“Oh, cool! Does that thing have Snake??” Linetti jaunts over, reaching his grubby paws for Lex’s device.
He wrenches it away. “Alright, just back it up there, chief. No one touches LOIS but me.”
“I’m sure she’s thrilled about that,” Linetti grumbles.
“Bazinga,” Dash snickers.
Angel’s eyes are following Linetti as he saunters back over to Velle. He looks concerned, and it’s kind of freakingkilling menot to know all about Angel’s various Alabaster escapades.
Call me the Mad Hatter, ‘cause I just love a tea party.
It’s the whole reason Alex and I became friends.
“How did you two become friends, anyway?” Byron asks, mind-reader that he is. “I honestly never even knew you existed until like five minutes ago,” he says to Carson. “No offense.”
Carson laughs. “It’s fine. By trade, control room op’s aren’t supposed to be well known. We’re like… satellites. You don’t see us, or really even understand what the hell we do, but we’re there. And we seeeverything.” He offers a sly smirk, followed by a wink that has me and Lex laughing.
Byron’s face drops. “Hang on, so you’ve seen, like—”
“Oh, yea,” Alex chirps. “I’ve seen it all, baby boy.”
“Mother of God…” Byron looks horrified.
Alex laughs, but I’m frowning.
“Alright, back to me,” I grunt. “I’d been in prison for around nine months, and by all accounts, I was becoming sluttier every day…”
“Why is he acting like he’s narrating his memoir?” Dash whispers to Lex, who just shrugs and shakes his head.
“There was very little keeping me in line,” I go on, ignoring them, “being that the syrup-sweet virgin mojito known asLexington Deonhad friend-zoned me, and I was in desperate need of many distractions.” I peek at Lex.
His face is ninety percent unamused, ten percent nostalgically sympathetic.
“And since the dick I wanted wouldn’t give me the time of day, I spent all the other times of day bending and sucking like one of those dippy bird toys. One of my favorite distractions being theincomparablyself-serving Officer Jasper.”
I gesture across the room to Jasper, who’s helping Joy and Peters. He tosses up deuces at mention of his name.
I grin. “One day, Jacob had just dropped his children off for a play-date in my lower intestine, and he was feeling particularly generous…”
“Okay, I’m not sure if I should be nauseated, or justthoroughlyimpressed by what a mesmerizing fucking train wreck you are,” Lex sighs.
“Shh. Please hold all questions and comments until the end of the presentation, baby love.” I wink. “So Jacob Jasper agreed to bring me for a walk to go get food from his personal stash in the coveted break room belonging to the gen-pop guards. I was excited, because prisoners were never allowed in there. Not only that, but heclaimedto have leftover Donut Pub donuts he’d brought back from their purge the night before…”
“Ididhave them!” Jasper calls out. “Until some asshole fucking ate them, then lied about it to my face!”
“I didn’tlie,” Hancock defends while the rest of us laugh. “I told you point-blank if you left them in the break room, they were gonna disappear! I just chose not to mention thatI’dbe the one eating the crap out of them.” He smirks.
“Yea, exactly. You were mad jealous ‘cause you were on some keto bullshit couldn’t get any of your own,” Jasper grumbles. “Then you sneak into the break room like a damn raccoon and eat mine… What stage ofketosisis that?”
“I can’t believe we’re still listening to this argument,” Kemper chuckles. “Three years later!”
“Remember when we went for pizza at Ray’s and he was picking all the cheese and pepperoni off, and Jasper wouldn’t even stand next to him?” Joy snorts to Kemper, and they both cackle.
“I wastryingto lose three pounds,” Hancock gripes.
“Whatever, Regina George. It was embarrassing.” Jasper cracks a smile.
“How were they ever in charge?” Trevel asks Byron.
