Page 99 of Last Chance Love

“I think that ship has sailed, but fine, fine, you have your fun.”

“If I keep thinking about what we did just now, I’ll probably be up for even more fun later.”

“Promises, promises.”

“We’ll see.”

“That we will”

* * *

It waslate and we were so close our arms kept brushing against one another’s. It wasn’t the first time we’d walked back to one of our cabins when it was late enough to be silent, save for the distant sounds of the animals. I didn’t know what it was about goats and sheep, but they clearly didn’t adhere to the rule that darkness meant sleep.

The air was cool enough to require long sleeves, and we had to use moonlight to navigate effectively. I had never figured out if the minimal outdoor lighting after ten was to save on energy costs or dissuade people from wandering around at night unsupervised when they were supposed to be in their cabins. Either way, it made for a nice, quiet walk as we passed the darkened buildings, with everyone probably in bed, considering it was nearly midnight.

“You know, we bitch about the weather most of the year,” Reed said, breaking the silence we’d kept between us without acknowledging it. “But once winter rolls around, it’s actually really nice here.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” I said, wishing I’d brought a jacket. The desert could be treacherous at night during the colder months. We could only get away with not wearing coats because the buildings trapped some of the heat close to the ground and blocked the wind from the plains.

He glanced over at me. “What? Not a fan?”

“I don’t know if I’d say that,” I told him with a shrug. “But I just…you know what I’ve never seen? Snow. I know it’s a lot colder up north, but sometimes I think it’d be nice to have to worry about freezing your ass half the year and then the other half be more bearable. You can only remove so many clothes before getting arrested, but you can always add more layers.”

“You wouldn’t get arrested if you did it in private,” he said, walking up to one of the pasture fences and leaning on it, looking out over the empty field. “Which I wouldn’t argue with. I enjoy watching your bits and bobs jiggle all over the place.”

I snorted, leaning on the fence next to him. “You’re lucky we have curtains in our cabins. Otherwise, you wouldn’t catch me risking walking around nude for long.”

“Afraid someone’s going to see?”

“I’m not exactly one to show off.”

“I know. Even though you could have gotten away with it, and no one would have questioned it, you were always private. It was something I always loved about you, the quiet sort of…I don’t know, dignity?”

“Or I don’t like people staring at my dick. Unless it’s you.”

“Noted, and I’m glad.”

Our ‘secret’ was already out, and it wasn’t like anyone was around, so I allowed myself to lean into him, enjoying the warmth of his body. “And I do so love to make you happy.”

“Mmm, you do,” he said, ruining my joke by agreeing and laying his hand on my arm as we stood there. “And you know, it’s kind of funny?—”

“What is?” I asked after he didn’t finish his thought.

“This place is just…I understand it’s supposed to be, but it feels like its own little world. An isolated place with its own politics, social structure, rules, locked away from the rest of the world.”

“Well, yeah, prison is like that too.”

“Mmm, don’t remind me. My point was that sometimes it’s easy to forget about the rest of the world or that there even is a rest of the world. I mean, how often do you hear people talk about what they will do when they leave here?”

I thought about it for a moment and shrugged. “Compared to when I was behind bars? Not very much, actually. Sometimes, that was all people talked about in prison. At least the ones who only had a few years, the long-termers, well, I think they knew better than to talk about something that was ten years away.”

“True, hard to talk about your future when it’s so far off,” he agreed. “Which just proves my point. People get comfortable here. They get settled. You start to think of this place as the world. Sometimes, I can’t tell if that’s a good or bad thing.”

“A little of both,” I said with a shrug. “There’s stuff to help guys once they leave, though. Stuff to help them get back into the rest of the world with fewer problems than just being thrown out of prison and told good luck.”

“I know,” he said, looking up at the twinkling lights above us. “And I’m glad they have that. But sometimes, it almost feels like time is suspended. Like it’s not just the future that doesn’t exist, but the past too.”

I knew exactly what he meant. The past was persistent and found ways to bubble into the present, but it was harder in this place. In prison, I’d found myself constantly thinking about the past, about how badly I fucked up, what I’d been screwed on from the start, and what I had lost.

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