Page 30 of Constantly Cotton
“I guess Cramer comes by it honestly, and Rivers… well, he’s like Ace, or Ernie. You know. A gift from the fucking gods.”
“Who’s Ace?” Cotton asked, dishing up a plate of eggs and sausage that Jasoncraved.Cotton gave it to Burton instead, but Jason knew there was more thereforhim, so he didn’t fret.
“My best friend,” Burton told him before shoving some eggs on a piece of toast and biting in, eyes closed. “Can we keep him, Jason? I mean, Ernie makes good donuts, but I’d give this kid a place to stay if he could cook breakfast for me. Pretty please?”
Jason laughed. “I’d love to,” he said, meaning it, “but I’m pretty sure he has a life of his own.”
“Untrue,” Cotton told him crisply, plating up another breakfast Jason was pretty sure was for him. “Who knows? Maybe being a personal chef is the thing I was meant to do all my life.”
“I don’t know,” Jason said dubiously. “That smells good and all, but I could swear you were meant to go into nursing. You’re pretty much a natural.”
Cotton turned toward the table and slid Jason’s plate in front of him on a waiting cotton placemat. “I think you’re biased,” he said with an embarrassed smile.
Jason waited until the plate was settled before capturing Cotton’s hand. “I think I know someone who’s competent when I see him.”
Cotton shrugged, pulling away. “I was doing pretty good in school before I got kicked out of the house. I mean, the GED was easy to get. I wouldn’t mind going back to school. I just don’t know if I’m someone you want in a high-pressure situation.”
“Like when a mobster bursts through your door and you need someone to distract him so your rescue guy can shoot him?” Burton asked through a mouthful of eggs. He swallowed. “Yeah. I don’t know anybody like that.”
“You’re very funny,” Cotton told him dryly. “I’d be more impressed with myself if I could have gotten the knife tostick.”
Jason had to work hard not to spit out his eggs, but after he’d swallowed the mouthful, he grinned at Cotton, tickled beyond all reason.
“We can work on that,” he said soberly.
Burton grunted. “But first,” he said, “you and me need to talk about what’s doing.”
“Cotton should be in on it.” Jason sighed. “Because as soon as they find out he’s with me, he’s either going to be a target, or someone’s going to try to convince him I’m Satan and he should turn me in.”
“Would they do that?” Cotton asked. “More importantly, how would they do that? Would somebody call me up on the cell phone and say, ‘Hey, that guy you’re traveling with is the devil’?”
“Yes,” Jason said, trying not to laugh. “That’s pretty much exactly how it would work.”
Cotton served himself a laughably small amount of scrambled eggs—no cheese, Jason noticed—with a single piece of bacon and some fruit. He frowned.
“Burton, did you go shopping this morning?”
“No, sir,” Lee replied. “Did I not mention that Ellery had the place outfitted? Apparently he’s got a place on call.”
“Well, I’m not sure how secure that is,” Jason mused, “but seriously. We’ve got food and drinks? That’s amazing.”
“You know what would be amazing?” Burton asked, his voice getting impatient. “If we knew who we could trust in the military and who to worry about trying to blow your brains out after I leave, so focus here for a minute.”
“Sure,” Jason sighed. “Ruin my vacation if you must.”
“Jason!You wereshot!”
Both of them looked at Cotton, who had practically thrown his plate down on the table and was standing, arms crossed, looking like Jason had kicked his puppy.
There was a shocked silence, and then Burton huffed out a breath. “Okay, the sad thing is, you’re both right. He was shot, and he needs to take it seriously, and it’s the first time he’s been off duty in, what? Three years? And he had to get shot to do it.” Burton turned from Cotton to Jason. “Which means that if we get these assholes off your tail, we might be able to let you stay here, chill out, and put on twenty pounds before you fly your scrawny sad ass back to the desert to start hunting down psychopaths again, which you’re really good at and will probably not be done with any time soon.”
“Understood,” Jason said, mostly to take the aggrieved look off Cotton’s face. These moments here, waking up with Cotton in his bed, having breakfast in a kitchen with a wraparound window overlooking the mystery of the forest—these were almost a fantasy to Jason. They were moments he could barely believe were real.
It was a little hard to grasp that to Cotton it was a frightening imposition.
“Anything to get Cotton back to his band of merry men,” Jason said into the silence, winking. To his surprise, Cotton looked wounded. He looked to Burton for help, but Lee was shaking his head.
“Wow,” Lee said.
