CHAPTER THREE
DEX
“What’s wrong with your face?” Pete asks. I look up to find him hanging down from the bunk above mine, his blond hair flopping down toward me.
“Nothing. I’m just practicing,” I tell him. Then I smile as big as I can. “How’s this look?”
“For scaring babies? Perfect.”
“No, for when I meet Wren.”
A long, annoyed sigh comes from the bunk across from mine… Sly. “Why are you worrying about that? We’re never going to meet her,” he says in exasperation.
“Maybe,” I say with a shrug before practicing my big smile again. “Maybe not.”
“You look like a creep. Smile like that at her and she’ll run in the other direction,” Pete says as he drops down from his bed and picks up the book I’ve been reading.
“The Gentleman’s Guide to Love,” he reads with a snort. “Dude, really? This is probably from the fifties. And haven’t you read it like ten times already?” He drops it back down,and I just shrug, practicing different smiles, hoping that after a while, one of them will start to feel more normal.
“Treating a woman properly never goes out of style,” I tell him, before lifting the book and re-reading the part I’m on.
A genuine smile is the first step to winning a woman’s trust. When you smile, it shows warmth, confidence, and approachability—qualities women find attractive. Practice in front of a mirror until your smile feels natural and inviting.
Genuine was the part I was having trouble with. I smiled often, but not to show warmth or approachability; normally, it was the opposite—a grin of triumph right before I threw the winning punch, or a smile of excitement when I found my target. But how to smile at someone like Wren? I had no idea how to do that; I needed practice.
“I think I hear the mail cart!” Pete practically squeals, shoving his homemade shiv down the back of his pants as he moves to the front of our shared cell.
I try not to groan as the excitement of getting a letter hits me right in the dick. I watch him press his face against the bars like a kid waiting for the ice cream truck.
Me? I grab the frame of the bunk above me and crank out a few pull-ups. Part workout, part distraction. Mostly distraction. Because nothing kills a hard-on like pretending you’re training for another brawl in the cafeteria.
Except it doesn’t work. My dick’s still saluting at the thought of a letter. That’s right. I’m officially the guy who gets horny over mail. Put that in the prison handbook:symptoms include sweating, restless nights, and random boners whenever the mail cart squeaks by.
And it’s all because of her. My Wren.
Her letters are like rays of sunshine shoved through thebars. The first time she wrote us, she thought we were foster kids.
Foster kids.
I almost laughed my ass off. Figured she’d stop once she found out the truth, but nope. She wrote back a week later, acting like being penpals with prisoners was totally normal, and boom! Just like that, I was hooked.
Now? Every letter drills straight into my chest cavity and sets up camp there. She didn’t just worm her way into my heart; she jumped in with both feet and redecorated the place.
The squeak of the wheels gets louder, and Pete bounces on his toes. “It’s coming!”
Bowman, the guard who always delivers the mail, finally rolls up and smirks. “She never misses a week, does she?” He passes four envelopes through the bars.
“Nope,” Pete says, grinning like a loon.
Bowman snorts. “You’d think she’d have better things to do than write to your sorry asses.”
Pete fires back, “Aw, Bowman, you like our asses? Sorry, but we’re not into guys.”
The guard just shakes his head in amusement as he pushes the cart past. As far as guards go, he is pretty decent.
Pete tosses the envelopes to each of us, and I snatch mine like it’s made of gold. Sitting on my bunk, I lean against the wall. Across from me, Sly and Jagger do the same, letters in hand, all of us like addicts about to shoot up.
Carefully, I open mine and sigh. There it is; her handwriting. The cure to all my problems and the cause of a whole new set.
