Page 103 of Constantly Cotton
The doctor returned with the prescription then, and Sean and Billy made their way out.
“Lovers?” Jai asked idly, his shoulder aching. He was looking forward to the pain medication very much.
“Not yet,” Ernie said. His narrow face—tense and worn after this last week—relaxed slightly. “But soon. They’re good for each other.”
“Those are good stories,” Jai murmured. “I am glad to hear.” He was tired. A week of sitting, with only the occasional PT for any sort of outlet, had taken its toll. And when he did go outside, it was to a suburb/city. No large buildings, only cracked roads and strip malls, trees and hurricane fences. Lots of stores, the occasional park, and too many boring cars stuffed between stoplights like sausages. Jai had been born near St. Petersburg—big buildings, many people, great wealth and great poverty cheek by jowl, and long winters of bone-crushing cold. So odd that in this suburban no-man’s-land, he found himself missing the desert instead. His apartment building was much like the one Burton had secured for them. It housed a cluster of two-story squares with stairwells and no discernible rhyme or reason to the layout. But he knew—always knew—that outside the environs was the desert, stretching to the small shopping center and the block that encased the schools. The three levels of grammar, middle, and high school all sat on the same stretch, sharing a track and a football field with a small side-yard marked for toys for the younger children.
And beyond that was more desert.
A man could get lost in the desert. A man could be free there. And while Jai was not nearly so solitary as to want to wander out into Death Valley and become one with the sand, he was soothed by the idea that the only people who knew who he was were the people he wanted to know—and that there weren’t so many people out in the world as to fill up all that space.
He missed his desert. He missed his job. And he really, really wanted to see George.
“I’m glad to tell them,” Ernie said, yawning. “And I’ll be super glad to get back home. You ready, big guy? I’ve got some driving to do.”
“Da,” Jai said on a yawn of his own. “Some painkillers, and we are good to go.”
The Charger was comfortingly loud and it had some leg room, and bless Ernie, he knew how to fly down I-5 like policemen weren’t a thing. He wasn’t as reckless as Ace—and he certainly never pushed the car to its limits—but once he put on some music, he seemed to lapse comfortably into the Ernie zone, and he’d be slowing the car down before Jai could see the red lights in front of them. He probably didn’t even know he was doing it, but Jai could close his eyes and sleep as he did with nobody else besides Ace. There was just trust there.
As there was surprise and a little disappointment when Jai opened his eyes and saw that they had swept past LA and had gone all the way down to I-15 and were in Victoriana.
“Oh,” he said, his voice falling leadenly. “I thought we would be stopping in LA.”
“Yeah, well, I called ahead to make sure we wouldn’t be wading through traffic,” Ernie said. “George isn’t at home right now, so we thought it would be better if I brought you here.”
“Who is we?” Jai asked, feeling grumpy.
At that moment, there was a tap on his window, and Ernie unlocked the door.
And George practically fell into his lap.
He didn’t kiss and wiggle like a puppy—George was a relatively sane human being. He just sat there for a moment, head on Jai’s good shoulder, and breathed.
“Stabbed?” he asked carefully, like he was keeping his voice in check.
“It was only my shoulder,” Jai mumbled. Oh, he felt good. So good. “What are you doing here?”
“Ernie called me. I called my boss, he gave me the time off, and I grabbed my cat and came over. A week, big man. You and me get a week.”
Jai wrapped his good arm carefully around George’s shoulders and almost groaned with the decadence. “But first,” he said, tired and hungry and hurting, “I need to get out of this car.”
It took all three of them—Ernie to push and George to pull—to help him out of the low-slung vehicle. His legs ached and he felt a little woozy.
“Whoa there,” George said, concerned. “Let me guess—no food, too much pain meds?”
“Is like you are medical professional,” Jai said sourly.
“Yeah, well, I’ve just seen how you work. Which is why I stopped for supplies on the way here—and by the way, I had to take Jingle into the store with me in the carrier, so you can imagine the bitching.”
“From the cat or the management?” Ernie asked curiously.
“The cat,” George said, nodding. “Walmart did not even fucking notice, if you can believe that. Anyway, we’ve got lots of premade pizza, already cooked for tonight, and all you’ve got to do is make it up those stairs.”
They got Jai up the stairs and onto his couch, where he sagged with relief. “Gah!” he muttered. “I am useless. Ernie, are you okay to drive home?”
“Going to Ace’s,” he said briefly. “Already cleared it with him. Sonny and Ace have been looking after my cats—had to call and check.”
Jai managed to give him a questioning glance. “The cats are good?” he asked carefully.
