And if Rhett exposes the crooked cops with Shelby’s evidence, Jeremy won’t have an easy avenue to reach me, which means I’ll be locked up for some time, no doubt.
We reach the back roads of Noimore, and Rhett speeds along the dark lanes with tunnel-vision focus. He must know his way through the city—he avoids all the major cop spots. When we get halfway to our destination, he relaxes a bit, but not enough to take either of his hands from the steering wheel.
“Hey,” I say to him, breaking the silent tension that had settled between us. “Do cops ever have a say on which prison convicts are housed in?”
“No,” Rhett states. “There’s a prison designation board that determines your facility based on your security rating, criminal record, area code of residence, and availability. Sometimes a judge can make a recommendation on your behalf, but that’s rare.”
I mull over the information and offer no further commentary.
“Why?” he asks. “You have friends you want to reconnect with?”
“I wanna be placed as far away from Miles as possible.”
He squints at the road and tightens his grip on the steering wheel. “Why?”
I turn to Rhett, half-tempted to tell him everything on my mind, but I hold myself back. After another round of uncertainty, I decide to speak, though I look away, unwilling or unable to stare at him directly, I don’t know.
“He won’t leave his siblings, and I’d rather him not visit. He’s got…. Well, he’s got better things to do with his time. Maybe once things are all said and done, you can… you can be the one who helps him move on. If he has someone, it’ll make things easier.”
“You want me to be the one who helps him move on?” He chuckles. “What’re you implying, Pierce?”
“You know damn well what I’m implying!” I slam my feet on the floor of the car and sit up straight, riled with anger and frustration. I bite back all my crude remarks and grit my teeth. I was the one to suggest this. Why does it hurt so much to think about?
“I know you want him,” I force out. “You two are similar in, well, many regards. I know he wouldn’t be unhappy. That’s what I care about, all right? Did I make myself perfectly fucking clear?”
Rhett doesn’t answer. We sit in the sweltering cab, no radio, and say nothing. I know he’s not comfortable with himself—not with the way he seems to hate me talking about his sexual proclivities—but I don’t know what else to say to him. I think I’ve made my point; all I can do now is hope Miles doesn’t do anything crazy.
I turn off the heater. Fuck that heater.
“Why are you so deep in the closet?” I ask, unabashed. I need to know.
“I’m not,” he snaps. “I just like to keep my personal life private. Is that so much to ask for? Privacy?”
Nothing wrong with privacy. I love my privacy. Still, I wouldn’t deny the fact I like men. Then again, I guess Rhett never has. He simply avoids the conversation, which isn’t a bad way to handle it if he wants to keep things private. Maybe Miles was right. Maybe I do have more in common with Rhett than I realized.
“Humor me,” Rhett says, drawing me out of my musings. “Hypothetically speaking, let’s say you are who I think you are. Some gangster lowlife. Now let’s pretend you didn’t hire a hitman to kill Shelby. Why would someone claim that you had?”
“Hypothetically speaking?” I ask.
“Yeah. Pretend. We’re pretending that’s reality.”
“Then I would tell you that no one leaves a gang without consequences. And that some of my old hypothetical associates would be displeased with my current occupation and consider it traitorous. I don’t think we need to imagine what happens to traitors, right? I’d bet they’d go to great lengths to make sure I was hypothetically taken out of the picture.”
“Some guy would be willing to go to prison to bring you in?”
“You’d be surprised at how far certain influences go. It’s always nice to have a middleman in prison—lots of gangbangers there need goods to push. Think of it more like a sideways promotion.”
“Is our prison system really that bad?” Rhett asks, half to himself and half to me.
I chuckle. “It holds individuals well enough. Organizations are a different matter.”
There’s a piece of me that wonders why Rhett didn’t straight up ask me, but I don’t press him for the details. If he wants to ask me odd, roundabout questions, I’m not going to stop him.
“Why are you and Miles together?” he asks, continuing his parade of bizarre inquiries. “And I’m not asking about how you met or why you’re together now. I mean, why stay together at all? He’s not like you.”
“I ask myself the same damn question,” I murmur as I stare out the window. The rain comes and goes, like the clouds can’t make up their minds. “But I think Miles feels he owes me. I helped him get his brother out of a street gang, and we’ve been together ever since.”
“A street gang?”
“The Cobras. You’d know if you saw his shoulder. The kid got a snake inked there like a fucking idiot.”
“Oh, he’s an idiot, is he?”
“Yeah. That’s what I said.”
“Let me guess, you’re infinitely smarter. That’s why you got ink on your forearm instead.”
I grab at my arm and pull it close. I guess it doesn’t matter that he’s seen my tattoo, but I’ve come to loathe the thing.
“No,” I drawl, staring at it. “I’m just as stupid.”
We cross the Joliet city limit, and the drizzle continues steady until we get into town. Rhett takes every corner sharp, speeds through yellow lights, and only slows for stop signs. That’s cop driving for you.
“This isn’t how I imagined arresting you,” Rhett says. This guy has an odd train of thought.
“Tell me,” I say. “How did all your arrest fantasies play out in your head?”
He
