by Suki Fleet
That didn’t happen in prison. Trouble didn’t need an incentive. It started quite happily on its own.
As a remand prisoner, Cai was supposed to be kept separately from the convicted prisoners, but lack of staff and space meant all the remand prisoners were held in general population with everyone else. And while it wasn’t compulsory for remand prisoners to take courses or work, it filled Cai’s time and the less time he had to think about stuff the better.
So, in the mornings he slowly began to learn basic computer programming, and in the afternoons, he carved chair legs. And, if he spent two hours washing pots and pans after dinner, it was two hours less trying not to make eye contact with anyone in the common room, where everyone tended to congregate before lights out.
If he had to go in the common room at all, he stood at the back, against the wall, and looked up at the ceiling. Of course, incidents happened, but Cai let them go. He had to. Holding grudges and looking for revenge would never be his way, and it wouldn’t help. So, he didn’t speak if he didn’t have to. The only person he had a conversation with was Tommy, his first roommate. And that was only because Tommy was nervous of him, and Cai didn’t like the idea that he made anyone afraid just by existing. But Tommy was released the second week Cai was there, and Cai made an effort not to speak to any of the rotating cycle of others he shared with. If he was in his cell, he was lying on his bed, eyes closed, thinking of Nicky, of Soph and Loz, of home, his heart aching.
It was three weeks since Cai had seen Nicky. It felt like forever.
They’d spoken on the phone once, but Nicky had gotten frustrated and they’d both found it hard to talk. So they’d decided to wait until they could see one another. Cai felt his days narrow down to points focussed on seeing the people he loved. Time was an arrow and it carried Cai’s heart.
Soph had visited him first. A week ago. With Loz and one of the workers from the Fifield as a chaperone. Fourteen was too young to visit a prison unaccompanied.
Today, finally, was Nicky’s visit.
Cai watched the door as the visitation room filled up and the stream of visitors waiting for entry dwindled. One by one the butterflies crowding his stomach felt as though they were being shot down by stones. He looked at the clock. The minutes were ticking away too fast. And Nicky wasn’t there.
Outside in the courtyard, he glimpsed a flash of red. A shade he associated with only one person. Hope ballooned in his chest. Cai fixed his stare on the doorway, waiting half a minute before anyone else appeared. A guard stepped into the room, leading a late arrival. Cai’s heart thumped and the arrow found its mark.
Looking on edge and uncomfortable, Nicky peered around the room until his gaze met Cai’s. He couldn’t have moved any faster to get to Cai’s little table at the back of the room.
For a moment, all they did was watch one another. Nicky looked different. Cai wasn’t sure if it was the black jeans and the tight T shirt he was wearing, or the way his glossy hair was cut in a sharp line around his cleanly shaven jaw. Whatever it was, Cai’s breath was stolen, the room short of oxygen.
Nicky dragged the chair out from under the table and sat down. “Say something.”
Cai couldn’t move. Couldn’t work out what to say. Seeing Nicky was all he’d focussed on and thought about for days. Weeks. And now Nicky was here, his heart felt full to bursting. Excitement and relief wound through him, not quite masking the bigger, more powerful feelings he was sure the whole world could see if they just looked at him.
“I missed you,” Cai whispered, finally getting some words out. It was a huge understatement.
“Yeah?” Nicky held his gaze with an intensity that could bring a person to their knees at his feet.
Cai couldn’t look away. “You okay… being here?”
“You mean, am I going to have a fucking panic attack and freak out on you?” Nicky’s eyes flashed. Ice and fire. “Honestly, right now it could go either way.”
“I want to hold you.”
“But you’re not.”
“The guards will take me back to my room if I touch you.”
Nicky glanced around. “This place fucking sucks.” He picked at his nails.
“You look… amazing—”
“Will they give you shit, having a guy visit you? A guy like me.”
“I don’t care. I want to see you.” Need to. Cai wasn’t going to get through this without him. “And what do you mean, a guy like you?”
Nicky shuddered out a sigh. Cai could see the tension singing through him. He looked about to implode.
“Talk to me, Nicky. Don’t lock up on me.”
“If I open my mouth, I’m not gonna be able to hold back.”
“I don’t want you to hold back. Not with me. I want to know every thought in your head that you’re willing to tell me.”
Nicky made a growling sound in the back of his throat. “Fuck. I hate that you’re in here, dealing with this shit. I hate not being able to have a conversation with you where I can fucking touch you. I hate not being able to hug you after not seeing you for weeks. This is stressful. Sophie told me last time you were inside you had no friends because you kept such a low profile. She said it was because you didn’t want any trouble, and being found out as liking guys in here would be trouble. I don’t want to be trouble. I don’t want it to be my selfish need to see you that gets you in trouble.”
What came out of Nicky’s mouth when his filter broke was always so raw Cai felt as if Nicky was reaching inside him to touch the secret inner spaces of his heart.
Making sure no guard was looking in their direction, Cai touched Nicky’s leg under the table. Nicky’s jeans were soft as skin. Cai wanted to bury his fingers in them but he pulled away.
Nicky blinked slowly, reached under the table and grasped Cai’s hand tight. “You wouldn’t be in here if it wasn’t for me. I hate it.” He sagged against the table.
“None of this is—”
“Don’t say it.” Nicky glanced around, his eyebrows drawn together. “It is my fault.” His long sooty eyelashes brushed his cheek when he blinked. Cai had no idea how someone so impossibly beautiful was here with him. “Cyril only came after you because you were trying to protect me. But I’m not here out of any sense of guilt. I’m not Vivian. As I said, my being here is way more selfish than that. I need to see you and freaking out on you is the last thing I want to happen. I’m trying.” He took a shaky breath.
A shout sounded across the room. Everyone turned to watch. A girl and a boy were arguing. They both looked too young to be there, even though Cai knew they were probably the same age as him. Without even wiping her tears, the girl got up and walked out, slamming the door behind her. The boy’s expression was devastated.
Nicky squeezed his hand and fixed Cai with such an open stare, Cai’s heart started racing. “That’s never going to be us.”
Butterflies pitched inside him. Drunk.
“I hate seeing you stressed. We don’t have to talk much if you don’t want.” Cai was happy just drinking Nicky in. Storing away a thousand details to remember later. He could watch Nicky all day. He’d thought about him for most of it.
“I want to talk. I want you to tell me how you’re doing? Honestly. Not the bullshit you fed Sophie last week.”
Cai swallowed. Obviously, he hadn’t wanted Soph to worry.
“I’m going to get through it,” Cai said with a tight nod.
“Fucking right you are.” Under the table, Nicky crushed his hand painfully. He hoped Nicky’s grip left a mark that he’d be able to see later. “We’re going to do better on the phone. I’m going to do better. How many phone calls do you get?”
The tears came from nowhere. Cai covered his face. He didn’t know if it was the way Nicky had been searching his eyes, focussing on him so intently and looking as though he was prepared to take on the world on Cai’s behalf, or if he was just generally overwhelmed.
He squeezed Nicky’s hand back.
“It’s okay, b
aby. I get it.” Baby? Nicky using endearments sounded so out of place that Cai smiled despite himself. “Remember that hospital room? It was the first time I got to sleep with you. Like actually sleep. And waking up with your arms around me was the best fucking feeling.” Cai dropped his hand to look at Nicky. Whatever else he was, Nicky was good at distraction.
“Better than what we did in the front seat of my van?”
Cocking his head, Nicky flashed him a quick grin. “Different.” He swallowed. “It’s about trust. Trusting someone enough to relax completely with them. I trust you and it leaves me naked, because…” Now Nicky was beginning to sound choked up. “We need to protect each other through all the shit. And that means you need to fucking lean on me. Okay? I will be strong for you. I swear. You told me I’m not on my own, and you’re not either. We get through this together. So, how many phone calls do you get?” he asked again.
Cai winced. “I haven’t got any credit left.” He looked down at the table, felt Nicky tug on his hand.
“How come?”
“First week, I refused to give my breakfast to this guy. Turns out he’s a trader… I got jumped in the shower a few days later, busted my head… I had to buy painkillers and antiseptic off him… they were… expensive.”
Nicky’s expression was murderous. “Why didn’t you request to see a doctor instead?”
“They’d ask questions. I didn’t want any trouble. Any more trouble anyway. I just want to get out of here and for this to be over.” It was such a relief to talk like this instead of keeping it all bottled up. Even though it terrified him to admit the truth to Nicky. But Nicky had said lean on me and however much Cai didn’t want to, he needed to.
“FIVE MINUTES,” the guard yelled.
“How do I get you credit?” Nicky asked quickly. “Fucking hell, don’t tell me you’ve been too proud to ask,” he hissed when Cai glanced away.
It was complicated but Nicky was partly right. “I know you don’t have anything….”
“I have enough. Can I give money to you now?”
“You need to send it in. It’ll take a few days for them to sort out, and put it on my account. They limit it so I can’t use more than ten or twenty a week. I’ll pay you back.”
Nicky rolled his eyes. “But if I gave you some cash now, that’d be useful, right?”
“Don’t. If they catch us, they might stop you visiting me again.” Cai wasn’t prone to depression but thinking about his visits had been the only thing that pulled him out of the darkness a couple of times.
“OKAY, VISITING TIME IS OVER. OUT WE GO NOW.”
Nicky shook his head. “No way was that five minutes.” He fixed Cai with a determined stare. “Two weeks, yeah? But you’re going to phone me as much as you can.”
Cai nodded. He couldn’t speak.
“You sure you don’t care about anyone seeing you with a guy?”
“I want everyone to know I’m with you.”
“And they’re going to send you back to your cell whatever, right?” Without waiting for his response, Nicky got up, pulled Cai to his feet and hugged him hard. Beneath his skinny T-shirt he was wirily strong. Stronger than Cai remembered. Strong enough to catch him if he fell, maybe. Cai took a deep breath and shuddered. If anything had ever felt so good, he couldn’t remember. For a tactile person, so many weeks without touch was a form of torture. When he got out he wanted to spend days like this. Just lying with Nicky, holding one another. Feeling one another’s hearts beat as they slow fucked for hours on end.
Eyes closed, he pressed his face into Nicky’s bony shoulder. With his arms full of Nicky’s warmth, Cai was closer to home than he had ever felt in his life. Nicky tilted his head, nudged Cai’s chin with his nose, then kissed him, gentle and soft. It wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough. He cupped Nicky head, swallowed soft strands of his hair as he pressed their mouths together.
“BREAK IT UP,” the guard yelled.
They only had seconds before the guard stepped over and roughly dragged them apart, but it was enough for Cai. He knew he would hold onto the feeling for days, weeks, maybe even forever. Breathing hard, he watched as Nicky was led away.
If he got shit because of that kiss, it was more than worth it.
Growing pains
Four or five times a week at 2pm, Gemma would knock on the door to Nicky’s room and they would sit on his bed, drinking whatever witches’ brew of herbal tea Gemma had brought him to try that day and talking until Sophie and Loz returned from school. It wasn’t friendship exactly, but it was something. And it was something Nicky was starting, slowly, to look forward to.
Being with Gemma and Sophie and Loz eased the constant hollow ache in his chest.
Sometimes the feeling kept him awake at night. At first he’d thought there was something wrong with him, like maybe chronic indigestion from eating regular meals. But it hadn’t gone away for weeks. He’d begun to think it never would. And then he’d walked into the awful prison for the first time and he’d seen Cai in the dull clothes the prison had provided as he’d nothing else, seen the intensity of Cai’s expression—as though he was about to either burst apart or implode—and the ache had fucking… gone. Just like that. Replaced by a feeling so incredibly full of rightness, it took his breath away.
As he’d made his way home afterwards, the ache had returned. Like the stray cat that now occupied his bed most nights, it had curled up in his chest and gotten comfortable, as though it was in it for the long haul. And Nicky had drawn the feeling closer, because however bad the ache was, he knew there was no pain more worth it.
The weirdest thing was how the feeling stretched further than Cai.
“When shall I do dinner?” Sophie stood in the doorway to his bare but cosy little room. Nicky had been curled up on his bed, so lost in thought, he hadn’t heard her knock.
Vivian was going to be there soon. Maybe she was there already.
“Erm… seven maybe?” He had no idea how long Vivian was going to stay.
Really, it was Nicky’s turn to cook today but as soon as Sophie had found out Vivian was coming, she’d swapped with him without a word.
It had been nearly five weeks since he’d last seen Vivian. Gemma said she’d been working “off grid”. Whatever that meant.
“Think she’ll want to eat with us?” Sophie asked, as though it was a natural and easy thing to do to invite people to dinner.
“What? No?….” Would she? Nicky ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know?”
Sophie smiled as he flailed.
“Fuck. This is stressful. It’s not going to go well. I’m probably going to insult her.”
Sophie stepped into the room and hugged him. “Don’t worry. It’s part of your charm.”
Sometimes she was so like Cai it was actually painful.
He wasn’t anxious about seeing Vivian, as much as he was anxious about what she might tell him. No one working on the case at the police station would give him any information about the identity of the bodies they’d recovered from Thorn Hall. There had been very little news coverage. And every day he sat on his windowsill staring at the little squares of houses and gardens and the passing cars and wondered if Cyril was going to turn up to destroy their peaceful world.
“I’ll be in the kitchen. If you need a distraction, wave your arm.”
Nicky raised an eyebrow. “And what sort of distraction would you be providing? Just so I know.”
Sophie grinned. “I’ll get Loz to think of something.”
Yeah, that was about right. Loz was full of ideas. About everything.
“What sort of something do you need me to think of?” Loz said, poking their head around Nicky’s half closed door. “I just saw Vivian arrive, by the way.”
“If I look like I need help, make it something spectacular.” Nicky got up. He needed to get this over with.
On his way out he gave Loz a one-armed hug. “Or just come swim out and talk to Vivian if I look like I’m drowning out th
ere. She likes you.”
Loz raised an eyebrow. “She likes you too, Nicky.”
The apartment block was new and had been built with a large courtyard garden at its centre. Its large lawn was dotted with fruit trees that the chickens liked to perch in. Most of the trees were young but there were two tall old apple trees, whose gnarled branches cast the most interesting shadows on sunny days. Light posts lined the path that curved around the edge, and fairy lights hung in long strings between the trees and twinkled in the darkness.
Vivian had wanted to meet in the middle of the garden. Nicky presumed because it was quieter and far away from any eavesdroppers.
He found her sitting on a bench beneath one of the old apple trees, stroking the stray cat that had sort of adopted him. In his head Nicky had named the cat Pickles. He wasn’t stupid enough to think Pickles was his. Cats didn’t belong to people, much like people didn’t belong to people. If they liked you they tended to stay around.
The skinny black cat was usually more cautious in who he sought affection from, though, giving newcomers and strangers a wide berth.
Vivian looked up as he approached and gave him a tired smile. “You want to ask me about Cyril,” she said, dispensing with any form of greeting.
Hugging his coat closer, Nicky opened his mouth. Then closed it again.
He nodded.
Up close, Vivian’s features were etched with exhaustion. She seemed thinner too, her presence smaller somehow. Even the vibrant red of her curls seemed to have dulled to a more mellow coppery brown. Maybe it was the light. She waited as Nicky settled down next to her on the bench. Pickles stretched out a paw and batted Nicky’s thigh before getting up and laying possessively across his lap.
How such a small gesture of affection could light him up was one of those things he was never going to get a handle on. Gently, he rubbed his knuckle across Pickles’ head and felt the purr vibrate through his body. He loved the damn cat. Perhaps the damn cat loved him back after all.
With Pickles warm on his lap, Nicky’s heart beat a little steadier.
