Page 5 of Sean's Sunshine
And Billy sort of got it. He understood pissed off—hell,hewas pissed off, and had been since getting kicked out of the house. He’d been pissed off before that, even. Pissed off when he realized not every dad was so fucking heavy-handed with his fists. But a pissed-off cop was a whole lot different than an exhausted soldier; that became crystal clear with every moment.
Including this one, in which Billy was hauling ass through pissed-off cop’s neat and charming little house to make sure the guy hadn’t just made himself dead in his attempt to take a leak without some goddamned help.
“You couldn’t fucking wait?” he asked, hands on his hips as he assessed the situation.
“I took a leak by myself in the hospital,” Kryzynski defended from his crumpled-up position on the bedroom floor.
“Rails, right? You had rails from the bed to the little bathroom and inside the bathroom. Everything but a rail up your tight ass to make sure this didn’t happen.”
“Yes,” the cop wheezed. The young detective was, thank God, still wearing the sleep pants and T-shirt Billy had helped him into the night before. He’d apparently gotten up, taken a few steps, and gotten almost as far as the door frame before, what?
“Did you get dizzy?” Billy asked, arms crossed over his bare chest. Unlike half the kids in the flophouse, he didn’t sleep naked, and his boxers were in pristine condition—but he wasn’t putting a T-shirt on in August. Ick.
“Yes,” Kryzynski said again. “I… if you could give me a hand up….”
He sounded miserable and defeated, and Billy scowled. That hadn’t been his intention. “I can’t just leverage you up like a buddy at a party,” he said. “And I don’t want to jostle you too much, or I’m afraid of opening up your lung again or inflaming all that tissue. Don’t look so surprised. I read up on your wound, asked Lance a few questions. I’m not hopeless.” Lance had been a guy who worked for Johnnies, the same porn studio Billy did. But Lance had gotten his medical degree and gotten out. Or maybe he’d met Henry and gotten out. Billy didn’t know how it all happened, but Lance and Henry were an item now. Lance was a doctor and no longer worked in porn, and they lived in the apartment downstairs where Lance could answer Billy’s dumbass questions about how not to kill the guy he was supposed to be nursing back to health. And the first item on the list was not letting him crumple up around his chest like that because he needed a fully inflated lung.
“I just… wait,” Billy said. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. Sit up, your back against the dresser.” He got to his knees and gave the guy his arms to use as leverage and then more or less took over, hefting him up by his shoulders and shoving him backward, then positioning his feet. It took more effort than Kryzynski probably anticipated, and he was breathing heavily before he was in position, but that was fine. This way, he wouldwaitnext time so Billy could do his freakin’ job!
Finally they were both in the position Billy had planned, but Billy let him catch his breath.
“Does this suck?” he asked as Kryzynski struggled to even his breathing.
Kryzynski nodded his head.
“Does this suck enough to wait for me next time?” he prodded.
Kryzynski glowered at him with enough anger to take Billy’s head off at the neck, but Billy just stared back. Yeah, he was a big bad cop and all, but Billy’s old man had been pissed offandviolent. Billy could deal with all bark and no bite. And after two years working out for top muscle tone, he could also knock someone’s teeth in if they tried to bite him.
“Well?” Billy prompted.
“Fine,” Kryzynski wheezed. “I… just… didn’t….”
“Want to bother me so you could go piss by yourself,” Billy finished, because he had no patience at all. “I get it. We all want our dignity. But you know what? I work in a job where three different people tell me how to achieve maximum poop, and then I have to have a buddy check my asshole to make sure maximum poop has been achieved and all traces eliminated. Dignity is a fucking illusion. You call my name, I come help you to the bathroom, and with any luck, I don’t even remember seeing your wiener. Withbadluck, you need help wiping your own ass, but let me tell you something. You would not be the first, and I literally have no shits left to give. Are we clear?”
Kryzynski’s eyes were huge. “Understood,” he rasped.
“Excellent. Now I’m going to get on my knees in front of you, and you’re going to wrap your arms around my neck like we’re dancing. As I stand up, you’re going to push with your legs, I’m going to hoist under your arms, and maybe we can get you to the bathroom for your morning piss. What do you say?”
There was a sudden wash of heat between them, and Billy caught his breath.
Oh God. All that talk—all that Billy-gives-no-shits talk—about how it’s all a body function and who cares? And suddenly Billy was bare-chested and in close proximity with this rather nice-looking police officer who had lied to his mother the day before to make Billy more comfortable.
Billy blinked slowly and met Detective Sean Kryzynski’s big country-boy-blue eyes.
And tried not to think about how the man’s heat blush had warmed Billy’s chest, right down to his now-tingly nipples.
“What, uhm, do you say, Kryz… uhm, Sean?” he asked, hating himself for fumbling with his words.
“Ready, captain,” Sean whispered.
Billy nodded and tried for a reassuring smile. “If we can do the bathroom thing, I promise I’ll do the coffee thing. I’m much less of an asshole after coffee.”
Sean gave a sudden surprised smile, and Billy began the slow, steady rise to his feet.
HALF ANhour later, Billy was dressed in cargo shorts and a tank, and Kryzynski was in exactly what he’d been wearing when he’d fallen down on his bedroom floor—minus five pounds of “dignity.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbled as Billy helped him walk down the hall.
