9. Chapter 9

9

T ia handed over one of the forks and waited expectantly for Alfie to take the first bite of vanilla cheesecake. It was Sunday, and Alfie had dragged himself out of bed, jumped on the bus and arrived at Mr Cuppa to coincide with Tia's break time.

He smiled at her. "Tia…"

"You first," she insisted.

Alfie sighed and dug his fork into the cheesecake.

"How does it feel to be a hero?"

"I'm not a hero." Alfie rolled his eyes. He ate the mouthful of cheesecake and let loose a soft moan. "That's good. That's so good."

"Heroes get the best."

He glared at her.

"What?" she said, taking a bite herself. "You saved a man's life, and you did it without hesitating."

"Why would I hesitate?"

Tia glanced down, finding something interesting to look at on the plate. "Hmmm?"

"Why would I hesitate?"

"The whole"—she leaned over the table to whisper—"he's a violent criminal."

"There was a part of me that thought he might be faking, that I might get into the cell and be attacked."

But Nate had promised, and Alfie, despite all reason, had believed him.

"I didn't mean that," Tia said. "I meant, you know…some people would've left him to die because of whatever he did that got him locked up in there."

"Oh."

It was Alfie's turn to look down at the plate. His stomach squirmed with the small amount of cheesecake he'd consumed, and he pushed it towards Tia to signal he'd finished.

"You said you liked it," Tia said, darting her eyes from the plate to Alfie.

"I lost my appetite."

"Sorry." She shot him a sad smile. "I didn't mean to upset you, but you told me ages ago H-wing is full of the proper sickos and psychos."

"I didn't use those words."

Tia shrugged. "The meanest of the mean then. This…guy you resuscitated—"

"Queenie."

"Queenie," she repeated with her eyebrows raised. "Well, he must've done something pretty bad to be put on that wing, right?"

"Right."

She waved her hand, as if encouraging him to speak.

"I don't know what he did," Alfie mumbled.

"They don't tell you?"

"His file is there if I want to read it."

"And you haven't because…"

Alfie shook his head. "I don't know."

"Jesus, Alfie, he could be in there for rape and murder, and you…you went in his cell alone."

He slumped back into his seat. "I think I preferred it when you were calling me a hero."

"You saved his life; that goes without saying, but that was dangerous, right? Going into his cell alone."

"Yes," Alfie admitted. "My superior has already chewed me out for it."

"Rightly so." Alfie gawped at her, and she reached for his hand across the table. "Don't look at me like that. Next time, you might not be so lucky. Now this…Queenie guy knows you'll open the door if he's unresponsive, he might do it again to get you on your own."

"He won't—"

"You don't know that, Alfie." She studied him intently, then gasped into her hand. "You like him."

Alfie reddened. "No—"

"You hear about it all the time, prison officers being drawn in by prisoners until they smuggle in contraband. Queenie could be playing a game with you, getting you onside—"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"Alfie." She squeezed his hand. "You've got to be careful. Don't let them play you. Don't fall for their tricks."

He nodded before taking a sip of coffee. Tia looked at him for a long time with her lips in a pout and pity on her face. He couldn't take it anymore.

"Not long," he said, rubbing his throat when his voice sounded drier than moments before.

Tia frowned. "Not long?"

"Until your birthday."

"It's a month away." Tia laughed.

"Exactly, not long. Where are we going?"

And just like that, Alfie had steered the conversation away from Larkwood with ease.

"Well," Tia began. "I want to start in Black Jacks, you know, that swanky-looking bar."

"The expensive one?"

"Yeah, but we'll go to Benny's afterwards. It's cheap there, and after that, I was thinking of a club, but I haven't decided which. There's eight of us going. We'll meet at mine first and get ready."

"Eight?"

Tia hummed. "Yep, you, me, Anna, Sarah, Faye, Adam, Lily, Max and Jaz, sadly no Chris."

"Chris?"

"The cute customer from months back who was too short for me."

"Oh." Alfie nodded. "Now I remember."

"I've not seen him since." She shrugged. "Max is looking forward to hanging out with you again."

"Tia…" Alfie growled.

"What? You know he's keen on you, and he's hoping to improve on ‘second base'."

Max, as Alfie remembered it, had stuck to Alfie that night and, after a few too many beers, admitted he was still a virgin. They'd kissed, but Alfie hadn't taken it any further, telling Max he needed his first time to be with someone special, not someone like him.

You are special.

Alfie blocked out Nate's voice in his head.

"It's not going to happen."

Tia played with the straw in her drink. "You told me you thought he was hot."

"A long time ago."

"Five months ago." She laughed. "Surely, your taste in men can't have changed in five months. Max is hot, he works in the cinema so free tickets, he likes the same gangster films you do, and every time I've seen him since you hooked up, he's asked about you."

"Are you trying to…pair us up just because we're the only gay guys you know?"

"No." She flashed him innocent eyes. "He's just… He's all right, and you've not even dated a guy before so…"

"So?"

She shrugged. "I want to see you happy, Alfie, and I think if you give him a chance, he could do that."

"Tia…" He bit his lip. "I just want to have a fun night with you. Max, he's cool, he's a nice guy, but he's not my type."

"And what is your type?"

Freshman.

"I don't know," he said, taking another mouthful of coffee. Tia studied him, whipping her gaze up and down as Alfie tried not to choke under her scrutiny.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing." She looked away. "We'll find you someone…someone good ."

She put emphasis on the word and stared at him like she knew , then she smiled.

"Actually, I need you to tell me what's your favourite dress out of the five I've narrowed it down to."

"Five?"

"Yep," she said with an annoyed squint. She tugged her phone from her pocket and scrolled through the images, and like that, they were back to normal.

Alfie tapped his knuckles to Nate's door with a smile growing on his lips.

"How are you this morning, Freshman?"

He shrugged and ticked off Nate's name. "Can't complain. I've just spoken to Queenie, after all."

Nate tutted, and Alfie rubbed his mouth to halt his laugh.

"I was wondering, what do you drink?"

Alfie frowned. "Why do you want to know?"

"If I met you in a pub and asked to buy you a drink, I wondered what you'd pick, that's all."

Alfie opened his mouth to reply, but Nate got there first.

"Please say it's not one of those alcopops or flavoured cider."

A flash of humiliation struck Alfie's cheeks. They were his preferred drinks. They were sweet, mostly fizz-free, and didn't intoxicate him like beer did.

"I would decline your offer and move along the bar," Alfie muttered.

Nate laughed. "No, you wouldn't. You would blush and say something stupid like, ‘whatever you're having', and I'd get a whisky and watch as you knocked yours back with a gasp and a splutter."

The blush on Alfie's face intensified. The first time he had whisky, he had done just as Nate described. Whisky was as pleasant as swallowing a lit match.

"I'd rub your back until you stopped spluttering, and you'd try to flee in embarrassment, but I wouldn't let you. I'd wipe the sticky whisky off your lips with my thumb and bring it to my mouth to taste. It would taste sweet. Sweet because it touched you. I'd need more and would forget about my thumb and taste the whisky on your lips with mine."

The clunk of the gate below woke Alfie from the fantasy, and his eyelashes fluttered when he reopened his eyes. He hadn't even realised he had closed them, wasn't aware that he had leaned against the cell door, ear as close to Nate's voice as he could get.

Alfie straightened and blanked his mind of any lust. "I would push you away and call security."

He turned to walk away, but Nate spoke again, voice no longer his low drawl but normal.

"I've got something for you," Nate said by the top hinge.

Alfie leaned closer with his eyebrow raised. "I'm not opening the hatch."

"You don't have to."

Alfie bent down when he heard crinkling paper. Nate slipped it through the gap in the hatch, and Alfie caught it before it fell to the grated walkway. He unfolded the paper and swallowed hard at the pencil sketch of himself. No longer lipless, and not just of his face. He was lying down in the picture, his shirt was open, his tie loosened and askew, and his wrists were tied with something thin above his head. Shoelaces, his brain supplied. Again, there was no colour to the picture, but the shading on his cheeks hinted at a blush and the shine to his lips suggested they were wet. It was a sexualised picture of himself, and he didn't know what to say or how to feel. Equal levels of unease and curiosity ran through his mind, and he didn't know whether his crotch throbbed with interest or fear.

Alfie wetted his lips, thankful Nate couldn't see his turmoil. "What's this?"

"As you can see, Freshman, I didn't know how your torso looks, whether you have muscles, whether you have body hair, dark or light nipples."

All he had noticed was his bound hands and compliant face. He looked again and noticed that, unlike in the rest of the picture, there was no detail to his chest. It was blank.

"Why give it to me?" he asked.

"I needed your help. To fill in the blanks."

Alfie breathed heavily through his nose and shook his head.

"Does it unnerve you, seeing yourself tied up and helpless, and knowing that's how I see you, how I want to see you? If our little pub fantasy played out, this is how I'd want it to end."

"Nate—"

"I'd have you like that, be above you while you rocked back and forth on my fingers, and I'd be…"

"Be?"

"Watching…waiting…"

Alfie knew he shouldn't ask. He looked away, then back at the door. "For what?"

"You to come apart beneath me."

"Enough." Alfie took a step back.

"I can't help but get carried away when thinking of you like that."

Alfie pressed the picture to the clipboard and added his own detail. He drew three saggy boobs, hanging down to his belly button, then he folded it in two and shoved it back through the door.

"There you go. I've filled in the blanks."

Alfie heard Nate unfold the paper and laugh lightly. He turned to leave, but Nate's voice tugged him back.

"So how does it work with your boyfriends?"

Alfie frowned at Nate's door. "What do you mean?"

"Do they share you? One has you first and then the other?"

A fierce blush grew in Alfie's cheeks, and he swallowed. "Something like that…"

"What do they look like?"

"Why'd you want to know?"

Nate hummed into the gap of the door. "Want to see if you've got a type."

Alfie closed his eyes and created an opposite of Nate in his mind. "Black hair, brown eyes, slim build…"

"Both of them?"

"Yeah, they're both my type. That's what I'm into."

Nate laughed. "You're trying too hard, Freshman. We both know there are no boyfriends, and if there were, they should be worried. You flirt with me like you're single."

"No, I don't."

"Maybe it's 'cause you know I can give you what your imaginary boyfriends can't."

Alfie scrunched his face and took a step back from Nate's cell.

Nate laughed into the door, and a chill wrapped around Alfie's neck. A scarf of cold that left him feeling exposed and vulnerable. He was the one with the keys on his hip, the one who would leave the prison in a few hours, but Nate's smug voice told him otherwise. Even with him blinded by the cell door, Nate could see straight through him.

He distanced himself from the smirking but still felt the prickle of unease at home hours later. He stared through his living room window at the sign for Larkwood, forever reminding him of Nate, of the prison, and the caged feeling that had infused itself into his bones.

Alfie thought about Tia and her insistence they'd find him someone good.

That was the problem though.

He didn't want someone good . He wanted the meanest of the mean.