Page 43 of Constantly Cotton
“Camping adventure,” Cotton echoed, nodding. “It will be very after school special.” He paused. “Which, you know, my generation has never actually experienced. Jackson had to explain it to me once.”
“Shoot me now,” Burton muttered. “I’m obviously too old to live, and I don’t like icebergs.”
“I’ll take the iceberg,” Jason said dryly. “I’m so old even the polar bears won’t eat me.”
“You’re both hilarious.” Cotton moved to help Jason down, holding the thermometer to his head briefly before checking it. “And you suck. Tomorrow, we sit out on the porch and read. The end. I’ll bring you a blanket, we’ll compare notes—it’ll be scintillating, and maybe you can kick this fucking fever.”
“Did he just say scintillating?” Jason asked dryly, feeling the low-grade fever exhaustion that he resented as much as Cotton apparently did. “Nobody’s ever called me scintillating.”
“You’re a sparkling dinner companion, sir,” Burton deadpanned. “Now stand up. I’m gonna unbuckle your pants.”
“Kinky,” Jason replied in the same voice. “Almost as good as changing my oil or vacuuming my barracks.”
Cotton laughed and waited for Burton to help Jason out of his pants and hoodie before handing him his medication with a paper cup of water. “I’ll remember that,” he said. “Doing chores goes on the kink list.”
“Well, sleep does it for me,” Burton told them. “I’ll be here in the morning to introduce you to your detail. Cotton?”
“Sir?”
“I’m bringing coffee, fruit salad, and pastries in when I go pick these guys up, so don’t worry about breakfast. Is there anything you want me to shop for? The guys will be doing all your shopping from here on out, but I can get stuff tomorrow.”
“Cottage cheese,” Cotton said promptly. “Yogurt. Uhm….” He looked away, obviously embarrassed.
“What?”
“Uhm, I’m going to be done with those books in less than a week. I should have brought more.”
“Give me the author’s name and I’ll see what I can do. There’s some used bookstores in Tahoe. Here.” He gave Cotton his phone. “Type in some other authors. If you guys are going to be lounging around like pampered poodles, you’re going to need entertainment. Anything else?”
“A chess set,” Jason said. He glanced at Cotton as he settled into bed, and Cotton seconded.
“You’ll have to teach me how to play,” he said shyly.
“Good.” Burton confirmed. “Jason, I know you like coffee with those frou-frou creams. Don’t even lie. I’ll bring some. Cotton, the water here isn’t great, but we’ve got bottled. Do you like sparkling?”
“Oh! Yeah, that would be great. All the smells.” Cotton looked up from punching information into his phone. “Thank you.”
Burton snorted. “Smells?”
Cotton looked embarrassed. “They don’t reallytaste, do they? It’s more like, you know, they made them smell really good, and your body pretends it’s flavor.”
“Jason, that’s on the classified list. Now that he knows that, we have to kill him.”
Jason’s eyes popped wide, and he struggled to sit up, absolutely sure Cotton wouldn’t think that was a joke. And then he heard a snort—the kind that came unwillingly from someone’s nose and throat—and a dorky little giggle, followed by a suppressed “Hee!”
Worried, he turned to see Cotton covering his mouth like a little kid, and he grinned before turning back to Lee.
“He’s gonna be fine,” he said happily, and Burton nodded before backing out of the room.
Cotton giggled again and moved around the room, turning off lights. He paused when he came to the monitor, which Lee had moved to the end table by Jason’s side of the bed. All of the screens were dark, but as they watched, one of them lit up, a dark flutter passing in front of the camera and disappearing.
“Owl,” he said in wonder.
“Yeah. Wait….” Another screen lit, and two deer passed quietly, leaving the camera’s range. In three seconds, the screen went dark.
“Will it be doing that all night?” he asked.
Jason sighed. “Yes, but it’s set to chirp if something passes through more than two camera ranges. One happens, but more than that, we should know about.”
