Page 37 of The Barn: Frost and Q
But it was.
He stared at the beer.
“You mind? I’m parched. I know you don’t want one. Sprite? Juice?”
He almost whimpered. “Can you mix the two together?”
“You bet, baby.” Frost went to mix his drink, just putting in a tiny bit of ice like he liked it when his head hurt. “So what about the guy?”
“He’s making jokes about porcupine tossing or something. Tell me he’s not serious.”
“Baby, like we would let that happen. The guy just learned that porcupines fall out of trees up here. He’s terrified. I bet he lasts less than a month.”
“But you voted for him!”
“Nope.” Frost came to sit on the couch, then patted the spot next to him after putting the drinks on the table. “It was a majority vote. Three to two.”
“Wait, you voted for me?”
“Yep. I knew you wouldn’t want to bring in someone for a job that was so important to the club unless we knew them. I mean, you said he passed the background check, but I also knew the guys were kind of in the first blush of a good idea but bad timing.”
He rolled over to the couch, and then carefully lifted himself out of the chair to sit by Frost so he could get his drink. He sipped it, and his parched throat just cried out with bliss.
“So that’s why no one insisted I come to the meeting?”
“Baby, your email back was scathing. I figured I had your proxy by marriage.”
“Oh.” He sighed. “My fucking head hurts.”
“Okay, what can I do?”
He glanced over to search Frost’s gaze, but he saw no guilt or pity. Just readiness to jump in like a smoke jumper.
“My therapist does this thing…”
“Well, he lives on site.” Frost pulled out his phone, hitting something on speed dial. “Yeah, hey, man. It’s Frost. Look, Q has a wicked headache. What do you usually… Uh-huh. Yeah, I cando that. I mean, I took all the paramedic training, so I think I can. Sure. I’ll call if I need you.” Frost tossed his phone down on the couch. “Okay, give me your back.”
“Let me put the drink down. I might drop it if you get the right muscles.”
“Gotcha.”
Quentin marveled at how Frost was acting. Oh, he had no doubt Frost would slip up and go back and forth, and it would piss him off, but the fact that Frost was trying to treat him just like him, sound of body or not, was a huge step forward.
“Okay, I’m going to start gentle because I’ve never done this before, and Lane said to err on the side of caution.” Frost’s long, callused fingers searched out the spot that Lane always hit and then pressed just right. Only too softly.
“A little harder, Frost.”
“Like this?” Frost dug in just so, catching the tension held in his muscles, and goosebumps broke out on Quentin’s arms, and he broke into a cold sweat.
“That’s it.” The release was so sudden and so intense that it almost hurt. In the end, it left him gasping, fighting to breathe as his body let go of the rush of pain.
“There you are. All right, all right. Don’t forget to breathe. Breathing is important.”
He would have nodded if he wasn’t sure that was going to make him hurt again, so he just sucked in air.
“Okay, so hopefully next time you can get hold of this before it gets this bad. Headaches are the worst.” Frost’s voice was like a balm. Just soothing, amazing. Q didn’t have to actually listen to the words; he just had to hear the tone. “When I was a kid, I used to get earaches all the time. It was absolutely madding. I can’t imagine how bad this one is.”
“Pretty sucky.” He sniffled, melting down onto the back of the sofa.
