Page 25 of Constantly Cotton
But Jason had stopped eating and was looking at him in concern. “But why? Why would you do all that?”
Cotton shrugged and took a sip of his diet soda. “Well, for one thing, there’s comments. On the porn scenes. And if you so much as eat a tic tac, somebody’ll pop up and call you pork-o the potbelly, and that’s no fun. And….” He grimaced, wondering how much Jason remembered of his first three days. “There’s, uhm, you know. Poop. I mean, cleans up, is no big deal, and still happens, but it’s easier to film the scene if you don’t have any bullets in the chamber, if you know what I mean.”
Jason snickered and took another bite of his burger, but his gaze still rested thoughtfully on Cotton as they sat on the hotel couch.
“Still,” he said, “wasn’t that hard?”
Cotton’s face heated. “Bulimia makes it easier. Enough that Bobby—he’s a guy who lived at the flophouse before me—had to fix our pipes. And then after Bobby, Henry had to do it. And Bobby put the fear of God into everyone, so when Henry fixed the pipes, he managed to get a bunch of us in to see a shrink about food disorders. The shrink was sort of a snarky old codger, but nice. He said that once we moved out of the business, we might have an easier time seeing our bodies for the… what was it? ‘The beautiful instruments of pleasure and utility they were meant to be.’” He smiled slightly. “That started to become a mantra, really. I’m not sure I understand it all, but, you know. I might someday.”
Jason nodded soberly. “I get the utility, but, you know, that other thing. It’s been a while.”
Cotton’s laugh held a little bitterness. “Sort of the other way around for me.”
To his surprise, Jason’s face flushed, and then, sadly, he put about half of a single-patty hamburger down. “I’ve only been back on solids for a couple of days,” he apologized, and Cotton grimaced.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I guess I could have gotten some soup or something from that other place—”
“No!” Jason laughed. “No. It’s been a while since I’ve done a good burger and fries. You made something functional into something pleasant. I appreciate that.”
Cotton shifted in his seat, embarrassed. “You’re really good at making the simple shit I do sound really cool,” he said. “But, uhm, we both saw what happened today. Bad guy busts down the door, and first I freeze, and then I throw a chef’s knife at him—badly. If your guy hadn’t been staking out the apartment, we would have been dead.”
Jason shook his head, and the thoughtfulness had turned troubled. “It was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen,” he said. “You, there, standing in front of me. You threw the knife because he had a gun and you’d seen it work. It was smart, and if you hadn’t done it, he might have gotten a shot off. You saved both our lives. It’s not your fault you don’t walk around the house fully armed with a .45 in a pancake holster so you can kill random mobsters. You need to give yourself some credit, Cotton. You keep trying to tell me you’re not great at shit, but I think you’re trying all the wrong shit!”
Cotton rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” He frowned, doing his own thinking. “Who were the guys who took off in Lance’s car?”
Jason gave a smile. “Well, Jai and Ernie, if that tells you anything.”
Cotton crossed his eyes. “It does not. Jai? Like, ‘Hi, my name is Jai!’?”
“Yes. He is… well, hard to explain. But then, so is Ernie. They’re Burton’s people more than mine, but Ernie’s had me over to dinner a couple of times.”
Cotton winked at him coquettishly as Burton let himself in with the key. “Why, Mr. Constance, did you have a thing going on with this Ernie character?”
“He better not have,” Burton said crisply, “or I would have skinned him alive.”
Cotton stared at him in surprise as Jason held up the sack with Burton’s food in it.
“Really?” he asked.
“Really what?” Burton opened his paper sack and his eyes rolled back in his head. “Are these fries animal style? Did you really get me animal-style fries? Because if you did that for me, then you were absolutely worth saving.”
Cotton grinned, liking him a little better now that he wasn’t barking orders. “Yeah, and that’s exactly what I was thinking. Anybody who saves me from scary mobsters is definitely worth animal style and a double-double. But, uhm….” He risked a glance at Jason, who was midyawn. “Is Ernie, uhm, your, uhm…?”
“Boyfriend, Cotton,” Burton said dryly. “And you live in a house with all the pretty gay boys in the world, so don’t act like gay isn’t a thing.”
Heat was creeping down his neck. “It’s just you—and Jason—you’re so… uhm….”
“Butch,” Jason said, laughing and yawning at the same time. “He’s trying to say we’re butch.”
“I’m bi. Does that count?” Burton asked before biting into his burger.
“No,” Jason said. “And I think it’s hysterical because—” He yawned again. “—he knows Henry and Jackson, and they’re pretty butch too.”
Cotton shrugged. “Maybe the whole world needs to adjust its expectations,” he said. “Go lie down, even for ten minutes. I’m going to be all alone, and if you get sick again, I….” He shuddered. “I mean, I could do what Jackson and Henry did by myself, but please don’t make me.”
“Fine.” With not much more than that, Jason pushed himself up to lie on one of the queen-sized beds, curling into a ball on top of the coverlet. Cotton gave a sigh and stood, grabbing the blanket at the bottom and pulling it to Jason’s shoulders.
“I should have brought the blankets off my bed,” he said disconsolately. “I didn’t think. Jackson told me to pack for cold weather, but I didn’t think about blankets or pillows or—”
