Dark Destiny by Avelyn Paige
StoneFace
Penny sitson my lap like a perfect little doll while I try to jam my giant sausage finger through the impossibly tiny elastic band on one of the bows Delilah had given me.
Snap.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I quit.” Tossing the useless bow across the cell, I place Penny on my mattress and jump to my feet.
My cellmate doesn’t move from his position on his bed, but he does tip his book a little so he can see me over the top of it.
“Everything okay?”
Despite having been an inmate here for a couple of months, I haven’t really gotten to know Gibbs much at all. Most of my time is spent at the kennels, and whenever we’re shut in together, he reads and I exercise.
We aren’t friendly, but we have an unspoken agreement: You leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone.
By asking that question, he’s broken the agreement, and I’m done staying silent.
“No, everything is not fucking okay. I’m in jail. My club is ready to do me in if I don’t get my shit together. I have not one, but two men in this jail who need to meet their maker before I go wherever the fuck I end up going. I’m in this tiny cell with a man I do not know, and a dog that doesn’t even look like a fucking dog. And I’m trying to put a bow in the frilly ass dog’s hair all because the hottest, most infuriating fucking woman I’ve ever met told me to, and I would do just about anything to see her smile at me again the way she did earlier today.”
Whistling, Gibbs tosses his book aside, swings his legs over the bed, and plants his feet on the floor. “There’s a lot of shit to unpack there, big guy.”
I rake a hand across the stubble on my scalp as I pace across the cell. “Try being inside my fucking head.”
Gibbs is quiet for a moment, as both he and Penny watch me pace back and forth. “I don’t know how to help you with your whole being in jail, or the two men meeting their maker, but I’ll tell you what I can help you with.”
I pause. “What?”
“I can totally do that pretty little dog’s bow for you.”
This is the most I’ve heard Gibbs say, and suddenly, so many things about him begin to fall into place. “You know how to do a bow?”
Gibbs chuckles. “Oh, honey, bless your heart. I can French braid your whole dog if you really want me to. Hand me that comb and a couple of bows, and we’ll get her looking so pretty, even that infuriating woman of yours won’t recognize her.”
Gaydar alarms go off in my head as I hand Gibbs the equipment he needs to help me with Penny.
“This is the most we’ve ever talked, you and me,” I say, watching Gibbs coax Penny a little closer with his hand and a gentle smile.
He grins at me from over his shoulder. “I keep to myself. Only two more days and I’m outta here, and I ain’t never comin’ back. Guy like me,”—He indicates himself, as if that should mean something to me—“we don’t usually do too well here in lockup. Either that, or we do a little too well, if you know what I mean.”
I do know what he means.
“Jail isn’t exactly LGBTQ friendly,” I agree.
He watches me carefully, a tiny lock of Penny’s hair pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “And you? Are you LGBTQ friendly?”
“I couldn’t care less who you like to fuck, Gibbs. Homophobes are assholes.”
Gibbs smiles. “Total assholes.”
I can only imagine the fear he’s felt, being locked inside with these inmates. Hell, even with me. I dwarf the poor fucker. But lucky for him, he has the cell all to himself most of the time.
“Ta-da!” Gibbs sings, spinning around and holding Penny out to me as if she’s wearing the blue ribbon from the county fair.
Fucking bows.I hate to admit it, but with that stupid ponytail sticking out the top of her tiny little head, her brown eyes look even brighter, making her cute as hell.
“Thanks, man. She looks like she should be in some rich bitch’s purse instead of this cell with you and me, but I know Delilah will like it for sure.”
Gibbs laughs. “That the gorgeous, infuriating one?”
“The one and only.”
Crossing the cell, he takes a seat on his bed, and I sit across from him on mine.
“She know you like her?”
I frown. “I don’t like her. She’s a fucking employee here. I’m an inmate.”
“Mm-hmm,” he murmurs, like he’s considering those words, but doesn’t actually believe them. “So you wanted your dog to have that gay ass bow because…?”
“She’s hot. Whatever. I have more important things to worry about, though.”
“Those things have anything to do with the two men and the whole meeting their maker business?”
Shit.Sometimes when I get pissed off, I say a little more than I should.
“Yeah. How about we forget that part?”
“Don’t worry. I’m not gonna go snitchin’ on ya.”
I consider that. I don’t know this guy from a hole in the ground, but sometimes, you can just tell from one meeting that you can trust someone. Gibbs won’t say a damn word. “You know anything about an inmate here named Chad Elscher?”
He presses his lips together in thought. “Never heard of him.”
“What about a Henry Tucker?”
That name gets a reaction. “Oh, yeah. That one, I know.”
I perk up then, sitting forward on the edge of the bed. “What do you know?”
“I know he’s bad news. He spends a lot of time in solitary because of all the fights he gets into. Though, word on the unit is that he sells kiddie porn, including his own kids, so he has to fight a lot. Even in jail, that’s a big no-no.”
Gibbs doesn’t know the half of it.
“How do I find him?”
He thinks for a moment. “Well, he’s in the next block over, so the only time we see him is when we get our one hour out in the yard, which you’re never there for because you’re always down in the kennel with your hot dog lady. But most of the time, Tucker isn’t even out there because he’s on restriction or in solitary for fighting, so seeing him out is a rare occurrence.”
Fuck. This might take more time than I thought.
Seems like I need to be finding time to get out in the yard with the rest of these yahoos until I can pay a little visit to my good friend Henry.