Page 26 of Give Me Redemption

He’s my age, redheaded, and there isn’t a single piece of skin that doesn’t have a freckle on it.

He’s a small man, but he’s smart as hell and has a heart of pure gold.

“Did she send you a picture?” I ask him.

He smiles over at me.

Rocket walks in, hair still wet from a shower in the water we don’t like to talk about.

The dust out here is on everything. Sometimes water that isn’t so clean doesn’t matter as long as you are dirt-free for a moment. We sweep constantly and are yelled at constantly for not sweeping enough.

The dirt is never-ending.

“Adams, you got a picture, man?” Rocket asks with a big grin on his face.

“Fuck off,” Adams says.

“Aw, come on. Let us see,” Banister chimes in.

“You’re married,” Adams says. “You don’t need to see.”

“I can still look at a damn photo, asshole,” Banister replies. “You think just because I’m married, I don’t look at other women? You think my wife doesn’t check out other dudes? We aren’t blind.”

Adams shrugs. “I’ve never been married. I don’t know what you people do.”

I laugh. “Let me see, man.”

Adams sighs. “Fine.” He gets up and walks over to me, placing the picture in front of my face.

“Goddamn, boy. You lucked up. Check this chick out,” I say to the boys. She’s a cute girl. Dark hair, pretty eyes. And she’s in a bathing suit laughing at something.

All the guys gather around, even Davidson who always has his face stuck in a book when he isn’t working. There are a lot of us here, but these four men have become family to me.

I’d do anything for them.

“Shit, Adams. And here I thought she never really existed,” Banister jokes.

Adams shoves Banister playfully just as Rocket, who’s older, grabs him and puts him in a chokehold before rubbing his knuckles into the man’s head.

“My little brother is growing up,” he says, acting like he’s about to cry.

“Man, stop. You’re making me bend the picture,” Adams complains.

Rocket lets him go and looks toward me sitting on my cot, “When you gonna get a woman, Grant?” he asks.

I shrug. “I have plenty. Who needs just one?”

Banister shakes his head at me. “If you found the one, you’d know why.”

“She’ll grab you by the balls and that’ll be all it takes,” Rocket says in agreement. “My wife was the most beautiful…”

“Woman in the room,” we all say in unison because we’ve heard this story a thousand times.

Rocket and his wife met at a wedding. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. They got married two months later and they’ve been married for ten years.

“Damn, you all act like you’ve heard this story before,” he says with a grin.

I exhale, slipping out of the memory. I pull back from the mirror and sniff.

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