He always either sits next to me or across from me, crowding me with his insistence. But I’d prefer to have him across, rather than constantly trying to wedge his body closer and closer to mine.
He’s fucking insufferable.
Eyes falling to the dry Egg Beaters and stale bread, I fork a bite and lift it to my mouth. It’s bland as fuck, as usual. No salt, no flavor.
I’d kill for one of my mom’s fancy omelets right about now.
Chewing and swallowing, I imagine that’s what I’m eating. My mind tries to fool itself into thinking this is good; that I can taste the sweetness of caramelized onions, the crunch of the broccolini, the tang of feta cheese… the creaminess of the avocado. God, the avocado.
I’m a Cali boy. I miss my ’cados.
“Yo, Ren…” Kang’s voice interrupts my drooling memories. “You think you can get another one?”
My eyes close, jaw clenching as I shake my head.
“Uh, no.” Ren’s eyes spring around the room before he lowers his voice. “I can’t believe you got it taken away. What are you? New??”
Kang rubs his face, clearly still remorseful, even weeks later. “It wasn’t my fault. If this asshole hadn’t started shit with Brenner, he never would’ve found it.” He points his thumb in O’Malley’s direction.
“That preck had it comin’,” O’Malley grumbles.
“Doesn’t matter,” Ren hisses. “Why the fuck did you bring it down to the rec room, anyway? It wasn’t even yours. You fucked us all over.” He peeks at me.
I roll my eyes. “You guys are idiots. What did you think was gonna happen?”
Ren’s head lolls backward for a moment. “Do you have any idea what I had to do to get that fucking phone??”
“Stuff you would have been doing regardless…” I mumble under my breath.
He shoots me a wounded look, but covers it up and sighs. “I think Jasper bruised my esophagus.” He rubs his sternum.
Kang lets out a laugh, and Ren’s lips curve. I can’t help but scoff a chuckle myself, which widens Ren’s smile. He likes making me laugh, even when it’s at him and his whorish ways.
“I barely even got to use the damn thing, Byron,” Ren murmurs, side-eyeing Kang. “So you owe me. Like I said, it wasn’t for you.”
Blue eyes slide to me once more, and my gaze at him narrows.
His foot brushes mine under the table. I kick him, and he chuckles.
“I have something else I’m working on getting.” Ren grins at me.
“Don’t care.” I shovel more shitty eggs into my mouth.
“Yeh got any more butts?” O’Malley asks him.
Ren pries his gaze off of me to peer at him, offering a quick nod. “Hancock made a nice deposit last night. He gave me a bag of snacks too. If you’re still hungry, Lexington” My eyes creep up to his. “Something special, just for you.” His foot taps mine again.
“Fuck off, Ren.”
“Smartfood popcorn and Mountain Dew…” he sings, wearing that damn smirk to death.
My favorite.
My stomach grumbles, betraying me. But I scowl at him. “Not interested.”
Ren leans in on the table and whispers, “Anything you want, Lex. Anything at all, I’ll get it for you.”
My blood is boiling in an instant. Memories assault my mind, flashes of a slideshow, from years up until this moment. The Luthor I see in them is a very different person from the hardened shell sitting here right now.
The showers running…
Echoing moans.
Biting down hard on the inside of my cheek, I glare directly at the topaz in his irises. “I don’t want anything from you, Warren. You should know that by now. Every move you make comes with consequences.”
He flashes me vulnerability; the same look of longing regret I saw all those years ago.
But it’s a lie, just like it was back then. He covers the look with a casual flippancy that doesn’t quite reach the pain and rage just beneath his lace-thin surface.
And he shrugs. “Fine. Your loss.”
Right.
Always my fucking loss.
The cold is easing up.
Alabaster Penitentiary is like an icebox. The concrete holds in the cold, even when it’s not necessarily that cold outside. When it is, it’s brutal.
The winters here are purely awful. In times like the dead of January, even those of us not prone to cozying up to guards for goods consider getting on our knees for a goddamn electric blanket or something. Thankfully, it’s never come to that for me.
But that’s just because of Ren.
I hate accepting gifts from him, because I know exactly what he does to earn all the excessive crap that litters his cell. Something he enjoys doing way too much as it is.
Still, when temperatures drop on this island, you feel it in every breath you take. It aches your bones, dwindling what little energy you already have.
I can swallow just a spoonful of my pride if it means survival.
Anyway, the frigid cold has slowly been melting away. And though I have no idea what the weather is like outside, my calendar tells me spring is upon us.
Our group is in the showers. Kang, O’Malley, and I are lathering up, side by side, and I’m trying not to focus on how much smaller my Dove For Men soap bar is getting when Ren swings around the corner, padding over to us. Completely naked, and no fucks given.
Warren Xavier has no humility to be found. I’m convinced there are a lot of emotions he’s lacking, but shame is certainly a big one. Where other people’s brains ping those pesky insecurities around, Ren’s just thumps all things sexuality, like the nonstop bass of endless techno music.
I swear, the dude’s frontal lobe is like a club in Ibiza.
“I just heard something,” he says, easing up close to me.
Kang and O’Malley turn to face him while I back up, because he’s crowding me again.
“Ooh, goody,” I mutter sarcastically, rinsing off. “Gossip.”
“A new inmate is coming in,” Ren goes on, ignoring my admonishing tone. “He’s a bank robber from Brooklyn. Dascha Reznikov. I guess he’s been, like… crazy successful robbing all these banks all over the place for years, rocking machine guns and rubber masks.”
Ren’s eyes are lit up. He clearly loves the tea, and I can’t say I don’t get it. Talking shit is a great way to pass the time in here. It’s pretty much our television.
“Can’t be that good,” O’Malley grumbles, running fingers over his head of short black hair. “If he got scooped up.”
“He killed the governor’s niece,” Ren says.
My eyes widen. Shit… That kid is fucked.
Governor Russo is a top source of funding for Alabaster Pen, and a close, personal friend of the Warden, Manuel Blanco. If this Dascha person really killed his niece, then he can damn-well expect never to see the light of day again.
“He just killed her?” I ask Ren, becoming immediately more invested. “Like, for no reason?”
“During a robbery,” he replies.
My eyes flit to Kang, who’s giving me a familiar look adorned with unspoken words.
He might be lying.
Turning back to Ren, I give him a once-over, eyes narrowing. “Where’d you hear all this?”