“Who said I like guys?” I said, again too quickly to be believable. I tried my best to act offended.
“Oh, come on,” Joey sighed, rolling his eyes. “Every time we talk about pussy, you look like you just caught a whiff of rotten garbage.”
“I do not,” I growled, making a mental note to make sure I wasn’t actually doing that from now on. “I… I love… pussy.”
“Jesus Christ, man,” Greg chimed in. He was usually so quiet, but now he apparently felt the need to speak. “That was pathetic.”
The guys burst into laughter, and I felt my face burning hotter than the midday sun.
“Look, we’re just busting your balls,” Kyle said, reaching over to clap my shoulder. “Nobody gives a shit who you want to fuck. We’ve all done time. You think any of us haven’t seen it all?”
“Or done it all,” Darius muttered with a half-smile.
I stared down at my hands, calloused and rough from weeks of ranch work. These guys knew me better than I thought, which was unsettling. I’d spent years perfecting the art of being invisible, of keeping my desires locked away where no one could use them against me. And here these knuckleheads had me figured out in a matter of weeks.
“Fine,” I finally said. “Yeah, I like guys. So what?”
“So nothing,” Greg said without looking up from his magazine. “Just means more women for the rest of us.”
Joey leaned forward, his eyes suddenly serious. “And about Ryder, he probably won’t be there. Pete keeps him on a pretty short leash. But if he does show up, we got your back.”
I nodded, a lump forming in my throat at their easy acceptance. They were a rough bunch of dicks, but we looked out for one another. “Thanks.”
“So, you’re coming?” Sam asked, his face lighting up like I’d just agreed to bust him out of prison.
I sighed, knowing I was probably making a mistake. “Yeah, I guess I’ll come.”
The guys whooped and high-fived like we were teenagers planning to sneak out after curfew. Maybe in a way, we were. None of us had gotten to live normal lives for a long time.
“What about you, Sam?” I asked, turning the attention away from myself. “You coming too?”
Sam’s smile faltered. “I don’t know. What if Pete finds out? I can’t go back inside, man. I just can’t.”
The room went quiet. We all understood that fear, that constant dread hanging over our heads. One mistake, one wrong move, and it was back to concrete walls and metal bars.
“No one’s going back,” I said firmly, surprising myself with the protective tone in my voice. “We go, we have a few beers, we come back. No trouble, no drama.”
“That’s right,” Joey nodded. “Besides, Larry’s cool. He wouldn’t let us go if he thought there was any real risk. Just don’t do anything stupid.”
“He’s just covering his own ass by saying Pete can’t know,” Kyle added. “Standard procedure.”
Sam looked around at all of us, his youthful face a mix of fear and hope. “You guys would really look out for me?”
“Course we would,” Darius said. “We’re all in this together, right?”
I watched as Sam’s shoulders relaxed, a tentative smile spreading across his face. It struck me then how much we’d all become a makeshift family of sorts. Broken men trying to piece themselves back together. The realization hit me harder than I expected. In prison, getting close to people was dangerous. You formed alliances out of necessity, but true friendship? That was a liability. Yet here we were, six ex-cons looking out for each other like brothers.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “We are.”
“So, it’s settled then,” Joey grinned, rubbing his hands together. “Saturday night, we sneak out after Pete does his final rounds and head down to the creek.”
“I heard the other hands might bring their moonshine,” Greg added, finally setting his magazine aside. “That stuff’ll put hair on your chest and knock you on your ass in the same sip.”
“Oh hell yeah,” Kyle whooped. “Last time I had some of that, I woke up in a tree with no pants on.”
“Please tell me that’s not a true story,” I groaned.
“Wish I could, man,” Kyle laughed. “Still don’t know where those pants ended up.”
