Page 104 of Constantly Cotton
Ernie gave a sweet smile. “Spoiled rotten. Apparently every night while Ace is closing up, Sonny goes out there with Duke and locks Duke in the bathroom and makes love to every cat that will let him touch it. Ace says the kittens in the garage are doing great—running around, getting into trouble—and Sonny moved them inside to the spare bathroom because he kept fretting about it getting too hot in there. I tried to tell him that I’d parked them by a vent and they were getting lots of air and shade, all they needed was water, but Sonny wasn’t having it.”
Jai felt something in him loosen. “Sonny—he will surprise you sometimes.”
“In the best of ways,” Ernie agreed. He stood from his perch on the corner of Jai’s couch, and, unexpectedly, clasped Jai’s hand in both of his.
“Enjoy your week off, Jai. Let yourself be cared for. You’re a good friend and a good colleague, and you have earned your rest.”
“Pizza?” George asked, because he’d been bustling in the kitchen this whole time.
Ernie smiled slightly and shook his head. “Sonny made me mac and cheese with hot dogs. He thinks it’s my favorite—he missed me.”
And with that, he slid out the door. Jai listened, eyes half-closed, and heard his feet patter down the stairs and the roar of the Charger, and then George presented him with a plate of food, which he demolished before he could even acknowledge it was there.
THAT NIGHT,they lay in bed underneath the ceiling fan and each told his story of the past two weeks. Jai had not realized George had been so close to danger when the children had been in his care. George had not realized that the tired officer who had been driving the busload of children had been wounded so badly that he was still sick.
Jai’s voice and story wandered in and out—he was aware, but much like he trusted Ace and Ernie to drive, he trusted George would not make fun of him for being tired and loopy from painkillers and thoughtful.
“I missed you,” he said baldly, after a silence had fallen. “You being here, in my apartment, it is a miracle.”
“I think so too.” George let out a breath. “Jai?”
“Da?”
“Why don’t you ask me to move out here with you?”
Jai closed his eyes, the outline of his tiny apartment still imprinted on his eyelids. “Because I live in a small apartment, and my friends are all criminals—”
“But good men,” George said.
“But you have a good life,” Jai told him. There was a “whump” and the cat leapt onto the bed and made his big fluffy self comfortable between the two of them. “You are respectable, and you have friends, and—”
“There is a small hospital out here,” George said, interrupting. “It’s mostly an emergency room, a birthing room, and a couple of ICU equipped rooms, with a would-be surgery. It’s got maybe fifty people working there—doctors, nurses, support staff, custodial staff, total. I put in an application and they said they might have an opening in a couple of months.”
Jai made a soft moan. “You would do this?” he asked, his eyes hot and bright.
“Of course I would,” George said, his voice choked. In the darkness he felt George’s touch feathering across his cheek. “I… I mean, we could look for a larger place, but Jai—you and your criminal friends have become a very big part of my life.” George cupped his cheek. “I… unless you don’t want me here—”
Jai couldn’t help the wetness that slipped through. “More than anything,” he said gruffly. So many reasons not to ask George to do this. So many reasons this was a bad career move, a move that took George from his family, from his friends—from civilization.
But Jai was on empty after the last couple weeks of missing George, of wanting his touch, his voice in the dark. He’d seen Burton and Ernie touch each other casually as they’d moved throughout the surveillance apartment, and his heart had hurt, each time.
His entire body ached with the need to have this person near him.
“So, I should prepare to move out here?” George tested again.
“I should say no,” Jai murmured, thinking of Sonny and Ernie and the bad men showing up at their door. Thinking about the blood and the violence he’d seen in Sacramento, the random assassin charging up those apartment stairs to splatter Jason Constance’s brain like a watermelon. He captured George’s hand and placed a tender kiss in the palm of it.
“Will you?” George asked, and Jai could tell his heart was in his throat with the fear of this.
And that’s what put Jai over.
“Nyet,” Jai rumbled, cupping George’s hand to his cheek again. “I will not say no. But… but you need to respect my friends’ needs, da? To not ask too many questions? To be willing, should the police come one day, to say, ‘I did not know, officer. He seemed like such a good man.’”
George let out a broken chuckle. “How about, ‘He wouldn’t tell me what he did, officer, but I assume he had a good reason. He’s the best of men, and I trust that what he did, he did to protect someone. That’s the way he works.’”
Jai’s bitter smile was also sincere. “You must acknowledge that this might not keep me from prison.”
“If you acknowledge it’s true,” George murmured. He pulled his hand away from Jai’s cheek for a moment, and with some rustling and a heave, he lifted the indignant Jingle off the bed and onto the floor. Then he wriggled closer to Jai, close enough to spread his hand against Jai’s heart.
