Page 7 of Butterfly

Teddy lifted one of his eyebrows, then rubbed his hand over his stomach.

“Eww.” Ollie gave Teddy a light shove. “That’s disgusting.”

Teddy laughed, a chugging sound from his throat, then allowed Ollie to pass him to throw the dirty tissue into the toilet.

Ollie narrowed his eyes at Teddy in the mirror above the sink, and Teddy responded with his crinkled-eyes smile and his fond smirk.

Warmth radiated from him, and any unease about Teddy evaporated.

Ollie had only ever seen that look directed at him.

He thought he was special to Teddy and liked the idea.

It was better to not know his secrets and for Teddy not to know his either.

2

LifemovedonwithoutRory.

Pauly got sent to another wing for his own safety.

The cell Rory had shared with Sebastian for the first nine months of Ollie’s sentence got filled by two new inmates, Jonesy and Braden. Ollie didn’t see much of Braden, but Jonesy had already been inside before and sidled up to Green and Jack on the first day he arrived.

They’d hugged and reminisced while Ollie stood awkwardly to one side, pool cue in hand. And just like that, Ollie had been paired with him in their daily pool games from that day forward.

Three months had passed.

Eight years to go.

Ollie didn’t like the way Jonesy looked at him.

It was the same way the kids had at school, as if they knew something about Ollie that he hadn’t yet learned. Jack seemed to catch the look too and would nudge him whenever he stared a little bit too long.

Jonesy had bright red hair, freckles on his full face, and slashes shaved through his eyebrows. He had a booming laugh; he clapped when he found something particularly funny and sulked whenever they lost to Green and Jack at pool.

Which was often.

Although his sulks never lasted long, they still made Ollie feel inadequate.

Jonesy made Ollie uneasy, but the alternative was spending every second of association in the gym with Teddy and Captain while they exercised him to a state of collapse. He’d dropped his gym time from forty to twenty minutes a day, but even so, Captain worked him like a dog, condensing his lesson down.

It was mainly defensive moves, how to escape an attacker.

“You’ll warm up to Jonesy eventually,” Green said, throwing an arm over Ollie’s shoulders. He had to hunch his tall frame to speak into Ollie’s ear.

“Ollie, Ollie, Ollie!” Jonesy yelled.

Ollie stiffened until Green gave him a shake. “Come on, you can be my partner this time.”

Jack shot them a quizzical look when Green stood side by side with Ollie.

Jack and Green shared a cell together, and if you didn’t know them, you would’ve assumed they shared a lot more. On the wing, they were more than happy to hang off each other, arms over shoulders, hugs from behind. Ollie had even seen them slapping each other’s arses a few times in the shower. They were comfortable with each other and had been cellmates since day one of their sentences. Green was the taller of the two with dirty-blond hair, blue eyes and a crooked nose from when he’d run into a glass door as a child.

Or so he said. Ollie didn’t know whether he believed it was possible.

Jack was a foot shorter with black hair, dark eyes and a serious expression most of the time.

Einstein, another inmate, had described them as yin and yang.

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