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Fuck.
I’d pay to see that contest again any day. Preferably a one-on-one version.
The popularity of the wet T-shirt contest is making more sense the longer I go without sex. Rosie has been ignoring me ever since the firing incident. She thinks I’m doing the same, but I’m hyperaware of her every time she enters a room.
Being aware of the enemy is how you stay one step ahead.
Right, craving a whiff of her scent is just keeping you one step ahead …
She sets her balloon wineglass down on the coffee table, stepping toward me. She’s wearing a heather-gray T-shirt with a scooping neckline with the silky pink shorts. She approaches me slowly, like I might bite.
I might actually.
“I need to remove your stitches,” she says quietly, standing a few feet back from me, chewing her lip.
My eyes flick up to meet hers. I turn my head to show her the pink scar along my jawline.
“Oh … never mind then.” She turns back around, finding her seat on the sofa and pulling a plush throw blanket over herself.
I cut the stitches out myself last night because they itched.
“Well, in that case, I guess I’ll go make myself scarce in the barn with the animals,” Duke grumbles.
I continue sipping on my beer silently as the girls chatter about their week. Dolly scrolls through the movies under the Romantic Comedy tab. They finally select one, and I doze in and out of sleep as the movie plays.
“How many glasses is that for you?” Dolly asks, rousing me with her distant voice.
Rosie shrugs. “It’s my last Friday night for a few months at least. This gig has me scheduled every weekend.”
“In that case, I hope you know you have to sleep in my bed. I won’t settle for you out on the couch anymore. Unless you’d rather sleep with Duke …”
Rosie tosses back the last of her wine, leaning forward to pour another glass. “We’ll see how I feel after this bottle is gone.”
My eyes are drifting shut again when something hits me on the shoulder.
I open them up to see my sister smiling at me. “Go to bed, old man. You’ve been asleep for the whole thing.”
I blink at her. I could tell her that sleeping alone is essentially impossible for me right now and the only way I’ve been able to drift off in this chair without jolting awake from nightmares in cold, dark places is from hearing her and Rosie’s soft voices.
Instead, I stand up and head toward my bedroom. “Night, Doll.”
“Good night.”
I stumble toward my room, my head swimming with incoherent, sleep-deprived thoughts of the frigid cell, the silence, the nothingness of solitary confinement that nearly drove me mad.
I remove all my clothes, except my boxers, collapsing on top of the covers. There’s no point in showering; I’ll have to do it in the middle of the night anyway, just like last night.
And nearly every night since I’ve been home.
I keep the door to my room open so I can still hear the murmur of the girls and their movie. I keep my eyes open, staring up at the dark ceiling and the slowly rotating fan for as long as I can.
It’s ice cold in my cell. The guards must have neglected to turn on the heating element in solitary confinement. During the night when the Idaho temperatures drop below freezing, the cold seeps down through the threadbare blanket and into my bones. My movements are slow from the temperature.
Time passes as I drift in and out of a restless sleep. The seconds tick into minutes, and I finally realize that if I don’t get up and move my body, I very well could freeze to death—or at least lose some toes.
I force myself to stand, teeth vibrating against each other. I start with laying my blanket on the concrete floor to put a barrier between my hands and the icy surface. When I drop into the push-up position, it takes me a few tries before I manage to get a grip firm enough to lower my body down, then push back up.
I repeat it over and over again until the blood finally starts to flow through my veins faster, becoming its own source of heat.
