Page 37 of Constantly Cotton
“Yeah, accident,” Jason said, drawing near Cotton as he threw the crumbs in his hand into the trash can under the sink. He took a breath and leaned against the counter so they were side by side. “She came to visit me one weekend and stayed late to help me study. She sent me to bed and left for her house in the valley and got hit by a drunk driver when she was halfway home.” He sighed. “I barely graduated, things were so touch and go for a while. And by the time she recovered, it became very, very clear that she would never walk again. Her spine had been crushed, and a lot of her internal organs had been damaged. Her entire life plan—things like hiking through Europe or having children—had been changed because one asshole decided to take two shots of tequila and drive home.”
Jason’s voice, always so even, so thoughtful, grew sharp and hard with bitterness, and Cotton couldn’t help it. He grabbed Jason’s hand as it rested against Jason’s thigh.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, both of them staring at the gleaming stainless-steel refrigerator. A part of him was telling him he should probably start dinner, but most of him was saying holding Jason Constance’s hand had become the most important thing he’d ever done.
“She’s alive,” Jason said. “And she’s as ornery as ever. But I was pissed. I was beyond pissed. I… I could have thrown my whole life away, angry, aimless. It seemed so fucking pointless after that.”
“What did she say to change that?” Cotton became aware Jason was studying the side of his face and smiling gently. “What?”
“How did you know she was the one who changed it?”
Cotton turned his head, frowning. “Because she’s alive, and you love her. And that’s where this story was going.” He shrugged. “Some things you can feel”—he put his free hand over his stomach and rubbed—“here.”
Jason put his fingers over Cotton’s. “Only if you’re extraordinarily intuitive,” he said. “Because you’re right. Jessie had a sit-down come-to-Jesus meeting with me from her hospital bed, for God’s sake, and told me to snap out of it. She’s really good at pointing out all of the blessings in my life, which is unfair, because she’s one of the biggest. But she told me to find something that made me feel like I could control the world I lived in, to find a way to do some good.”
“So you enlisted in the Marines?” Cotton asked, still in awe.
Jason shrugged. “You know. Sexy uniforms? I have to admit, I had some ulterior motives.”
“Did you hit any of that?” Cotton had to know; he was as susceptible as the next boy.
Jason shrugged modestly. “Enough. Not as much as I hit in college, but, you know, not a monk. It was still Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, so I just didn’t tell. But….” He blew out a breath. “Right before my enlistment ended, before I signed my re-up papers, I got tapped for covert ops. The tap came with a promotion—one I hadn’t really earned yet, to be honest. The reasoning was that my decisions had to be uncontestable by most of the officers on the ground. So suddenly, not only did I outrank everybody, I was everybody’s asshole. And I couldn’t afford to let anybody I was in charge of even know I had a dick, much less let them know which way it pointed.” He let out a sigh. “And it got to be habit. God, there were so many awful things I saw. Some I was asked to perpetrate. Who… who wanted to sleep with a man who had to carry out hits? And then who had to order other people to carry them out? I… I was not a god. I had no business controlling life and death like I was put in a position to do. I couldn’t let a single fucking thing distract me.”
“Or be distracted by fucking,” Cotton said, getting it.
Jason nodded, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “And… and then Lee Burton came along. Best officer I ever trained. He was—is—extraordinary. I thought, ‘He’s only in it for three more years. I can be his handler for three more years. Then I can withdraw, have a pension, and hire a pool boy to take care of all my needs.’”
Cotton grunted and clutched his hand tighter. “That’s a total lie,” he asserted. “You wouldn’t have.”
“Well, no,” Jason admitted, rubbing his thumb across Cotton’s knuckles. “But, you know. It was my pet fantasy for a while.”
Cotton let out a sigh, wanting him to know the truth. “I’m… I mean, for a couple of years, Iwasthe fantasy. The fantasy is a bulimic, neurotic mess who’s afraid of eating a tic tac and who kept thinking he was finding the perfect sugar daddy in porn. Uhm, maybe you need to find a real boy.”
Jason’s eyes shot straight to Cotton’s. “What makes you think you’re not a real boy?”
“I… I barely have a GED,” he reminded Jason. “I think you’reamazing. I will lie in bed next to you and let you do whatever you want to me. Or do whatever you want to you. But you need to know that when it’s all said and done, I’ll still be the kid who cried his way out of porn. And you need to knowIknow that. I don’t get the cute guy in the red sports car. I don’t get the knight in shining armor. If I’m lucky, I figure out how to get a good job to support myself and feel like I’m not a waste of skin.”
Jason framed his face with both hands, and Cotton was mesmerized. His tired brown eyes, his heat, the kindness in the shape of his mouth and his touch—all of it held him in place, made him absolutely certain he couldn’t move from this spot, not even if another mobster ran in with a gun.
“You’re not a waste of skin,” Jason said tenderly. “Youarea real boy. And yousodeserve the cute boy in a red sports car and not a dried-up old soldier.”
Cotton closed his eyes, the words washing over him, washing away a layer of disbelief like dust, while the rubbed-in grime of pain and self-doubt remained. “You’re not old,” he said gruffly, their breath mingling, and then Jason put his lips on Cotton, and Cotton’s entire concept of a kiss disintegrated into wonder.
Jason’s lips were rough—he’d been sick, and they were slightly chapped—but his breath was sweet from orange juice. And none of that mattered. Heat, life-giving and blissful, poured from Jason’s mouth into his, and Cotton opened up and became a vessel for all the tenderness, all the need, Jason Constance had dammed up in his soul for the last ten years.
It swamped him, dragged him under to a place where breathing was optional and the only thing that mattered was the stroke of Jason Constance’s tongue against Cotton’s, the pressure of his lips, and feel of Jason’s chest under his hands.
Jason pulled back first, leaning his forehead against Cotton’s, and for a few moments they simply worked at pulling in oxygen.
“My knees are wobbly,” Jason said after a moment. “I can’t even fucking believe this. My knees are wobbly.”
Cotton smiled a little and kissed his temple. “Then you should sit down.” He pulled Jason to the table and sat him down. “I’ll cook. You get your strength up.”
Jason gave one of his soft, bitter snorts.
“What?” Cotton opened the refrigerator again, grateful they had fresh foods. Salad-in-a-bag was always good, but so were fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. And look! A flat of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. He checked the spice rack, relieved to see it was fully stocked, and looked for a broiler pan. As he was assembling ingredients, he heard that bitter sound again, and looked up to see Jason shaking his head.
“What?” he asked, puzzled.
