“How are you doing?” I ask.
“Aside from the fact that they won’t let me have coffee, and the food is revolting, and they wake you up in the dead of night to give you a sleeping pill, I’m fabulous,” Caesar says.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Caesar grunts, closing his right eye. “I’m the one who got jumped and didn’t protect your sister.” He cracks his eye open. “I’m sorry about your dog.”
I nod. Donny had beaten and stabbed Caesar nearly to death and then gone into the house to grab Susannah, who had been asleep, so neither of them saw what happened to Wilson. I’m about to make some dumb joke to lighten the mood, because I don’t want to start weeping about Wilson again, when Caesar grabs my right hand. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t protect your sister.”
“Hey,” I say, “it’s okay; you were—”
He pulls me toward him, his grip like iron. “I mean it,” he says. “And thank you, for what you did. With the brick.”
Frankie hovers behind me. “Take it easy,” he says to me. “He needs to rest.”
“He has an orbital fracture and a lacerated liver, and I’m pretty sure he could still kick my ass,” I say.
“Damn straight,” Caesar says. “Now listen to Frankie and get out so I can get some rest.” He releases my hand and leans back, closing his eye. I flex my hand to make sure it’s still working, shooting a look at Frankie to make sure he sees.
“Yes, my boyfriend is a badass,” Frankie says.
I nod and walk out the door, but not before I see Caesar, his eye still closed, slowly smile.
I’m at the elevators when I hear Frankie call my name, and I turn around to see him walking down the hall. “What’s wrong?” I say when he reaches me.
“Nothing,” Frankie says. “I just … I wanted to tell you—about me and Caesar.”
The elevator dings and the door opens, and two nurses step off the elevator, then stop because we’re blocking them. I usher Frankie to the side to let them pass and find myself standing by a window that looks out onto a ventilation shaft. “Okay,” I say to Frankie.
“You know he saved my life,” Frankie says. “And when he did that, I immediately wondered what he wanted. Everybody in prison wants something. But he just seemed to want to do what he thought was the right thing, helping me. And we became friends, got close. But that’s all we were, in there. It wasn’t until we both got out …” He trails off and looks at me hopefully.
“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he says. “So, he got out first, right? A month before I did, turns out. And when he was gone, I was so …” He looks out the window, as if the words he is searching for will be hovering right outside in the ventilation shaft. “I wasn’t just lonely. It was like part of me had walked away with him. It felt—it felt like I was dying inside, you know?” He wipes his face with his hands and looks back at me. “And when I walked out of that place, there he was, leaning up against this Cadillac he’d rented, waiting for me. And when he opened his arms to give me a hug, I just walked straight through that hug and kissed him. We stood there in front of God and everybody, kissing in the prison parking lot.” He laughs, then glances at me to see my reaction. I smile back at him, nodding, and he grins a little. “He said, ‘Are you sure?’ Like asking me if I’d ordered what I really wanted off the menu or whatever. And I was. I was sure.” Frankie lowers his head a little, eyes still on me. “I’d never felt that before. I didn’t lie to you when we were growing up. I wasn’t hiding anything. Hell, I don’t even know if I am gay. I mean, I still find women attractive. But the only man—the only person—I feel this way about is him. And I’m good with that.”
I reach my uninjured hand out and grip his shoulder. “You don’t owe me an explanation,” I say. “And you don’t need my blessing or anything. But you have it.”
Frankie grips my shoulder in return, and then he pulls me into a hug, pounding me firmly on the back. “You’re such an asshole, Ethan,” he says in my ear, and then laughs, like a long-held dread unspooling.
We stand there locked in an embrace like long-lost comrades, reunited at last.
THAT EVENING I’M trying to make spaghetti with my good hand when the phone rings, and I answer and put it on speaker. “Hello?” I say, stirring the marinara.
“Mr. Faulkner?” a man says.
“Speaking.” I lift the lid on the stockpot, but the water for the pasta isn’t boiling yet.
“Mr. Faulkner, my name is Steven, and I am calling on behalf of Mr. Jackson Devereaux,” the man says.
I nearly drop the lid. “Marisa’s father?”
“Exactly,” Steven says. Now I recognize his voice from when I first called Marisa’s house. “He would like to know if it is possible for you to meet with him tomorrow afternoon,” he continues. “Say three o’clock?”
“May I ask what this is regarding?” I say, mostly keeping my voice steady.
“I
