Page 54 of Last Chance Love

“I guess it’s a good thing none of the guys saw you, huh?”

“Yeah, like you didn’t time it so we’d head out during lunch rotations, so the chances of being spotted were low as hell,” he said, still sounding grumpy, but I could hear the gratefulness in his voice.

He had never been one to care what other people thought about him. I didn’t know if that was self-awareness on his part or just some form of acceptance that he ‘had’ to accept other people’s judgments of him. He didn’t, of course, but in his mind, he probably considered there were far more important things than worrying about whether he should worry about other people’s opinions.

The thing was, he was always going to be harder on himself than other people were. He had always seen himself in a harsher light than necessary, a source of many arguments between us in the past. Looking back, I had been a little too hard on him. He’d had every reason to believe the world was going to shit on him every chance it got. All I had to do was see how his parents had treated him growing up, and his brothers, and I had all the explanations I’d ever need to understand his almost paranoid view.

“Ah,” he said after a moment. “Home sweet home.”

His cabin was no different than any of the other cabins from the outside. The Tier Three cabins were slightly larger to accommodate the extra guys, but not a whole lot. I’d asked about that once, and the idea was that a good chunk of the guys who came into the program were used to a prison lifestyle, and making a sudden change could be jarring. Instead, the program introduced them to the relative freedom of the ranch by keeping certain things they were used to, such as strict scheduling and tighter shared living spaces.

“It’s kind of funny when you think about it,” I said as Leon unlocked the door to his cabin and pushed his way in, “how we’re on complete opposite ends from one another.”

“Are we?” he asked, stopping in the doorway to frown at the path behind us.

“Yeah, I’m practically next to The Big House,” I told him with a snort. “And here you are, almost butting up against the plains.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of nice being out this far.,” he said as he finally stepped in and let me follow.

The funny thing about the ranch was that there was a commissary just like the prison but witha lotmore in it. We were given a wage, but most of it went into a savings fund the ranch held onto until we graduated. The rest of it was put into our commissary account. There were plenty of snacks, drinks, books, and even cigarettes for people to buy if they wanted to.

One thing most guys at the ranch didn’t realize or pay much attention to, however, was that there was a second way of shopping for anyone in the program. Despite the signage, very few people took advantage of the catalog they could order from, giving them access to more stuff. It was admittedly decorative stuff, but it was an excellent way to give people a chance to make their cabins more personalized, more like a private cabin than a reminder that we were still technically felons.

To my surprise, Leon had taken advantage of that catalog. The basic rug on each cabin's floor had been replaced by a dark blue one with intersecting yellow lines along the fringes. The chairs had soft cushions and there was a tablecloth on the small table by the window, and I was betting the row of books on one of the shelves with sheep-shaped book ends were ones he’d bought rather than borrowed from the on-site library.

“Not a fan of the quiet?” I asked him with a snort as I closed the door behind me. “We could trade cabins if you want. All I hear is noise from the guys going about their days when I’m in my cabin. Can’t get a moment’s peace unless it’s late.”

He chuckled, considered the bed, and instead went to his desk, where a couple of books and pens were waiting for him. “That’s because you grew up in a quiet neighborhood with no siblings. I lived in a tiny ass apartment with two brothers and a whole host of noisy neighbors. Chaos and noise were like white noise to me. The quiet can be too loud.”

“After making it to Tier One, you could have had your pick of cabins,” I reminded him. “We’re slowly inching our way out the door. And I’m sure Mona wouldn’t have cared.”

“Once, I would have argued and said Mona would have given me shit, but half the time, I can’t tell why she’s giving me shit.”

“You think she still is?”

“Fuck yes. I just can’t tellwhy.”

“That a paranoia thing or an intuition thing?” I asked, not for the first time. I knew Mona was pushing him constantly, but it wasn’t like I could own up to that right now. Even if I decided to go ‘against orders’ and tell him the truth, now wasn’t the time. He’d probably get, understandably, upset, and I didn’t need him to get excited while he was on the mend.

“Probably both, one feeding into the other,” he admitted and frowned. “And if you’re going to act like a nervous mother hen, at least sit down and do it. And there’s coffee if you want some.”

His eyes darted to the small cabinet above the sink, and I could see his gaze linger for a few heartbeats before returning to my face. I didn’t even try to hide my knowing smile as I immediately walked over to the cabinet. I dumped the old coffee still in the carafe and opened the cabinet to find the grounds.

“Thanks,” he muttered, sounding grumpy, though whether that was because he wanted to make the coffee but wasn’t sure if he could get up or because I’d figured it out without any trouble was up for debate.

“Oh ho, some customization in the cabinandfancy coffee?” I said with a snort as I pulled the bag of grounds out. “What is this, twenty bucks a bag? Even I don’t have this in my cabin.”

He looked uncomfortably down at the desk. “It’s not like most of the money isn’t going to be waiting for me when I get out anyway. Might as well use what they give me to get something nice for myself, right?”

“I’m not arguing,” I said with a chuckle as I filled the small pot with water and started measuring out the grounds. “It’s just a surprise. You were always so tight with money, especially when it came to yourself.”

“I don’t have anyone else to worry about,” he said softly.

I paused, took a deep breath, and turned on the machine. “Sorry. I guess I didn’t think about it like that.”

I wondered how weird and fucked up it was that the loss of his brothers was almost a blessing in its way, as far as I was concerned. It was hard to muster the energy to care about Ray fucking off, if only because, unlike Leon, I was willing to write him off as an ungrateful asshole. Ian though. Well, I guess they both had to hurt Leon no matter the circumstances, yet here he was, free from the chains of needing to care for his brothers.

“It’s not your responsibility to keep up on the fucked-up facts of my life,” he said, and I didn’t have to look at him to know he shrugged and probably winced when he remembered shrugging was a bad idea.

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