Chapter 62
Chapter sixty-two
Yosh
Is it weird to visit your ex in jail?
Probably about as weird as visiting your enemy in jail. Today, I’m doing both.
I’d talked it through with Tom and realized I need some kind of closure with them. Both of them.
Deep Diver had reached out last month. The first time the penitentiary in Saint Luna called, I panicked and hung up. He probably wasted his one call for the day, maybe even the week.
I felt guilty afterward, so I hoped he’d try again.
He did. Asked if I could visit him in person. Said he wanted to talk about “the colorful fish in the ocean.”
I knew it was code. We used that line whenever we needed to meet in secret. It meant he couldn’t speak freely on the phone.
I’m curious what he wants. Maybe he wants to apologize. Maybe he wants to hear about Tom. Maybe he’ll try one last time to win me back.
I don’t know.
What I do know is that I’m going to call him out for that kiss-and-tell stunt he pulled at the dive bar. I still can’t believe Tom—along with half the bar—heard all of it.
Even worse; Tom took mental notes on how to sexually please me. Saved me a round of first-time instructions, but still.
Terrence is a different story.
I want to look him in the eye and ask if it had been worth it, drugging me that night at SeaBreeze.
I want to hear his version. Why he did it.
He’s already in jail for the smuggling mess with Deep Diver, so he might as well admit it.
I’m going to rub it in his face that they offered me the position as head of the department.
And rub it in even more that I turned it down like it meant nothing.
Of course it didn’t mean nothing.
But he doesn’t need to know that.
A guard buzzes me and a couple of other visitors through the first steel door, then through a second.
I empty my pockets into a plastic tray, walk through the metal detector. A pair of homophobic eyes slide over me and stay a bit too long.
Not my first time visiting an ex in prison.
I follow the guard down the corridor. It feels like walking through a bunker, grey concrete and fluorescent lights.
They bring me into the public visiting room with steel tables and plastic chairs. Deep Diver is already there, smiling at me like we’re about to have coffee instead of… whatever this is.
“Raynor,” I say. I think it’s the first time I actually call him by his name. The whole island knows him as Deep Diver. Part of the reason I wanted to keep our encounters in the dark. Being called Deep Diver’s house reef would be hard to live down on an island like this.
I sit down. He looks at me with a glint in his eyes, a big grin to match.
Then he grips my hands on the table.
“No touching!” a guard barks, but I’ve already pulled my hands back. Heat rushes to my face.
“Don’t do that,” I hiss at him.
He leans back in his chair and folds his arms. “Alright. You’re with the rockstar now, right?”
“If you mean Tom, then yes. He’s my boyfriend.”
“That hurts,” he says with a crooked smile. “Didn’t think you were capable of committing. At least, that’s what you’ve been saying for the last couple of years. Guess I’m not a rockstar.”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t want to discuss this.”
“I actually met Rockstar at the dive bar. Spicy wild thing. Would’ve fucked his straight ass too.”
“Ray…” I had all my words ready to put him in place, but suddenly all of them stay stuck in my throat. Instead I tip my head and change the conversation.
“How do you feel here?”
“It sucks, obviously. I miss the ocean. But I have to say…” He leans forward, cupping a hand beside his mouth as he whispers. “It’s fucking gay heaven in here.”
I burst out laughing. It immediately catches the guard’s attention. She shoots us a sharp look.
“I get it,” I say. “I’ve been in the army.”
“I swear, Yosh. At first they thought I’d just spread my ass and let them go for it.
But I tell them, ah-ah—I’m Deep Diver, I’m the one doing the bottom exploring.
Most of them walk off annoyed, some even furious.
But give them a few days, a week tops. They all come crawling back with a condom and a packet of mayonnaise. ”
I cover my eyes. “Shut up, that’s gross.”
“Now I even charge for my services. Or they offer protection in return.” He shrugs. “Prison could’ve been worse.”
I give him a small nod. His eyes dart sideways, pointing at a family a little further off. Big guy full of tatts, his wife and a little boy visiting.
“Did him an hour ago. Probably a little sore when he walked into the visitation room.”
I don’t want to, but again, I chuckle a bit too loud. Both the guard and the guy are staring at us now. It has Deep Diver smiling at me like he wants to undress me.
Not my intention at all, so let’s get to business.
“Look, Ray. We broke up four months ago. I’m sorry for how things ended. If there’s something you want to talk about, I think now’s the moment.”
He licks his lips, then thinks for a second. “I need to warn you,” he whispers.
My brows rise in surprise. “Warn me? What fo–”
“Shhh.” He looks around nervously. Then he smiles again, forced and fake.
“Act normal. There are eyes and ears everywhere.”
I nod and smile too. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure, I can’t…”
From the corner of the room, I see the guard approaching us.
“Trust no one,” he tells me fast and stands.
“This visitation is over. You need to leave,” the guard says. Deep Diver is already walking away from the table.
“I have a second visit planned.”
The guard sizes me up, then sighs. “Wait in the hallway.”
So I do. I lean back against the cold concrete wall and go over Deep Diver’s words again.
I need to warn you. Eyes and ears everywhere. Trust no one.
Is he messing with me? He knows how easily I spiral. No… he wouldn’t. For all his flaws, Deep Diver doesn’t play with my head like that. If he said it, he believes it.
Maybe I should meet him again and ask what he really meant. Or maybe that’s exactly what he wants, and he dropped that line to make sure I keep coming back.
Fuckfuckfuck.
What am I supposed to do with that? He can’t just drop a bomb like that and walk away.
Well… it’s not like he has many options in jail.
My feet start moving toward the exit. Six steps.
No—no, I need to stay. I’m here to meet Terrence.
I turn around and walk back to my spot.
My spot against the concrete. I’ve claimed it now.
I turn again.
The guard is probably wondering why I’m walking in circles.
Breathe, Yosh. Breathe. Not the place to freak out.
One wrong move and they might taser me. The guards are already watching me, now they’re talking about me.
My meds. Fuck, my meds are in the glove compartment.
I’m going to walk out. I’m going to leave and come back another—
“Yosh? Yosh Aoki?”
The guard from the visitation room calls my name. I freeze, then turn around.
I could still walk out. I’m not the one locked up. Nothing’s stopping me from heading straight for the exit. So why are my feet carrying me back to the visitation room instead?
I nod to the guards—all of them—and return to the same table I sat at minutes ago. Only now there’s a different face waiting for me, and this one isn’t smiling the way Deep Diver did when I walked in.
“What a fucking disappointment,” Terrence mutters, mumbling something up at the ceiling.
I can’t tell if he’s cursing me or asking the gods why life is doing this to him.
“What?”
“First the guy in front of me took the last chocolate pudding, and now it’s you instead of Denice.”
She must be the girl from SeaBreeze. I remember her picking Terrence up from work once.
“Sorry,” I say softly.
“What do you want, Aoki? You get the job?”
“I didn’t take it.”
He shakes his head, letting out a hollow laugh. “Of course you didn’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re one big disappointment, Aoki. All that talking you do. All that showing off. How smart, how skilled, how capable you are. But in the end, you never accomplish anything.”
My breath catches, my fingers tense on the table. Terrence smiles.
I pull myself together.
He’s aiming for my weaknesses because he knows them. When the drug task force raided his studio, they also found classified patient files on his laptop. Mine included.
“You broke into Erin’s hard drive and read everything about me. My history, my diagnosis, my treatments. How many years did you get for that on top of the drug-smuggling thing?”
Terrence places his palm flat on the table and leans forward.
“First of all, Aoki, not everything is about you. I wasn’t digging in her hard drive to get that information about you. But I have to say, it was pretty good reading material during my toilet breaks.”
I am not sure if I want to choke on my tongue or scream.
“Second, I had nothing to do with those drugs. Someone planted evidence in my studio and made Deep Diver testify against me. I’m getting fucking framed for this, and I’m starting to believe it was you. So drop the act and tell me what you want.”
He death-stares me. I match it.
“You actually believe I would do something like that? How?”
Then his mouth curls into a grin. “Of course not. Like I said, you’re not capable of doing anything. I just wanted to see your reaction.”
Now I do scream and jump to my feet. A guard is coming our way.
“Out. It’s time to go.”
“Wait, wait,” Terrence tells the guard. “Give us a second.”
This is turning into a mess.
“Listen carefully, Aoki, Fennbrae, or whatever name you’re pretending to have.
You’re going to help me prove my innocence, or I’ll leak everything Erin documented.
Your father. Afghanistan. That motel, and the biker you’ve killed there.
And believe me, I have things on McKenna too.
Like, for example, the one thing his daughter doesn’t need to know. ”
I nod. I don’t even know why.
My vision goes blurry, purple and teal mixing with reality. I just want to get out of this place as fast as I can.
The guard taps the table. I flinch. “It’s time.”
She leads me out. I follow.
My legs feel disconnected from the rest of me. They’re walking on autopilot while my head is all over the place.
When I pass the detector, I make the mistake of looking back. The guard from the visitation room is talking into her radio. Ahead of me, the guard at the gate lifts his own to his mouth and starts speaking too.
Sweat makes a river down my forehead.
Great. Perfect. Exactly what I needed.
When I step outside, the heat hits me straight in the face. I squint, raising a hand to shield my eyes from the sun.
I’m grateful for it. It feels like the real world again.
I walk to the Gremlin 2.0, climb in, and crank the AC to the highest setting.
My hands are shaking. I open the glove compartment, grab my meds, and take what I need, washing the pills down with a few sips from my water bottle. Then I snatch the emergency paper bag and bring it to my mouth before the hyperventilating starts again.
Fuck. This was the worst idea ever.
They both came at me before I even touched my bullet points.
Deep Diver warned me. Terrence threatened me.
What’s real? What’s a lie?
What am I supposed to do?
This didn’t happen.
None of this happened.
I was never here. I never—
I changed my mind at the door. I didn’t go inside.
That’s what happened.
Nothing happened.