Page 30 of The Care of Broken Things
Samuel wasn’t sure what to answer, and Nathaniel didn’t wait for it, rising to get the food and coffee. Samuel left him to it. He had a feeling the man wanted time alone to gather himself. When Nathaniel came back, he immediately set about sandwich construction, looking better than before. They were talking about Hailey’s upcoming gymnastics recital when Nathaniel suddenly asked, “What did they look like again? The ones who hurt Eli.”
The question made him a little nervous. He didn’t want Nathaniel obsessing over it. He hardly needed any more reasons not to sleep. But he gave him the descriptions anyway, trying not to rush through it in a suspicious way. When he was done, Nathaniel handed him a sandwich, and he was glad when that seemed to be the end of it. But then, as he was sitting back, Nathaniel’s hand nudged his coffee, and it went over.
Samuel jumped to his feet, nearly oversetting the table in his haste. “Are you burned? Did any of it spill on you?”
“Not at all. Don’t worry.” And it was true. Nathaniel appeared unscathed. He’d pushed his seat back in time. “Would you mind grabbing that stack of napkins for me?”
He turned without a second thought, but when he got to the table with the napkins, something made him pause. Call it instinct. Perhaps some unconscious part of him had noted what his conscious self had not. Whatever it was, it made him turn just in time to see the chair Nathaniel was holding whoosh through the air to slam hard into Leroy’s shoulder.
The man, easily 30 pounds heavier thanNathaniel, went down like a sack of potatoes, knocked clean from his seat. It was all so sudden, and the blow so strong, that Leroy collapsed with only a muffled grunt. Maybe that was why the clang of the chair, when it hit the floor, was so deafening. It seemed to restart things as well, because everyone who had frozen, Samuel included, found themselves abruptly able to move again. But Nathaniel was faster. He leaped onto Leroy like a flea on a dog—the angriest, most rabid flea in all of existence. He punched at Leroy’s head and face, kicked at his gut and groin, and generally attacked with the intent to unload as much damage as possible. And Leroy—the fearless predator—was curled up with his hands over his head.
Samuel reached them first, diving right in to tear Nathaniel free. The man didn’t come easily. His grip on Leroy left marks as he was pried loose. Samuel put his own body between the pair just in case Leroy got any ideas about retaliation, but he needn’t have worried. Carnivore and Alvaro were already there, pulling at the non-combative prisoner. But Nathaniel was nowhere near done. He strained against the hold, throwing himself forward and twisting in his arms, trying to get back to his holy work. He almost succeeded too, damn him. Holding the man back was like trying to wrestle a python.
“You think you’re tough, bastard?” Nathaniel spit. “You touch my husband again, and I’ll kill you. You’re not safe from me in here. I’ll go after your whole family, you prick. I don’t give a shit.”
And it was clear that he didnot. Nathaniel was in a prison surrounded by who knew what kind of violent criminals, but there was no fear in him. His anger was too pure. “Stop,” Samuel said, though he could understand it, even condoned it, wanted to let Nathaniel go and join in himself. But he understood now what Eli had felt, the spike of panic that came with worrying about someone else’s stupidity. Whatever happened, he had to keep Nathaniel out of trouble.
“Release the visitor, inmate!” Alvaro barked.
“You know very well I can’t do that!” he shouted back. But then Chesterson was there. “I’ve got him, Fuller. You can stand down.”
It was true Nathaniel was calming, or at least, returning to his senses. The anger was still there, smoldering with intent, but the man was no longer shouting, at least.
Samuel didn’t trust the calm. “Are you trying to get arrested?” he demanded.
“I hit his shoulder, not his head, so I won’t be charged with homicide—unfortunately.”
That wasn’t funny. Nothing about the situation was funny. And yet he felt a laugh bubbling up inside him anyway. “I’ll save a bed for you in the barracks just in case.”
They looked at each other and grinned. Both of them, he was sure, looking like crazy idiots.
“I’ll just bunk with Eli,” Nathaniel said.
“As if you’d be anywhere but in the doghouse once he saw you on the wrong side of the gate.”
That was all the time they had. They were already being shepherded out, Nathaniel toward the office and Samuel back toward the gate. He was still smiling when Alvaro manhandled him into the hall. “I don’t see what you’re grinning about. You and your little boyfriend will lose visiting privileges over that stunt.”
But Samuel was sure that wasn’t true. Even if they banned Nathaniel for the week, he was sure he’d be let back in. Nobody liked Leroy.
Eli found him and made a grab for him before Alvaro had even let go. “What the hell did you do?”
“Who saidI did anything?”
“Whenever there’s smoke, there you are, fanning the flames.”
Eli gave him a little shake to show he was serious, but Samuel was serious too. His grin was fading, but his mood remained buoyant. He kept replaying that swing in his head, Nathaniel going in for the kill like a WWE champion, except it wasn’t acting, and there hadn’t been any hesitation. “Your husband is something else.”
“Nathaniel?”
“Do you have another husband I don’t know about?”
But Eli didn’t think that was funny. “What did he do?”
So he told him, trying to keep it as understated as possible, but there really was no koshering a story like that, and soon Eli was covering his face and shaking his head and looking all sorts of horrified. But despite the fear and worry, there was pride there.
“He’s crazy,” Samuel said, and he meant it as a compliment. Never again would he question why Eli had chosen Nathaniel. So what if he wasn’t hot?
“You should see him in bed,” Eli said, and he didn’t quite manage to hold back his smile.
