He told himself to say nothing, but that shoulder was a little too mesmerizing. All his powers of self-control were going into resisting it. “Most days it feels like this is forever. Like I’ll die in here.”
The hand on the back of his neck tightened. “You won’t. You’d only just be thirty. Younger than I am now.”
The shoulder was so close. If he were shorter, he’d have been on it already. “I don’t feel young.”
Eli sighed, then his arm came up and fulfilled his dream, pulling him in until the circle was complete. It was dangerous to be hugged like that. Ever since the discovery of his working penis, Eli had become public enemy number one. But he couldn’t pull away, nor did he want to. He closed his eyes and let himself experience what Nathaniel must have felt every day. Eli was so big he made problems seem small. So big you could almost forget you didn’t deserve him.
“I’ll take care of Nathaniel,” he finally said, though he wasn’t sure how far into the hug it happened. He was shocked by how long it was lasting. He’d never been able to trust his weight to anyone like this—except maybe to his father when he’d been younger. “And Hailey,” he added, “plus Darren, though he’d probably die before he’d let me do it.”
Eli laughed. “You should have seen how he reacted to me. For the first year, he either called me a cheater or a home-wrecker. I’m not even sure he learned my name until after Than and I got married.”
He knotted his fingers in Eli’s shirt. He wasn’t sure when he’d made the conscious decision to wrap his arms around the man. It might have happened on its own. “I don’t know how well I could do it. With my time here, I might only be able to get a jobflipping burgers after this. But I’d be there until they had enough of me. I promise.”
“No burgers. You’ve got a duty to perform. According to Hailey, you’re going to win a Newbery Medal.”
He was glad his face was hidden. How could Eli say such an embarrassing thing, even as a joke?
“I’m sure parents all around the world want their children reading books written by a murderer.” After Hailey had learned about his writing, she’d begged him for samples, and he’d sent them to her—only to her. He sometimes imagined reading the stories to a young Jenny or even a younger version of himself—a version with a normal childhood. In truth, he’d never expected to share the words with another living person, but Hailey’s loneliness made him want to give her friends. It was his first time drawing anything since donning the orange jumpsuit.
“You’re not a murderer.”
“I killed a man.”
“You killed a predator. It was self-defense.”
It had him breaking the hug without meaning to. “Jenny told you?”
Eli smiled at him. A sharp yet soft smile that pulled at his ribs and prickled his skin. “She didn’t have to.”
Chapter Twelve
Jethro
The always-stick-together rule had the unintended benefit of strengthening the lie of their marriage, with Eli known far and wide as the man who had melted the Ice Queen. “How’s that popsicle taste, doc?” Duncan shouted one morning when they were coming out of the showers. “Better than your sister,” Eli replied with a smile that had the rest of the men in the bathroom laughing. It was only Samuel who felt his teeth clench, but he didn’t let it show. He didn’t show anything to anyone, except maybe to Eli, but only when they were safely away in the closet.
He kept expecting things to go wrong. Eli was too beautiful, too generous, and altogether too nice for prison. But people liked Eli, both prisoners and COs. They liked his singing in the showers, they liked his strength out on the yard, and most of all they liked his health expertise. Eli didn’t have access to his prescription pad or his equipment, but he was a good doctor with practical advice and an excellent bedside manner, and that meant becoming the hottest commodity in prison since the criminal defense lawyer who’d been released two years ago.
Samuel loathed it.
It wasn’t just the constant interruptions he hated, or even the potential for harassment the “patients” offered. Often enough it was just sharing Eli that pissed him off. Sharing his smiles, his laugh, his words. But he didn’t spend all his time pissed off. Not even themajority of it, and Rat liked to point that out.
“You’re writing to Hailey, aren’t you?”
The man was cleaning his shoes—the only thing he was fastidious about. Samuel looked up from his letter. He was up in his bunk while Eli was nearby doing some yoga. It was taking a lot of effort to keep himself from sneaking glances.
“Yeah. Why?”
Rat grinned and pointed at his teeth. “You smile when you write to her.”
His hand jumped to his face. There was only surprise on it, but he knew Rat was right. How embarrassing—and potentially dangerous. Especially when it wasn’t just writing to Hailey that was pulling those smiles. Rat had caught him doing it with Nathaniel too. He even wrote to Eli, sometimes, slipping his additions into the man’s mail pile just to see him laugh.
It was the power of those laughs that had him arguing with the warden again.
“I don’t understand why Norm can’t just set aside portions of vegetables for Eli before he starts cooking the rest of it,” he said for the third time. “It would only take him seconds, and it’s something he’s willing to do.”
The warden’s mouth was becoming thinner and thinner as the conversation dragged on. “I told you. We can’t create a precedent for special meal requests. Think about the kind of anarchy that would cause if people thought certain individuals were getting special treatment.”
“But it’s not special treatment. He has adisease. And it’s not like I’m even requesting a gluten-free meal. I’m only asking that those parts that are inherently gluten-free be set aside before they can become contaminated. He’d still be eating what everyone else was eating.”
