Page 6 of Butterfly

Rory didn’t confuse him like Teddy sometimes did.

Teddy sighed and cupped Ollie’s cheek. His gaze drifted down to Ollie’s mouth and stayed there as he wetted his lips.

That look confused Ollie.

It was prolonged and left Ollie’s skin burning and his stomach in a flutter.

If Ollie didn’t know any better, he would’ve believed that look to be charged, sexualised, but he knew it wasn’t. Teddy had been looking at him like that since he’d arrived, and never once had he leaned in for a kiss.

Ollie had no idea what he’d do if he did.

Months ago, the thought had churned his stomach, but the terror had faded, and curiosity had grown in its wake.

What would it feel like to be kissed?

He had never been kissed, or touched, or…anything.

Eighteen—almost nineteen—years old and a virgin.

But he’d had other priorities, like getting in the way of his father’s fists.

Like wondering what state their father would be in when they got home from school.

Like being terrified of failing, not at school, but at the one goal he’d set himself: keeping Leo safe.

What would it feel like to be kissed by Teddy?

He’d never given his sexuality much thought, but caged up with a load of men, and he started to wonder whether the butterflies in his chest were exclusive to masculinity, Teddy or whether that was all that was available to his libido.

Teddy released Ollie’s cheek and dragged his eyes away from Ollie’s mouth.

Ollie’s heart continued to punch behind his ribcage.

The lingering looks both excited and scared him.

They weren’t the only thing that made Teddy feel more dangerous than Rory ever had.

Ollie knew Teddy. They had their own language, they talked, but there were some subjects Ollie didn’t dare go near.

Like the nightmares that woke Teddy up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, gasping and fighting off the duvet.

Like Teddy’s conviction of life in prison for not just one murder butfour.

Like the tragic ‘suicide’ of Teddy’s previous cellmate, Ryan Conway.

As much as Ollie liked Teddy, there was a darkness to him, and Ollie didn’t want a light to be shone upon it.

Which made him a hypocrite.

He had a similar vein of darkness running through him.

Ollie leaned in as Teddy ruffled his hair one last time before slipping down from the bunk. Teddy ripped off some toilet roll, and he held it up for Ollie.

“Thank you,” Ollie whispered, dabbing his cheeks and beneath his nose.

Teddy held out his hand again.

“Gross.” Ollie snorted, getting down from the bed. “You don’t want to hold my snotty tissue.”

---