Page 66 of Shades of Henry
“Want to go talk about it?” Henry asked, and Lance looked at him in surprise.
Cotton nodded and followed Henry meekly to Lance’s bed. Henry thought he should maybe put a sign up overhead that said, “Advice $.05”—but he didn’t think anyone would get it but him.
“What happened?” Henry asked, sitting on the bed and bouncing experimentally. Yup—newish mattress, good box springs. He and Lance could have some fun on this bed, if only they could ever be alone.
“I… I was getting ready for my scene,” Cotton whispered. “I was fluffing in a corner while John checked the light, and my scene partner was fluffing, and… and the guy was new. Young—maybe twenty—and he looked… I mean, he wasn’t the same guy, but he looked just like… like there was this guy, before I started working for John. He used to… I mean, I did what he said, and that’s how I knew I could charge for it, but he never paid me and I had to and… anyway, I started to cry. I started to cry and I couldn’t stop.”
Oh.
Henry held out his arm, and there was nothing sexual about Cotton’s cuddle this time. “What’d John do?”
“He took me aside and said it was okay,” Cotton told him, his voice broken. “Said nobody should have to do something that made them cry. I told him I didn’t know what else to do with my life, and he said we’d think of something. When I’d calmed down, he gave me this… this card. Said there was a shrink there I could talk to—that it was on the health plan and everything. He told me not to worry about rent, but I said I had to pull my weight. He told me he’d find something else around the set for me to do. Anything, he said, except something that hurt me the way this seemed to right now.”
“He’s a good guy,” Henry said, remembering all the shit he’d given John and Galen at first.
“But what am I going to do now?” Cotton wailed.
And Henry held him, just like Billy had held Randy, and told him it was going to be okay. “John’s right,” he murmured, when Cotton had calmed down. “Don’t worry about rent. This group of assclowns has your back, okay? And it’s not like anybody eats that much, right?”
Cotton sputtered tears against his clean shirt, but Henry didn’t care.
“No, seriously. Call that shrink tomorrow. First thing. Lance and I will help. If you don’t want to work for John, I’ve got a line on a guy who cleans houses. I know it sounds like… like a step down, but you know what? It’s honest. It’s honest, and there’s skill involved, and this guy would be a fun boss like John. And nobody would expect you to take your clothes off, and nobody would hit on you—well, this guy hits on everybody, but he wouldn’t if I told him not to—and you could work with your earbuds on, and it would be all okay. What do you think?”
Cotton wiped his face on Henry’s shirt. “I think I’ve got options,” he said with a little smile. “And I think… I think you and Lance and the guys would take care of me as long as I need. And I may need it for a little while. But not always. And some day, I’ll get my shit together, and I’ll take care of people too.”
Henry hugged him again, tightly. “You’ll be amazing at it,” he said softly. “But first let’s take care of you.”
COTTON SLEPTin Lance’s bed that night, and Randy—thank God—slept in his own. Zeppelin and Fisher took the queen-sized, which left Curtis on his bed, Billy on the couch, and Lance and Henry on the inflatable bed.
Billy was watching a movie quietly on his laptop, earbuds in, which finally—finally—gave them a chance to talk.
“How’d it go?” Lance asked quietly. They were lying on the mattress, under a sheet, while the fan whirred overhead. Henry suddenly wondered who he’d have to blow to get the air-conditioning to work properly and then laughed softly to himself.
No, no—that wouldn’t work either.
“The service? It was fine,” Henry said. “Rivers got hold of Martin’s first boyfriend, and he said something nice about how we weren’t mourning what Martin was, we were mourning what he could have been. How we’d have to work hard to try to keep the other Martin Sampsons of the world from falling through the cracks and becoming scumbags. It was really nice.”
“Pretty idealistic,” Lance murmured. “Hard to live up to.”
“It’s good to have goals.” Henry closed his eyes and smiled. That morning, when he and Davy had been standing under that tree, he’d felt that terrible sense of letdown. Now, talking about goals, about taking care of the porn kids—whoever lived under this roof—and thinking about the last bit of PI work he wanted to do on his own case, some of that letdown faded away, and that sense of purpose, the one that had sustained him when he’d been under suspicion, filled his belly. “I mean, that’s what we’re doing here, right? These guys?”
“Yeah.” Lance blew out a breath. “What about afterwards? Did you and Dex talk?”
Henry’s smile faded. “Yeah. I… I had this sort of awful thought, that if I wasn’t around for Malachi to be a complete asshole to, he might turn on my sister.”
Lance’s eyes went wide. “Oh my God—abusers don’t often just quit.”
“We emailed my oldest brother. Travis still keeps in touch with Davy. He’s going to keep us posted.” Henry blew out a breath. “It’s all we can do, really. ’Cause I keep thinking, what’ll my folks do if Malachi suddenly starts whaling on my sister?”
“What do you think will happen?”
Henry snorted bitterly. “They’ll tell her it’s her fault.”
Lance cupped his cheek. “It’s not, you know.”
Henry looked away. “I had some of that shit coming.”
“No, you didn’t. Not a damned bit of it,” Lance growled. “You were like a frog in a pot of water. The water’s fine at first. But then it keeps getting hotter and hotter, and you don’t even notice until finally you’re boiled alive. Only you were smart. You noticed. You got out.”
