Chapter Thirteen #3
Eli didn’t shower with him. Samuel knew it was meant as a courtesy, but it didn’t feel like one.
He thought briefly about walking into Eli’s stall anyway.
What would the man do if he did? Kick him out?
Probably not. Most likely, he’d just laugh and offer to wash his hair.
Because to Eli, he was a kid. A dumb kid with no sex appeal and a problematic past.That was how it had always been between them, and yet, when he came out of the shower and nearly bumped into Ned, he thought about starting a fight.
Just shoving the guy into the wall and letting it escalate until some of his stupid pitiful resentment was washed away into something even more stupid and pitiful.
But he behaved himself. It was what Jenny expected.
What Eli expected. What Nathaniel and Hailey expected.
To keep his nose clean and stay out of trouble. To be smart. To be safe.
He watched Eli when he dropped his towel.
Watched him slather on the coconut butter and sit down to put on his socks.
He watched with an on-edge angry lustfulness that had him grinding his teeth together and wanting to punch someone.
And why not? Why did he have to be smart?
He was just a murderer. A dangerous criminal.
No one could expect better from someone like that. No one could want someone like that.
“Where are you going?” Eli called out to him.
He had no idea. “Phone call.”
“Well, hold on a second, I need to—Samuel!”
He took long angry strides down the hallway.
The first person that messed with him—the first one to even glance at him—was getting sent to medical.
But maybe someone was looking out for him that day, or maybe people had just learned to stay away, because he met no one in the hall.
Instead, he came to the phone bank. He didn’t think he had anyone to call.
He’d only meant to use it as an excuse to get away, but his hand had already lifted the receiver.
Nathaniel picked up on the first ring, but Samuel didn’t give the man time for a greeting.
“I’m going to take him from you!” He had the receiver pressed so tightly to his face it would probably bruise. “I’m going to take him, and it’ll be all your fault for being such a stupid trusting asshole!”
He wanted Nathaniel to yell. He’d been waiting for Nathaniel to yell at him since day one. He needed it. His guilt needed it. He was going crazy.
“Sam,” Nathaniel said, and he wasn’t yelling. He didn’t even sound angry.
He couldn’t believe it. “Did you hear me?”
“You want Eli, and you’re finally going to do something about it.”
He would have thrown the phone if it weren’t connected to the box. “And that’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“What do you want me to say? That I’m surprised? I’m not. Or maybe I am. That you lasted this long.”
“It’s not a joke! I can’t take this anymore!”
“And what are you waiting for? My permission? This is between the two of you.”
His hand pulled the phone from his ear, and he nearly slammed it back into the cradle. But something stopped him. He pressed the phone back to his ear and said, “Why don’t you hate me more?”
“For the same reason you don’t hate me.”
“Bullshit. You haven't done anything wrong.”
“I’m with Eli, aren’t I? If not for me, he’d be all yours.”
He recognized the words. Not because Nathaniel had voiced them before, but because he’d heard them already in his own head, and that meant he was prepared for them, having seen through and reasoned with them already.
“Even if he hadn’t met you. It wouldn’t—it doesn’t matter. I’m just a child to him. A puppy. I’m a replacement for Hailey, not you.”
Nathaniel laughed. The sound was strange and so sudden he nearly dropped the phone.
It pissed him the hell off. “It’s not funny!” He felt like an idiot. A class A moron. Why had he come to this man? Did he think that just because Eli had linked them together that he would just magically understand?
“You’re right, it isn’t funny,” Nathaniel said, but was still laughing. “It isn’t funny at all. Samuel, you dumbass, haven’t you ever looked in a mirror? Or do they not have those in prison?”
“That has nothing to do with it. Eli doesn’t care about things like that.”
“Oh? Have you ever seen a picture of Marie?”
His ex-wife? “Why would I have seen something like that?”
“I’ll send one in my next letter, and you tell me if your opinion changes.”
“She’s beautiful?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“But then—” He stopped when he realized how abhorrently rude his next words would have been.
Nathaniel laughed again, louder and longer than before. “You’re not the first to think so. Why did he marry me, right? When I look so ordinary.”
If he’d had a paper bag handy, he’d have put it over his own head. How was he supposed to look Eli in the face and apologize for such a thing?
“You’re not ordinary,” he said, too little, too late. “You have nice skin, and gold flecks in your eyes.”
Nathaniel was still laughing, damn him. He’d never met a man so amused with being insulted.
“Do I? I thought they were just brown. But that doesn’t matter.
The point is, don’t base Eli’s preferences solely on me.
Marie and I couldn’t be more different, and he’ll love Marie until the day he dies. Quit trying to pigeonhole him.”
“He loves her? Still ?”
“Not everyone is so changeable. He likes what he likes.”
“But she cheated on him!”
“Yes,” Nathaniel agreed. “She hurt him. She really hurt him. So don’t make the same mistake. If you love him, you’d better not touch anyone else.”
“As if I would!”
“Well good. Any other issues you need me to iron out for you?”
If Nathaniel had been there, he really might have hit him.
“Don’t condescend to me.”
“And why not? You’re not listening to me either way.”
“I am listening!”
“So you’ll have sex with Eli?”
He choked on his spit again. Or maybe it was his tonsils.
“Well?” Nathaniel pushed. “Will you, or won’t you? Because if yes, you’d better hop to it. He doesn’t sleep well when he’s repressed.”
“You want me to fuck him?” The words sounded even crazier aloud than they had in his head.
“I want a lot of things, Samuel. I want Eli back in his old life, with his office and his colleagues and his patients. I want him back in his garden, tending to his ridiculous flowers and getting stupidly excited over his tomato plants. But most of all I just want him—here, with his family. But I can’t have that.
What I can have is a modicum of his safety and happiness, and you’re the one in a position to make it happen.
So either give that to him, or let him know where things stand, because I have a brother and a daughter who both hate uncertainty, and I want to know what I can tell them already. ”
“Tell them?”
“About you. About our family. I need to know how things will be going forward.”
“You don’t have to worry about anything like that. I’m in prison, and I will be for a long time.”
“I’m talking about afterward, smartass.”
“But that could be—that’ll be years after Eli gets out. He won’t need—”
“You see? You aren’t listening. Why do you call me if you’re not going to listen?”
“I always listen! I could list every word that’s ever come out of your mouth!”
“Well then, rewind to a few seconds ago when I said he wasn’t changeable. Now, or ten years from now, his memory isn’t so short, so when you move in with us—”
“WHAT ?”
Nathaniel pushed on as if he hadn’t just been interrupted. “When you move in with us, I just want to know how it’s going to be. Will you be sleeping in a room with your sister, or do I need to buy a bigger bed?”
He clutched at the phone box. He knew because he’d initiated that he was technically at fault for the conversation, but Nathaniel was going to kill him if he kept at it. “What are you talking about? ”
“I’m not moving out just so you can have your post-prison domestic fantasy,” Nathaniel snapped. “If I can share Eli, you can learn to do it too.”
“No, I wouldn’t—I would never suggest—”
“Wouldn’t you? Isn’t that what you were screaming at me earlier? That you would take him from me?
He didn’t have a bag, but when he hung up, he’d have to go and find one, because just pressing his face into his arm wasn’t enough to hide his shame. He could only be grateful Nathaniel couldn’t see him through the phone. “I didn’t actually mean… I was frustrated, so—”
“I know. Trust me, I’ve been in your position, and it was worse where I was standing. Marie is not the kind of rival you want. Take my word for it.”
“I’m not your rival.”
“The word doesn’t matter, but I draw the line at sister-wives. Just hearing it makes me throw up in my mouth.”
He was going to lose it. He’d already gone over the edge; it was only confusion that was keeping him from going ballistic again. “What are you talking about? I just—I have no idea what you’re saying.”
“Then I’ll make it simple. I think we can go ahead with the assumption that our families are going to be one.
We’re well on our way to integrating Jenny already.
Hailey is just mad about her. And Darren, well, I’m not ready to face the music on that one yet, but he doesn’t want her going anywhere either.
You, of course, have already been integrated, so there’s not much to talk about there.
Obviously, it’s going to be rough for a while.
Eli’s going to be shattered when it’s time to leave you behind, but I’ve already made him promise not to do anything stupid to extend his time just so he can—”
“ What ? ”