Tuesday.

Ruaan opened his eyes and immediately hated the day before it had even properly started.

Tuesday was the day he got arrested. Tuesday was the day he sat in the back of a police car listening to that damned officer hum while his cannolo went uneaten on his living room table. Tuesday had never done anything for him and today was not looking like the start of a new pattern.

He stared at the ceiling, thinking about his life.

He hadn’t heard from his family since the arrest. Not his father, not his siblings, not one person from the circle of those who had eaten his food, spent his money, and called themselves his friends for years. He knew they were sly.

He already knew why. He didn’t want to sit with it for too long.

He exhaled slowly and sat up.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

The gate rattled so hard that three people in nearby cells jolted awake. An officer stood at the bars, already pointing before anyone had fully opened their eyes.

"2525. Get up! You’ve got a visitor."

Ruaan blinked when he heard that.

A visitor? Him? A visitor?

He was off the bed before his brain had finished processing it. It could be his father. Maybe his father. Or anyone. He didn’t care who. As long as it was just someone from outside, someone who had thought about him, someone who had gotten in a car and come here because—

He walked into the visitor room and stopped.

Dominic.

Of all people, it was Dominic.

He was sitting at the small table in his expensive coat, one leg crossed over the other, looking at Ruaan with an expression that was difficult to read.

Ruaan turned to the officer immediately. "Can I leave? I don’t want—"

Dominic waved a hand.

The officer checked his watch. "You’ve got ten minutes." He walked out.

Ruaan stood where he was and looked at the room. There was no glass between them. Just a table, two chairs, and a CCTV camera mounted on the ceiling. He did not sit down. He didn’t want to sit anywhere close to that man.

"What do you want?" he said. "Have you come to mock me?"

Dominic reached into the bag beside him and slid it across the table.

Ruaan looked at it and looked away. "I don’t want anything from you."

He heard footsteps.

He looked back and Dominic was already in front of him. Then his arms wrapped around him from behind and pulled him in and Ruaan shoved and pushed and achieved nothing because Dominic apparently went to the gym every day while Ruaan had gone approximately twice in the last month.

"Let go—"

"I missed you," Dominic said into his hair.

Ruaan went still.

Then something rose in his chest. It was definitely not sadness or warmth, because he felt nothing like that for Dominic. It was just a clean sharp annoyance and he shoved properly this time and got enough space to turn around and look at Dominic’s face.

"You missed me." He almost laughed. "You. Missed me."

"Ruaan—"

"You lied to me for two years, took my money, helped put me in here, broke up with me in a prison visitation room, and now you miss me." He folded his arms. "Also you’re not even into men. Lily sent you to me, didn’t he? All of it."

Dominic’s expression shifted.

"Lily," he said carefully. "How do you know that name?"

"Why do you care?"

Dominic’s hands found his shoulders and the grip was tight this time.

"You two already got so close, huh? Has he touched you? Have you been with him?" His jaw worked. "Did he—"

Ruaan looked at him.

He watched the emotion moving across Dominic’s face and turned it over in his mind and arrived at the only logical conclusion.

"Are you jealous?" he said. "Because I wouldn’t let you touch me?"

"That’s not..."

"That’s exactly what this is." Ruaan tilted his head slowly. "Two years, Dominic. Two years of me avoiding it and you trying even harder to make me want it and me fucking avoiding it again. And now you’re standing in a prison visitor room making that face." He paused. "So that’s the real reason, isn’t it? Not just the money, you’re also after my body."

Dominic lowered his head.

"He fucked you," he said quietly like it wasn’t even a question. "That son of a bitch actually—"

Ruaan leaned forward and Dominic looked up.

Ruaan stopped with his mouth right at Dominic’s ear and said, very clearly and very quietly.

"Lily did fuck me and he fucked me really good."

He pulled back, looked at the CCTV camera once and walked to the door and knocked.

The officer appeared immediately.

"Ruaan."

He stopped. The officer stopped. Dominic was still standing at the table, looking at him with something complicated and raw sitting openly on his face.

"I’ll wait," Dominic said. "Two years is not that far. When you come out, I’ll get what I want." He paused. "Even if it’s just your hole."

The officer’s face went red.

Ruaan looked at the wall.

"Disgusting pervert," he said, and walked out.

.

.

He was three steps down the corridor when a hand grabbed his arm and pulled him sideways into the narrow space between two storage units and covered his mouth.

He grabbed the wrist and bit it.

"It’s me," Harolin said.

Ruaan stopped biting and looked at him. They were pressed into the corner, Harolin’s body blocking the corridor view, both of them in the shadow of the storage units.

"What are you doing," Ruaan whispered. "We’re in a public corridor—"

"He touched you." Harolin’s voice was even. His eyes weren’t. "I saw. And I heard everything you two said in that room."

Ruaan went still.

Then he said, carefully, "Including the part where I said you fucked me really good?"

Harolin shoved him into the wall.

"Shut up."

Ruaan felt the laugh building before he could stop it. He pressed his lips together to stop himself from laughing but he failed.

"What," Harolin said flatly, "is funny?"

Ruaan looked down.

His hand found the front of Harolin’s trousers.

Harolin went rigid.

Ruaan looked up at him with wide innocent eyes and said, "I never knew Lily was this slutty."

Harolin removed his hand, stepped back and turned around. He put two metres between them in one movement.

"Follow me," he said.

"I don’t want to—"

"Follow me, Ru."

.

.

The officer’s quarters were on a corridor Ruaan had only walked past.

Harolin stopped at a door, unlocked it, and pushed it open.

Ruaan stepped in and his brain needed a moment to take in everything in the room.

It looked nothing like his cell.

Actual furniture. A real bed with a real mattress. A small desk. A lamp that worked. A narrow window with actual light coming through it. Clean walls. A floor without cracks.

"I didn’t know something like this existed in Blackmere," Ruaan said.

"The top three rooms are like this." Harolin closed the door behind them.

"The prisoners’ top three?"

"All top three." He reached into the bunch of keys in his hand and found one. He turned it over once and then wrapped the cord attached to it and held it out.

Ruaan looked at it. "What is that?"

Harolin put it over his head. The key settled against his chest like a necklace.

"Come here at night," Harolin said. "Sleep here and leave before dawn."

Ruaan looked down at the key and looked up.

"Why?"

"That cellmate of yours has eyes for you. I have no idea what he would do and what if I’m not there to help you?" Harolin explained.

"Why don’t you just change my cell instead?" Ruaan raised a brow.

Harolin looked at him.

"Ruaan," he said. The name came out plain and direct. "You’re attractive as fuck. It doesn’t matter which cell you’re in. Men in this facility are going to want you regardless." He held his gaze. "So stop arguing and be a good boy and use the room."

Ruaan’s face went warm immediately as he looked at the key.

’Attractive as fuck,’ he thought. Those words came from Harolin’s mouth and he delivered them like a weather report. Just a fact being stated.

He was not going to acknowledge how much he liked hearing that.

Harolin picked up the bag from Dominic that he had apparently taken at some point without Ruaan noticing. He turned it over. "Should I throw this away?"

"I don’t care," Ruaan said.

Harolin reached in, pulled something out and held it up.

Ruaan looked at the cannolo from the Palermo bakery, still in its packaging, and felt something move in his chest that had nothing to do with being hungry.

He crossed the room and took it out of Harolin’s hand.

"I’ll eat this," he said.

He walked out.

.

Harolin stood in the empty room.

He looked at the bunch of keys in his hand.

The one missing from the ring was already around Ruaan’s neck.

He looked at the door.

’Is a spare key really the only solution I could come up with?’ he thought.

He stood with that for a moment and didn’t answer himself.