Chapter 21
QUE
“You can put ?er down, you know.” I looked over to where Nickie was bouncing off Rudy’s shoulder each time he took a step in the knee-high snow.
He didn’t respond, just set her onto her feet. She sprinted to the left. He took three more large steps, scooped her up around her waist, and slung her back over a shoulder again. Then he turned to me and cocked an eyebrow.
“Right, point made. Ya don’t have to be smug about it,” I grumbled.
“You’re one to talk,” he threw back at me, and now I was the one grinning. Not because the fucker was right but because of what he was being right about.
Five years together plus the other four before that meant I didn’t need him to say a word for me to know what the big guy was thinking.
His little mannerisms said it all. The tightening of his jaw muscle, the twitching of his lips, the crinkling of the lines around his eyes he’d swear he didn’t have.
Don’t let ?em fool ya. Broody Rudy was just as vain as I was. He was just better at hiding it from everyone who wasn’t me.
It was why I’d waited and watched, never pushing him for more until the time was right.
Was I flirty? Did I hint at it? ?Course.
Would have been weird if I hadn’t. But I never pushed the stubborn bastard.
Just his buttons. In every other sense, I’d been patient.
Wined and dined him—toilet wine and rations I’d stolen outta the prison commissary. But beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Point was, our connection went deeper than the physical and the physical went small-intestine deep. Still, the first time he let me kiss him on the mouth was deeper than that…
“Weber, Laurent, kitchen duty. Now!” Officer O’Reilly barked out from the other side of the bars.
I looked to Rudy, who looked back over at me. His way of telling me to shut my trap. I smirked. My way of telling him there wasn’t a chance in hell of that happening.
I stepped up to the bars and slipped my arms through the little slot in the door, waiting to be cuffed.
“Thought Kelly and Mitchel were on kitchen duty this week?” I asked, brushing O’Reilly’s wrist with my thumb as he dropped my bracelets in place and cinched ?em extra tight.
“You wouldn’t be playing favorites, now would ya, officer? ”
“That mouth is gonna get you in trouble one of these days, inmate,” he grunted under his breath.
“Good thing it gets me outta trouble too.” I winked at him, my eyes flicking down to the stiffy I could make out in O’Reilly’s uniform pants.
“Knock it off, Laurent,” he hissed.
“Got it, boss.” I stepped back and offered him a mock salute that looked about as weird as it felt with my hands joined at the wrists.
Rudy stepped up to the door next, the process much quicker for someone whose favorite pastime wasn’t talking back.
A few minutes later, we were walking out of B-Block, past several more security doors, and deposited into the kitchen area. Then O’Reilly released our wrists and slammed the door shut.
“You got twenty minutes, Laurent,” he whispered from the other side while Rudy crossed his arms and glared at me.
“What’s going on?”
I shrugged a shoulder before disappearing into the walk-in fridge. Reappearing with a few Twinkies pushed together to look like a cake, a shit-ton of Cool Whip globbed on top, and two little figures made from toothpicks sticking out.
“And what is that supposed to be?” he asked. Mostly because he was looking for something to say. We both knew what today was. What it was supposed to be. We both also didn’t talk about it, even though I thought we should.
“It’s no designer wedding cake, but it was the best I could do considering the circumstances.” I kept my eyes focused on his, even as he was shooting daggers into my forehead.
“Don’t…”
“Why not?” I turned my back on him and used some dental floss I’d pinched to cut the cake into slices.
The knives were all behind locked doors, and it would take more than a quick blowie for O’Reilly to agree to that one.
He’d already given me two visits to Rudy’s cell this month alone—codefendants weren’t supposed to CO-mingle.
I slopped a piece of Twinkie cake onto a plate and passed it to Rudy while he continued to stare at it like it might eat him instead. “I’m not doing this, Que.”
“Yes, you are,” I replied simply. “I think instead of moping around all day, we should celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?” I could see the way his jaw was ticking. Most people would assume he was angry. He wasn’t. He was hurting. Worse than I’d ever seen him hurt before. “The fact she cheated on me? The fact I lost my mind? The fact I killed her?”
“The fact you dodged a bullet… and she didn’t.” I shook my head, plucking a piece of cake off the counter and smashing it into his face.
Rudy just continued to stare at me for a moment, Cool Whip dripping off his chin and little bits of Twinkie clinging to the inside of his nose. Beneath it, his skin was turning red while the vein on the side of his neck was pulsing. “I can’t believe you just did that…”
“Whelp, believe it.” I swiped up a dollop of cream from the tip of his nose with my index finger and sucked it clean.
Nearly biting it off when Rudy smashed his own piece of cake into the side of my head when I wasn’t looking.
I turned back and grinned at him. “If you wanted to give me a facial, Rue-Rue, all ya had to do was ask.”
He shook his head disapprovingly, but he was grinning.
Or almost grinning. His lip was a little higher on one side at the very least. Higher than that when I took another piece of cake and chucked it at his chest. And then we were laid out, flat on our backs on the kitchen floor, covered in Cool Whip and Twinkie icing while staring up at the drop ceiling.
After a few minutes of silence, Rudy sighed, his voice barely a whisper when he said, “Thanks.”
I rolled onto an elbow to look at him while he continued to avoid looking at me. “Close your eyes,” I told him.
“What?”
“You heard me, asshole. Close your eyes,” I repeated.
“Why? What are you gonna do?” he side-eyed me.
“If I wanted to ravage your ass, it wouldn’t be all that hard to do when you’re sleeping. Now be a good boy and close your eyes, Weber.”
He huffed and puffed, but after a few more seconds, he closed his eyes and I lowered my mouth to his, brushing lightly at first. Then deepening it when he didn’t instantly curse me out or pull away.
It didn’t take long after that for him to let me shove my tongue down his throat.
I climbed on top of him, straddling his torso as he gripped me around the waist.
He wouldn’t open his eyes, though. Just like I knew he wouldn’t, not until he accepted it was finally okay for him to move on. Even if that moving on was with another dude.
“I could toss your ass across the room if I wanted to, ya know,” Rudy grumbled from beneath me.
“You don’t want to.”
“Yeah, and how do you know?”
“?Cause right now your dick is poking me in the dick.” I grinned. “Besides, every groom deserves to get kissed on his wedding day,” I whispered at the same time O’Reilly started pounding on the kitchen door, signaling that our time was up.
Another few more loud, quick taps broke me out of that memory and had me staring at the cabin door. Blitz tugged it open with a joint pressed between his lips and a cookie he must have saved in a hand.
Rudy stalked past him and dropped Nickie onto the couch a little rougher than necessary. “I don’t care what you do with her, but don’t you dare let her out of your sight—and I mean it…”
He gave Dane and Dash a pointed look. The fear of the unknown was much worse than anything he could have said as he stomped to the back of the cabin. I followed him, stopping short when he started dragging a little sled back up the hill towards our drop site.
“Pick up the pace, Thumper! Or do I have to carry your ass too?” he yelled out, and I grinned.
“Wouldn’t mind a little princess treatment if I’m being honest,” I yelled back.