see now why he was trying to keep you to himself, but I insisted I had to meet you. I can’t thank you enough.
Really. Words can’t express it. I was just telling your sister—”
“Jenny,” Samuel said, looking around for her. How could he have forgotten?
But she was right there, hanging a few paces back, observing with the usual reserved focus.
At the sound of her name, she came forward to wrap her brother in a hug of jasmine blossoms. Samuel dropped the man’s hand and hugged her back.
Usually those hugs took all of his attention, but this time he was distracted.
“I didn’t think you could come in such a small package, Samuel. The famous sister, I presume?”
Samuel jerked when Eli pressed a hand to his shoulder and whipped around. “Yes. Jenny, this is—”
“Dr. Pearson-Thompson,” Jenny said, her voice clipped and more than a little frosty. “You’ve been causing trouble for my brother.”
Eli’s hand jumped up to rub at the back of his neck, making the muscles of his arm rotate and pop. “Wish I could deny it. ”
“No,” Samuel said. “I told you, Jen. I acted on my own.”
There was a tug on his arm. The pale man.
There could be no mistaking who he was anymore, but his mind slid over the name, refusing to label him.
The man was Nathaniel, Eli’s husband. He had to be, and Samuel wished suddenly that Jameson was on visitation duty.
He wouldn’t have let a civilian touch him like that.
But Mathews didn’t care. He was picking at something between his teeth, and Chesterson, the other CO, was pushing at her cuticles.
“Come,” Nathaniel said. “I need to thank you some more. Eli, you want to grab the coffee?”
There were vending machines and a small canteen in the visitation room that allowed visitors to purchase food and drink, but prisoners weren’t supposed to be the ones to do it.
But once again, Mathews didn’t care. As soon as Eli had turned to do his husband’s bidding Nathaniel pulled Samuel close and whispered. “Quick. How are things really?”
The man’s face had changed.
“Things?” This close he could see there was a scar running through one of the man’s eyebrows.
“He’s lost weight, and he’s not sleeping. What else? I know there’s more. He makes it sound like everything’s fine, but I need the truth. They’re targeting him, aren’t they?”
His eyes darted over to Eli who was bustling about the coffee station.
He hadn’t gotten more than a glance before his face was wrenched back.
Nathaniel’s expression had creased into anger.
“No, you don’t get to play some bullshit honor code now.
I don’t care if he’s sworn you to silence. You tell me everything right now.”
There was no honor code, and he hadn’t been sworn to silence, but still he hesitated.
He knew how much the truth of things hurt Jenny.
There wasn’t much she could do for him on the outside.
He knew what Eli would want him to do: lie through his teeth.
But he also knew that if he were in Nathaniel’s place, he’d want to know the truth no matter how bad it was.
He took a breath, gathered his thoughts, and began speaking with the same hushed urgency Nathaniel was using.
“Yes, they’re targeting him. Some of these guys haven’t fucked a woman in so long they’ve given up on ever having one again.
Then there are those who don’t want women.
And some just like to rape. For the power of it, and the prestige, and your husband’s the biggest prize this prison has seen.
In here, fucking someone's like owning them, and sex with Eli would make someone lord of the prison block.”
He’d thought Nathaniel was pale before, but he was whiter than milk now. The grip on his arm was making indents. “He’s strong,” Nathaniel said. “He’ll be stronger than anyone who tries.”
“He’s not the biggest one here, and even if he was, these guys don’t play fair.”
The grip tightened still further. His arm was going numb. “But you’ll protect him, right? You already have.”
“I can’t be with him all the time.”
“Why not?”
Because I can’t breathe around him, he thought. Because he scares me more than any of the predators in this place. Instead, he said. “I also need to sleep sometimes.”
“Can’t you do it in shifts?”
He was about to give an instinctive, “Of course not,” and paused. Sleeping in shifts. He’d never trusted anyone to guard his sleep before, nor would he ever, but Eli was the kind of na?ve idiot who might.
“I suppose we could try.”
Nathaniel took a breath, though his grip didn’t ease. “But that wouldn’t really protect him, would it? You can’t watch every second. You need to eat. To shower. To shit. To do any of the thousand normal things people have to do. I know I’m already asking for too much, but can I ask something else?”
No, he wanted to say. I can’t do more. “What is it?”
“Eli says you’re respected here. That the others think of you as untouchable. If you...if you were to take Eli as your prison husband, or whatever they call it—then—”
“No.”
“But—”
He forced intrusive thoughts out of his mind. “You don’t want that. Once a bitch, always a bitch. Much better if he forces them to respect him on his own.”
“And what would that entail?”
“Nothing too crazy. Put a few people in the clinic. He doesn’t need to cause any permanent harm. Just some minor fractures. A concussion or two.”
He paused when Nathaniel’s mouth fell open. “Don’t worry. Your husband can handle it.”
“No, he can’t.”
“He can. You were right about his strength. I think only Big Tom, and maybe Bee could rival him in terms of—”
“ No , Samuel. He can’t. He’s a doctor. And stupidly gentle, besides. He could never hurt anyone. Not unless it was to protect Hailey. And me, I guess. But not for himself.”
The idea baffled him. Self-preservation was a basic drive of the human condition. “Even if you asked him to?”
“I already did. So did Marie, and she’s a lot better at threatening than I am.”
“His sister?”
“His ex-wife—that is, Hailey’s mother. ”
Oh.
Oh .
It was a lot to absorb, but he wasn’t given the time to do it. Nathaniel was already on his ass again. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to. And I know it’s not my place to make assumptions, but you love my husband, right?”
He just stared at him. Was the man unhinged? Love ? In a prison ?
“I ask because I feel like it could fix the problem. You said once a bitch, always a bitch, but what if it wasn’t just a prison sex-ownership thing? What if he really was your husband? Like a real partner. If they knew you loved Eli, they wouldn’t touch him, right?”
He was pulled back, and for one terrifying instant he thought it was Eli, come to kick his ass for daring to listen to such blasphemous words. But it wasn’t Eli. It was Jenny.
“When Sammy first got here, he had to put sixteen men in the clinic. I don’t care if your husband’s had a few sleepless nights, I’m not letting you—"
“What’s going on here?”
This time it was Eli, finally back, and balancing four cups on a tray. “Than, you’re white.”
Eli set the tray down and was at his husband’s side in a moment. “Take a drink. No, let me, your hands are shaking. My heart, it’s not as bad as you think.”
“It’s worse.” Nathaniel refused the water his husband was trying to press on him. “I told you not to lie to me.”
Eli turned his head and pinned Samuel with sudden anger. “What have you been telling him?”
Jenny stepped in front of him, her jasmine perfume like a protective force field.
“Nothing he hadn’t already suspected, and now he’s trying to pressure Samuel, besides.
Well, you’re on your own from now on. I won’t have you putting him in danger just because you’re too much of a gentleman to do what’s necessary to reassure your family. ”
And in so saying, she took hold of Samuel’s wrist and pulled him away.
He didn’t stop her. Why would he? She was rescuing him after all.
But though the relief swept over him like a swaddling blanket, he found himself looking over his shoulder.
Eli had his head bent close to his husband, and the two were conversing with a focus that forced out the rest of the world.
There was no room for anyone else between them.
He faced forward and vowed not to look again. Only trouble would come of meddling with those two, and he was done with trouble.