And maybe he could. Maybe that was why air came into his lungs so easily these days, as if the pain in his shoulder didn’t matter, and the predators didn’t matter, and nothing in the world mattered except for the hand on his back and the voice on the phone. “Jenny,” he said, and finally a bit of the guilt came back. It wasn’t fair to have all this. To have taken so much for himself after everything his sister had sacrificed for him. “Can I speak to her? Is she—?”
“Here,” Jenny said, too soon, and he realized she must have been right there, as close to Nat, maybe, as Eli was to him right now. She’d heard everything. Knew everything. As she should. He’d never wanted to keep anything from her. But was it right? If it caused her pain—if she thought he loved her any less— “Sammy, are you happy?”
And he sank a little. He might have gone to his knees ifEli’s arm hadn’t been there, ready and able to take all the weight. “Yes.” And he wondered if it was wrong. To feel this much. To admit it. As if he were showing off his good fortune. But denying it would have been worse, so he denied nothing and let her hear the gratitude in his voice—not as much as she deserved, maybe, but there wasn’t enough in the world for that.
“Good,” she said, and said it with so much satisfaction that he found he was finally able to summon up the bravery to ask the question he’d been dreading for months. “And Darren?” he managed. “Will you tell me? How is he treating you?”
Chapter Eighteen
The Final Night
He spent the next couple of days in a misty kind of dream, almost a stupor, except there was too much energy to call it that. He spent most of the time in Eli’s arms, or on the phone. “Tell me,” he’d demand of an ever-patient Nathaniel. “Tell me how it’ll be.” And Nathaniel would tell him about the maple tree in front of the house, and the initials Hailey had already added to its trunk. About the nearby cafe that served a different dessert every Thursday, and the library where they already had a card for him, issued by the head librarian even if it was against regulations.
“And our room is all ready, of course,” Hailey assured him every phone call no matter how many times her father tried to dissuade her of its not being necessary.
“I’m not going to fight you on this,” she’d say to her father with a tone that implied she was very much gearing up to fight over it. “Samuel should sleep wherever he wants, of course, I just think it’s a little premature to assume he’ll be rooming with you just because he’s gay and you’re a little handsome.” And she pretended not to hear any retort Eli made to that. “Sure, he’ll want your company when I’m at Mommy’s, but I don’t think you understand your place in the pecking order. You’re his boyfriend. I’m his best friend. Bros before hoes, daddy. You should know that by now.”
He didn’t know which title he liked better. Boyfriend hada lot of prestige, but he’d never had a best friend before. It made him nervous to think about. He was sure he didn’t know enough about the duties of being a best friend. He tried doing research, but that wasn’t really the same thing as knowing. Thankfully, Hailey did a decent job of laying those fears to rest. “Of course you know how to be a best friend. You’re already doing it, aren’t you?”
“If you say I am.”
“I do say so,” she said, and then laughed, because when it was just the two of them talking together, they didn’t have to take things so seriously. Not that there weren’t serious things to discuss.
“I don’t think you should ask permission for every little thing,” she said when they got to discussing the next day’s visit—doubly important because of it being a Saturday, and the first one he’d been cleared to have since his shoulder injury. “I know it must feel strange when they’ve been together so long and everything is new to you, but I think that makes it more their responsibility than yours to figure things out. You don’t want to make mistakes, of course, but I think it’s better to live and ask forgiveness if you need to, then to spend all your time analyzing and being too scared to do anything.”
It was solid advice, but like all good advice it was easier to understand than to put into practice. After very little sleep, he decided he’d let Nathaniel take the reins. He’d follow the man’s lead in that visit and every visit after. That seemed both the wisest and most respectful course of action—a course of action he forgot about entirely when Alvaro opened the gate, and there was Nathaniel—wonderful, smiling and beautiful. Never mind the plan, he forgot the rules of the prison entirely as he ran through the crowd, knocking aside one person by accident, and blatantly shoving away another, before he finally caught the slender man, lifted him entirely off the ground in his enthusiasm, and kissed him with so much feeling he forgotall about breathing until someone seized him by the back of the shirt and wrenched them apart. Then he remembered his lungs.
“Nathaniel,” he said, sure no prettier name existed in all the world. “Can I be your wife?”
He hadn’t meant to say that part out loud. It was just a stupid thing he’d thought up because of what Eli had said, about still having Marie and trying to make up for it. He couldn’t be a husband, of course, and he wouldn’t dream of usurping that position. But if Eli could have a wife—and not a great one from what he’d heard—then maybe, if Nathaniel was feeling generous—
“Hiswhat?” said Darren, who still had a hold on the back of his shirt—a hold that would become strangling soon, though Samuel’s mind was too busy processing the feeling of Nathaniel’s mouth to note the danger.
“Sure,” Hailey said and took him by the hand. “If it means I can see you in a wedding dress.”
Eli caught her up before she could get to the table and blew a raspberry into her neck. “With a low-cut neckline,” he said once Hailey had battered him away. “To sweeten the pot for Dr. Boob-guy here.”
Nathaniel tapped at Darren’s wrist to loosen it. “As if it needs sweetening.” Then he leaned in to press a kiss to his mouth. “I agree—but only if I can be yours too.”
It was the best deal he’d ever made, and he was ashamed by just how much he wanted to get it in writing, though Nathaniel didn’t mind. As soon as he got the request, the man grabbed a napkin and scribbled out:I, Nathaniel Pearson-Thompson-Fuller, do hereby promise Samuel Pearson-Thompson-Fuller to be loyal to him for all my days as we sail together into blissfully wedded matrimony.
“I don’t like it,” Darren declared and put his hand down over the napkin before his brother could finish signing it.
And Samuel, who wanted only to snatch up the napkin and laminate it against all future damage, forced himself to let it go. It helped that he had the name Pearson-Thompson-Fuller ringing in his ears.
He didn’t think he could get any happier, so he wasn’t expecting much the following Monday when the warden called them back into her office.
“One year,” she said to Eli. “And don’t try to bargain because this is the best I can do, understand? And it’s conditional on his behavior being perfect and your ass being out of here first thing tomorrow.”
Eli said nothing at first. He was too still, too beautiful, and almost too late Samuel realized that his beloved was furious. “A year?” And the way Eli said it made it clear what was coming next. And maybe he would have been right to make that fight. Maybe he really could have bargained for better. But Samuel was too greedy about his new happiness. He believed in it so much already, all of Nathaniel’s words that he’d drunk up like a dying man. But he wasn’t dying. He was alive. And that life brought so much fear with it. So much caution. He wouldn’t trade it for anything. Not even for his best fantasies.
“We’ll take it.” He stepped in front of Eli and lunged over the desk to get at the warden’s hand—to seal the bargain with his own blood if he had to. “One year,” he repeated. “And Eli goes free tomorrow.”
He would have traded a lot more than a year. Actually, he might have traded all his years—even now when he knew how much more precious a year could be. In his mind he was seeing Christmas with the Pearson-Thompsons. He’d never celebrated Christmas before, but Nathaniel had helped him see it. The strings of popcorn on the tree and Eli’s triple chocolate cookies. Hailey had drawn him a picture of the mantelpiece. They had a stocking for him too. It was green with blue stitching and Darren had already put a brick of charcoal in it for him. Hesmiled at Warden Cruces. He could have kissed her. He could have kissed all of them. “Thank you.”
Eli was NOT in the mood for a party, and every heartfelt congratulations offered to him was received like a personal insult, and Samuel was happy to see Eli vent his anger. Current satisfaction aside, he still resented the general prison population for daring to steal so much of Eli’s time and attention over the last few months. But Eli was too polite to do more than silently seethe, and spent most of his own goodbye party giving last bits of advice to his “patients,” many of whom were barely holding back tears at the thought of seeing him go.
“That’s right,” Samuel ruthlessly confirmed. He’d said it over a dozen times already, and it tasted better and better with each repetition. “Eight a.m. tomorrow. Nathaniel’s coming to pick him up.”
