Page 25 of Two for Joy

The memory got him hard in an instant. He palmed his inappropriate erection.

“Hey, what bird did that feather come from?”

“What?”

“The feather. It’s black and white, right?”

Romeo snorted. “It’s not from a penguin.”

“I know that.”

Romeo got to his feet and climbed back into bed. “Night, Will.”

He wasn’t going to sleep. He was going to sort out his hard on while thinking of Chad in the farmhouse.

Chapter Six

Romeo’s father marveled at his artistic skill, complemented his landscape paintings, boasted to his friends about his son’s talent. It made him proud, made his eyes light up, and his smile crease his face, but that wasn’t the memory that came first into Romeo’s mind when he thought of his father.

That was the rats.

They were living in the roof of the house, had even chewed through some cables, and started a fire.

The rats had to go.

Romeo had been twelve.

He asked why not poison, but his father told him that would be cruel, a longer, painful death. He wasn’t killing out of pleasure, but a necessity, and it needed to be fast. Romeo helped him set up traps in the roof, designed to break the rat’s necks in a flash.

Romeo laid in bed at night, staring at the ceiling for hours, and he was rewarded with the sound of the trap, followed by a shaking, and jerking.

His father assured him in the morning the rat hadn’t felt anything it was just its nervous system being triggered, but it still bothered Romeo. He didn’t like the thrashing, and shaking, the thudding. He thought it would be sudden, a snap and then blissful silence, but he’d been wrong.

What he learned from his father was it was more humane to kill fast, than slow, and he took that vital piece of information with him. He also learned he didn’t like thrashing, or jerking either, as still and quick as possible was a more dignified end for both victim and killer.

****

Romeo’s gaze locked onto the door. His shoulders ached, his fingers were all numb, and the sound of air wheezing in and out of his nose filled the silence.

Chad was late.

Paul and Fred were leaning on the wall behind him, sighing the longer it took for Romeo’s guest to arrive. They were all waiting for the door the other side of the protective barrier to open, and when it did, Romeo’s heart pounded at the sight of Chad’s smile.

His shirt was tucked in, his tie was straight, and pinned beneath his arm was a newspaper. It was only when he sat down, did Romeo realize it was all a mask. He could tell Chad wasn’t quite right by the haunted look in his eyes, but he was better than the last time.

“Invest in a better brand of concealer.”

Chad snorted, then brushed his forefinger under his eye. “Give me a break, my first time using it. Kate said you couldn’t tell…”

“Kate’s a liar. At least the tie’s looking good.”

Chad lifted it, then gestured to the brown stain. “Apart from the coffee.”

“God, I miss good coffee, stuff in here tastes like dirty water.”

“Anything interesting happened?”

“You missed our prison production of the ice queen.”

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