CHAPTER 15 JORGE—AN IDEA
Lockdown lifted two days ago. Routine's back—showers in groups, guard posted inside instead of down the hall, twenty minutes alone with Shawn now filed under things that don't happen twice.
Jorge's still turning over the look that guard gave them walking out that day.
Nothing said. Nothing written up, no call to the box, no change in how anybody treats them since.
Just a look, a beat too long, like he'd done math he wasn't sharing the answer to.
Jorge's decided to read it as nothing. Mostly succeeds.
Tonight's quiet in the good way, not the careful way. Shawn's on his back on the bottom bunk, head propped against Jorge's leg, both of them talked out on nothing in particular for the better part of an hour.
"What happens after," Shawn says, out of nowhere, the way he does most things.
"After what."
"After this. Whenever it ends. You get out, I get whatever I get. What's that look like for you?"
Jorge doesn't answer right away. Been avoiding that question in his own head for longer than he'd admit, mostly because every version of the answer that used to make sense doesn't fit right anymore with somebody else's weight against his leg.
"Shop's still sitting there," Jorge says finally. "Empty. Roll gate down. Not gonna run itself back up when I walk back in."
"You got people who worked it before?"
"Had. Rubén handled half of it himself. Rest was me, and one kid I didn't trust enough to leave alone with the good equipment." Jorge's jaw tightens, loosens again. "Been thinking I'll be doing it solo for a while. Didn't used to bother me, working alone. Bothers me more now."
Shawn's quiet a second, something working behind his eyes. "I'm good with my hands."
"Noticed."
"I mean with cars. For real. Nobody ever taught me right, but I pick things up fast, always have. Hotwiring's not the only thing that stuck."
Jorge looks down at him. "You saying what I think you're saying."
"I'm saying a shop's gotta need more than one guy who knows what he's doing eventually. And I'm gonna need something legal to do with these hands when I get out, assuming I get out doing anything but time."
"You'll get out."
"You don't know that."
"No," Jorge admits. "Don't. But I know what a shop looks like needing somebody who actually wants to learn instead of somebody just clocking hours."
Shawn sits up slightly, elbow propping him, looking at Jorge like he's testing whether the idea's serious or just talk to pass a quiet night. "You offering me a job, Delgado?"
"Ain't offering anything yet. Just saying it out loud." Jorge's voice stays careful, like he's handling something breakable. "See if it still sounds like a good idea once we're not two guys in a cell with nothing better to imagine."
"Sounds like a good idea to me right now."
"Everything sounds good at midnight in here."
"Don't do that." Shawn's voice sharpens, just slightly. "Don't talk yourself out of it before I even get a vote."
Jorge doesn't answer right away. Runs a hand absently through Shawn's hair instead, something he wouldn't have let himself do in front of anybody two weeks ago, and finds he doesn't want to stop even now.
"Okay," Jorge says finally. "Not talking myself out of it."
"Good."
"Don't mean it's decided. Means it's not off the table."
"I'll take not off the table." Shawn settles back against his leg, something looser in his shoulders than Jorge's seen there in days. "Beats every other plan I've got right now, which is none."
Jorge doesn't say anything else. Just sits with the idea a while longer, turning it over the way he'd turn over a build he wasn't sure would hold weight yet, and doesn't hate what he finds when he checks it for cracks.
The quiet stretches, comfortable for once instead of careful.
It doesn't last.
Down the tier, somebody starts shouting, guard's voice cutting through sharp and sudden, and both of them go still, the good kind of night ending exactly the way good nights tend to end in a place like this.