Page 23 of Constantly Cotton
Jason nodded and glanced around the apartment. “Well, props for being prepared,” he said, shaking his head. “He would have had us. Thanks, Burton.”
“Thank Ernie,” Burton said. “But thank him later, after we get you somewhere safe. We’ve got to bug out, sir—”
“I’m coming with him,” Cotton said, surprised he could even find his voice.
Burton looked at him in surprise. “You’re what?”
“He’s barely okay. I’ve been nursing him for a week. He’s not going anywhere without somebody who knows what antibiotics he’s taking and what painkillers he can have. He’s not all right yet. You can’t simply take him somewhere and expect him to do… to do—” Cotton waved his hands. “—whatever you did there. Not until he’s better!”
Burton paused. “Sir?” he said, voice soft.
Jason’s voice was trying to be hard, but Cotton didn’t have to look over his shoulder to know the man was probably sweating, and probably shaking too. “I want him out of danger,” he said. “He should stay—fuck.”
Cotton turned in time to catch him as his knees went out.
“Goddammit,” Jason muttered. “Not now. You should stay here.”
“Not until you’re better,” Cotton said. “I get it. You’re a hero. But you don’t get to go be a hero until your body can keep up with the rest of you.”
“Fuck!” Jason rubbed at his eyes with his palm. “Cotton, this is not going to be safe for you.”
Cotton looked up at their soldier friend and supported Jason as he led him toward the couch. “I can have him dressed and ready in fifteen minutes. We’ve got go-bags packed. Jackson warned me. I just need to put together his medical supplies.”
Burton nodded. “I’ve got a man down outside. I need to make sure he gets to the hospital, and Ernie can get him home. I’ll be back.” He grimaced. “And make it ten. I don’t know where this asshole came from, but I don’t imagine we’ve got much more time before another one shows up.”
Burton’s boots clanged in the stairwell as he went to talk to Ernie and whoever else was out there, and Cotton turned to the man who had just comforted him and was now sinking onto the couch and swearing.
“Goddammit, Cotton—”
“Jason? All due respect, man, but you can’t order me around until we get you some pants.”
Ten minutes—Cotton was proud of that. In ten minutes they had Jason in a pair of Randy’s worn jeans, because they were comfortable, and the new tennis shoes they’d purchased Jason that week, and Cotton had changed into clean jeans and grabbed both their go-bags, handing them off to Burton, who was doing all the outside stuff while Cotton did the inside stuff.
He was under strict orders not to clean up: don’t clean up the door, don’t clean up the dropped mug, and definitely, by no means, was he to touch, step on, trip over, or freak out about the dead guy bleeding on the shitty carpet in front of the destroyed IKEA coffee table and the couch.
“But what will the guys…?” he started, stacking their bags and his phone and laptop cases in the shattered doorway. He’d thrown in a nylon mesh bag of hand-me-down paperbacks that accrued in the apartment over time. The basic policy was take one when you need one, leave one if you’ve got one, and don’t feel bad if this is the book you absolutely can’t live without. We’ll deal. He didn’t know if they were going someplace without internet or even television, and he hated being bored.
“They’ll never know,” Jason said firmly.
“But they’re gonna know. I mean, even if there’s a new rug, they’re gonna know it’s a new rug.”
“Maybe it was new rug day at the apartment,” Jason told him, and Cotton recognized those little pursed dimples in the corners of his mouth when he was unleashing what seemed to be a very dry sense of humor.
“They’re not stupid,” Cotton muttered, irritated.
“No, they’re not,” Jason said, and that suppressed smile faded. “But they’re not going to jump to, ‘Hey, did somebody get shot in here and did the government cover it up?’ either.”
Cotton let out an involuntary bark of laughter. “Randy might.”
And that smile was back. “Yes, but given that Randy also wonders if he can hear the hair on his balls growing—at the top of his lungs, mind you—I think we’re safe.”
“Hey, there’s a reason for that.” Cotton finished the final stack of stuff, watching as Burton disappeared down the stairway with the first batch of go-bags and the medical bag.
“I’m interested to hear what it is.”
Cotton gave him a level look. “Sure. Hey, let’s go get you a shirt—”
“No time,” Burton barked from the doorway. “Ernie and Jai are waiting by the car, and it’s time to get this show on the road.”
