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“Let me go upstairs to grab a jacket. I’ll be right back,” Finn shouts over his shoulder as he darts up the stairs.
I sit on the couch and wait for him, expecting him to be back after less than a minute. When three minutes roll by, I stand up and pace. At the five-minute mark, I start to head up the stairs, but hold myself back. Trust. I have to trust.
Just when I’m thinking trust is a stupid concept, Finn comes down the stairs, his cheeks red and his eyes shining. I want to ask what’s going on, but the last time he was this cagey, he had a sexy surprise for me. That’s trust I can get behind.
Stepping outside in the cool morning air, I take it in like I see Finn do. I tilt my head back and breathe in deeply. When I was in prison, I never felt this good when I stepped outside. True, not being surrounded by hundreds of men on the block was great, but being outside in prison wasn’t real freedom. It was an illusion. It was to make us feel like we could enjoy clean air, but it was never clean within those walls.
This is clean air. This is air that a caged man dreams about when he thinks about freedom.
I hadn’t appreciated it the past few weeks of being out, but something about seeing Finn appreciate it, even when he wasn’t locked up like me, makes me reevaluate that. In my mind, I never saw my stop here as me being free. I didn’t think I would appreciate the air and wind on my face and running without being chased or in a circle just to go back to my tiny-ass cell.
Now, I do.
This isn’t just a stopover. This is freedom, even if it’s not permanent right now. It’s what I’ve been waiting for over seven years for. I need to appreciate it while I can.
When I open my eyes, I find Finn looking at me with a grin. I roll my eyes at him and he giggles, threading his fingers through mine. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” I reply, taking us on a different route today, in the direction away from the road.
He pulls in a deep breath, then blows it out slowly. “Can you tell me about your escape? Why did you do it?”
That’s a million-dollar question. I know why, but will Finn understand?
Looking down at him, I ask, “You know what I went in for, right?” He shakes his head. “Well, I’ll start there. It’ll make more sense.” Even though Finn is looking at the ground, making sure he doesn’t trip, I know I have his undivided attention. I decide to tell him the truth, without sugar coating it. If anyone can handle it, it’s Finn. “You know I was the enforcer before I got locked away. That job requires me to do whatever Prez told me to, whatever would keep us off the radar. Well, we fronted some coke to this guy who said he would cut it and flip it for three times the cost. He ended up fucking us over. He took the product and ran. Prez didn’t like that and sent me after him. I caught up with him and beat the shit out of him. But in the midst of that, a rookie cop just happened to be doing patrol and caught me.”
“Fuck,” Finn mutters under his breath.
“Yeah, fuck is right. That fucker testified against me and the jury found me guilty of attempted murder. I got fifteen to life. The judge made it apparent it would be more like life than fifteen years.” We duck under low hanging tree branches and step into a clearing that looks like something out of some cheesy-ass romantic movie.
Looking down at Finn, I see he likes that type of romance shit from how wide his eyes are and how he looks around at it. I might have wanted to bring him here when I came upon it a few days ago. So what?
“Anyway, I was locked up, doing my time with as minimal amount of trouble and drama as I could manage. But most of the prison guards didn’t like me on principle. I was the badass they always wanted to be but were too afraid to go for it. I had visitors, money on my books, and some of the other inmates came to me to ask for protection when they got out. I made enemies just by being an enforcer for the Devil’s Mayhem. One guard in particular, Trenton, started working there about a year after I got locked up. He never liked me, used every opportunity he could find to beat my ass, toss my cell, and make my life hell. I barely paid him any attention. I took what he gave me and kept my head down. I knew if I gave him shit like I wanted to, I would be sent to the hole. After being sent to the hole eight times in Trenton's first year, I tried to avoid that.”
We walk around the clearing, Finn dragging me to the middle so he can pick some of the wildflowers. “What happened next?” he asks as he bends to grab some purple flower that has a yellow center and willowy stems.
“Shane came to visit me one day to talk to me about my latest appeal. I mouthed off to the warden, who told Trenton to take me to the hole. The hole was the place Trenton loved most. He loved beating inmates down there because there were no cameras to catch him in the act.” I swallow thickly and flex my shoulder. On rainy days, it still hurts from where he worked me over one night when he decided he didn’t like something I said to him.
Finn looks up at me with sad eyes. “If it’s too much—”
I shake my head and continue. “When he was walking me down there, he banged my head against the door and something in me snapped. When we got to the cell, he got in my face and I head butted him. We scuffled for a bit, but I got the best of him and broke his fucking neck. Too quick if you ask me. I knew I would go to death row for killing a guard and wanted to take my chances on escape. So, I did. It was his shitty truck that got me to Riverdale.”
“Reverdale,” Finn says automatically, his face pale after I callously told him I killed someone.
“Where the fuck ever. His truck got me as far as I could get, then you did the rest. That’s my story. That’s why I escaped. That’s why I took you.”
Finn walks over to me. He takes both of my hands in his, a small smile on his lips. “I should be afraid, right? Your story should scare me and I should start being afraid again, right? Tell me I’m not crazy.”
Drawing him closer to me, I press my forehead to his. “Sweet pea, you’re certifiable.”
His bright laugh makes that warm feeling in my chest intensify and I can’t figure out what the fuck it means. “Maybe. I guess it’s okay for now. I’ll get some treatment or something when I’m home. For now, I like being certifiable.” He winks at me, making me grin at him. “Tell me something else. Oh! Tell me about you and Zeke. Have the two of you ever …?”
I bark a laugh. “God no. Even if I knew I wanted to fuck men before you, Zeke wouldn’t be someone I'd fuck. There’s nothing wrong with him and objectively, he’s good looking, but I don’t think of him that way. I’ve never felt any attraction to him and I don’t think he felt it with me. We’ve shared some women before and I felt his dick against mine when we fucked the same pussy at the same time, but it wasn’t sexual between us.”
Finn’s eyes flare and he swallows audibly, running a shaky hand through his hair. “The same pussy? Like together?”
I tilt my head, taking in his flushed face and how he’s wetting his lips. Dragging my eyes down, I see the outline of his half-hard dick and I shoot him a filthy smile. “Does that turn you on? Me and Zeke in the same hole?”
He shudders but doesn’t answer. I don’t need him to. I can see it on his face. “You’re insufferable,” he mutters, stepping away from me and adjusting himself.
