“But if you’re Jonah’s friend,” asked Toby. “Where is he?”
They all looked around, but Jonah was absent.
“He and Royce are so fucking lovey dovey this weekend, I can’t get a word in edge-wise.” Beck made a broad gesture in the air as if to signal how done he was with Jonah’s absence.
“Sorry. Lovey dovey?” asked Bede. Galen’s eyebrows rose as he looked at Bede, the same question plain on his face. “Are theytogether?”
“Are they together?” Beck rolled his eyes. “They’re fucking attached at thehip. But then, so are most of these guys.”
“What are youtalkingabout?” Galen’s voice rose in a way that drew attention to him, so he hunkered down. “Am I blind? I never even noticed them together.”
“Who’s attached at the hip now?” asked Toby.
“Everybody.”
“Is everybody fucking?” Bede asked out loud, guffawing.
Galen spit out his iced tea and had to dry his face off with his napkin.
Bede found himself staring hard at Beck, as if this would get Beck to spill all of his secrets. A little silence fell among the group, and nobody was eating. Four pairs of eyes drilled into Beck until he finally he broke.
“Okay,” he said. “You wanna know? Here’s the rundown. Gabe is fucking Blaze. Loudly. Every night.” He gestured in the couple’s direction. “Royce and Jonah are going through so much lube, from the sounds of it, that they ought to buy stock. They’re probably off buying it now. And as for Marston and Kell?—”
“I don’t want to know,” said Bede. “No details, please.” He had no wish to find out something so intimate about Kell, let alone Marston.
“They are the cutest couple you have ever laid eyes on,” said Beck primly, leaving the rest of the details to their imaginations.
“They are pretty cute,” said Galen with a nod to affirm this fact.
“As for the rest of the parolees,” said Beck, taking a look around the mess tent like he was keeping an eye out for enemy fire. “They might be fucking, but who’s to say. They’re a little more secretive about it, maybe.”
The only thing on Bede’s mind was not that this was going on, because guys in prison tended to hook up all the time.
Here, in the valley, it seemed like fraternization was allowed. Or maybe it wasn’tdisallowed, but nobody seemed bothered. If they had been, then all of this would have been called to a halt.
He couldn’t stop himself from casting a glance in Galen’s direction. Galen was studiously eating, keeping his eyes down. As if the whole conversation, Beck’s big reveal, hadn’t happened at all.
“Who areyoufucking?” Toby asked Beck, because he had no filter whatsoever.
“He’s not a parolee, dummy,” said Owen, giving Toby a good jab with his elbow.
“Hey, I just want to know.” Toby spread his hands wide to show his good intentions.
“Well, me and Gordy hook up sometimes,” said Beck with a grin. “But I don’t think he’s in love with my tattoos.”
As Toby and Owen began to grill Beck about his tattoos, a small silence fell between Bede and Galen. Galen was now looking at Bede cautiously, as if from around a corner, his eyes a little dark.
If what seemed to be growing between them was not forbidden, at least not by the rules of the valley, then what was holding them back was more personal than that.
As for himself, Bede didn’t figure Galen would be the least bit interested. But then, if that was so, why did Galen keep looking and looking, like he was assaying the risk of reaching for a forbidden treat?
Bede wanted to find out. He very much wanted to find out, but he wasn’t sure how.
In prison, he’d held himself back, so it’d been five long years without the touch of another human hand. Discounting the guards’ casually rough treatment, that is.
The surge of want inside of him felt strange, foreign. A clawed, winged animal with nowhere to land.
He wanted to land, he very much did. But as he watched Galen looking away, he wasn’t sure he’d get the chance.
