“Hey, Ryan, have you...” Carly’s words trailed off, and I backed away as I caught sight of her coming up behind Ryan and Ace, going up on her toes to peer at me over their shoulders.
Now I really felt trapped.
“What’s up?” she asked.
Ryan studied me for a moment, and then stepped aside and let her enter. “Bobby’s getting his physical done for the insurance package and it seems he’s not that fond of needles.”
Narrowing my eyes at him, I tried to ignore the doctor who was inching closer to me, cautious, but clearly determined. Sweat broke out across the nape of my neck and forehead. That needle. Aw, fuck...
I tensed. The bite of alcohol stung my nose and I flinched. My face was burning, but I couldn’t stop the involuntary reaction. I’d always hated needles, ever since I was a kid.
“Look at me.”
At the sound of Carly’s voice, I swallowed hard and tried to find the steel that had gotten me through nearly a decade behind bars. “You know, I had to have one of these things done after I got out. It’s only been a year. Why not just get those records?”
She smiled. “You only had the basics done, Bobby.” Her hands cupped my face. “Don’t look at the doctor. Don’t think about the needle. It’s going to be over with before you know it. Just don’t think about it.”
“Easier said than...” I hissed in a breath as I felt a pinch and started to jerk away, but Ryan and Ace were already there. The thought of having to be held down in front of any woman was humiliating, but having Carly see it happen would’ve been so much worse. I managed to keep myself still.
“See?” She flashed her dimples at me. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“You’re not the one who got stuck with a giant-ass needle.” Still, I kept my eyes on hers and worked on breathing. Because I was so focused on that, I was only vaguely aware of what the doctor was saying. When Carly nodded at me, I nodded stupidly in response without even realizing what I was nodding about.
Then it happened.
Something wet swiped down my right arm. Alcohol. I tensed. They were going to stick me again. My eyes slid down to look.
“Hey, Bobby?”
Instinctively, I looked up as Carly leaned toward me.
“What do you think about my shirt?”
I blinked at her. Her shirt? Dropping my gaze to it, I found myself staring down at the swell of her breasts. Her shirt was just a tank top, worn over a sports bra. She’d been working out. I could smell the scent of sweat on her, warm and clean. I didn’t know why some women got freaked out by the idea of sweating. I found myself thinking about leaning in, licking right down...
Something jabbed me in the arm.
Again.
“Son of a bitch!” Shouting, I tried to jerk away.
Ryan and Ace grabbed my arm as Carly ducked away. It was over in less than ten seconds and I jumped up as soon as I was let go. I glared over at the nurse who was calmly disposing of the syringe. Ace coughed politely as he took a step back, but Ryan crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t even blink. The doctor was busy with the little vials of blood he’d collected.
“What the fuck was that shit!” I gestured at the doctor, ignoring the way Carly leaned up against a wall, her hands tucked behind her back. She looked on with wide-eyed interest. Without giving Ryan a chance to answer my rhetorical question, I directed my attention toward the doctor and nurse. “Aren’t y’all supposed to get my
consent
before you jab me with needles?”
“We did.” The nurse looked from me to Carly and Ryan, a slightly amused smile playing across her lips. “I asked if you had an allergies to vaccines and if you wanted to receive the tetanus shot. Your record indicated you hadn’t had one in well over a decade, so you’re certainly due. You nodded yes to indicate your agreement when I explained.”
My mouth fell open and I looked at her for a long moment before swinging my gaze over to Carly.
She shrugged. “You told her yes.”
“I nodded.” I scowled at her.
“That usually signifies
yes
.”
I couldn’t exactly argue without looking more stupid than I already felt.
I was a grown man. I’d done hard time. I’d done things that I wasn’t proud of. Things that would have made my mother roll over in her grave. There had been men in prison who’d backed up when they’d seen me coming, and plenty of men outside of prison who went out of their way to stay out of mine.
And I was scared shitless of needles.
“Y’all suck,” I said, moving to the door. “All y’all. You just suck.”
“Ahem.”
That came from the doctor.
I stopped.
“We’re not exactly...done.”
“I’m not getting jabbed with any more needles,” I bit off.
“No.”
Slowly, I turned my head and looked at him. He smiled, but I knew that sort of smile. It was the kind of smile that came with knowing what he said next wouldn’t be welcome.
“We’re done with that, but we have a bit more we need to talk about.”
***
Two hours later, I was locked up in the little house that was supposed to be my new home. Except if it had been my home, I’d have had liquor available. And I already would’ve been shit-faced drunk.
When the knock came, I ignored it.
It came again and I continued to ignore it.
After three minutes, it stopped and I closed my eyes.
But then I heard the door swinging open a few minutes later and I came off the chair, pressing my back against the wall as I circled around the edge of the room.
Old habits die hard and all that.
I caught a glimpse of him and bit back something ugly just as he came in through the doorway. As Ryan stood there with his back to me, I considered doing something really stupid. It’d be easy...
“If you’re going to do something, do it now.” His voice was level.
Running my tongue across my teeth, I thought about it for two more seconds, and then shrugged the idea off. Mad as I was, fighting was a bad idea. Even if it might feel good. I’d ended up caught up in the mess that was my life all because I’d realized just how good it felt to swing a few punches all those years ago.
Besides, Ryan didn’t deserve it.
“Get the fuck out of here, Ryan.”
I shouldered around him and threw myself back into the chair. It faced out over the wide, placid lake, reflecting the deepening blue of the coming twilight. If I stared at it long enough, hard enough, I could make myself forget what the doctor had made me remember. I could do it.
“Now why would I leave when I came all the way down here just to talk to you?” He took the chair in front of me and placed a bottle in front of me, then set two tumblers down next to the bottle. The green of the bottle glinted at me. He cocked an eyebrow. “Sorry. It’s not bourbon. But I imagine you’re a man who could appreciate a nice scotch.”
“How about I make you eat that nice scotch?”
“Tastes better if you drink it.” He shrugged and cracked the seal.
I watched him, rage bubbling inside me as he splashed some of the amber liquid into the two glasses. After nudging one my way, he sat back in the seat and lifted his own to his lips.
“Get. Out.” I enunciated each word clearly, hoping he’d take the point.
“Nobody else would understand what’s wrong,” he said, ignoring me yet again. “But I get it. It’s been a while, but I’ve been where you are.” He took a sip of his drink. “Well, I can’t say juvie is the same thing as prison, but neither of them are a walk in the park.”
He stretched out his legs and took another slow sip from his glass. Over the rim, he watched me, eyes glittering.
“You know, when I went in, I was about five-eight, skinny as a rail. Probably didn’t weigh one-twenty soaking wet. I thought I was a tough little shit.”
“Stop.” My gut started to twist. I knew where this was going, and it wasn’t any place good. “I don’t want to hear this.”
He kept going. “I didn’t know anything. I was there a week before I got jumped the first time. A couple of the guards got in there, stopped it before anything really bad happened. Ended up having to go to the hospital, overnight stay.” He shrugged, like it was no big deal.
In prison there were degrees of injury. Injuries that one could mostly ignore and walk off, injuries that required a day or two of medical care. I’d had more than a few trips to the infirmary myself.
“A few days went by and then the same kids got me again.” His voice was softer now. “Except no guards came. I couldn’t stop them.”
Shoving upright, I grabbed the scotch and moved away. I stopped once I reached the door that opened out to a small, private deck, but I didn’t go outside. I just stood there and said nothing. There were things I didn’t want to know, but at the same time, I knew what it was like to have something ugly inside, a poison. And I knew how horrible it was to have to share it. So how could I tell Ryan to shut up when I knew how hard it was for him to say it.
“During those six months, it happened two more times. Same kids each time. One ringleader. Would have happened a third time, but I’d gotten my hands on a shiv. When he came at me again, I...” His voice trailed off.
I looked over my shoulder at him.
He was staring outside too, but as he felt my gaze, he looked back at me. “They pressed charges, found me not guilty. Said it was self-defense. Bruises, broken bones...worse. All of it went back for months. But I’d killed a seventeen year-old boy.”
“What do you want me to say?” I asked, my voice rough.
“You don’t need to say anything.” Ryan tossed back the rest of his whiskey and then refilled the glass. He started to put the bottle back down, then shrugged and tipped some more in. “But I knew what the doctor would ask. I was asked the same thing. And when you came out of there...shit, Bobby. I felt like I was looking at an older, meaner version of myself.”
“Fuck.” I looked down at the glass, staring into the pure amber of the liquor like I’d find all the answers I needed at the bottom.
That was a laugh. I didn’t even know what questions to ask.
Slowly, I brought the whiskey to my lips and took a sip. Then, without pause, I drained it. It slid down my throat like silken fire. I let the glass fall to the carpeted floor and stood there, staring up at the sky.
“I knew it was coming. The...hell. My boss, he told me it was coming. The day the trial closed, he said he’d have some friends visit me. I told him I’d be waiting. Happened the third night in. Big, mean mother-fucker. Took four of his friends to take me down.”
Taut silence stretched out. Outside, I could hear the call of birds and I wanted to just focus on them and ignore everything else.
Instead, I lowered my head and focused on Ryan.
“I spent a week in the infirmary. Hurt more than I ever had in my life.” Moving back to the chair, I lowered myself into it and stared at him, eye to eye. “The day after I got out, I let them know that they were all gonna die. They laughed. Everybody in the yard heard me and they laughed too.”
Ryan said nothing. He just waited for me to finish.
“They didn’t laugh long.” I shrugged and then sighed, slumping down in the chair and focusing on the ceiling. “You know how they ask you about your skills when you go in? Always been good with my hands. Not just at beating on people, but fixing stuff. Building shit. Got it from my dad, my mama used to say. His temper too, fuck me to hell. They put me to work in the kitchen. Bad idea. Especially seeing as how one of the men who’d jumped me was in there.”
It was a memory that was burned into my mind, mostly because it was the first time I’d killed a man in cold blood. Maybe it should’ve weighed heavier on my conscious.
It didn’t.
Not after what they’d done to me.
I looked up at Ryan. “You know how they say you gotta join a gang in prison? It’s mostly true. It didn’t take long for me to have a whole bunch of guys getting in my face, and the more I beat them down, the more they came after me. I went with the ones who told me they could help me get my own back from the son of a bitch who...”
I still couldn’t say it, so I just shrugged. I knew Ryan would understand though. He might’ve been in juvie instead of prison, but there was a common unspoken language.
“Anyway, I had what I needed in my cell that morning. Skinny little thing. Looked like somebody had broken the handle off an awl. I put it inside my waistband. I was still limping so it made it easy to hide it. He was busy adding water to the shit they called soup.” Half-lost in the memory, I twitched my shoulders out of reflex. “The cameras, they covered almost the entire room. One of the guys came up, stood between me and this piece of shit. He stood there, laughing at me. I remember that.
Ain’t so fucking tough now, are ya, Bobby
?”
For a moment, it was like I was back there again. Seeing him, hearing that obnoxious, nasal voice. I gave myself a mental shake and refocused my gaze on Ryan.
“I took that piece of steel and shoved it into his heart through his back. He crashed, straight down. A couple of the others had caused a...diversion. Picking a fight up front. The whole thing took all of fifteen seconds, and I was back at my station before the guards even noticed I’d moved. Took them almost a minute to realize this guy was dead on the floor.”