Page 56 of Sean's Sunshine
Billy’s mouth—set in a stern, irritated line—wobbled slightly, and his shoulders relaxed. He paused and stroked the back of Sean’s knuckles with his thumb.
“You can keep your testicles where they are, papi,” he said softly. “I just wanted to take care of you is all.”
Sean smiled, acutely aware of the entire flophouse watching their entire interaction from the walkway in the rain. “How about we take care of your guys,” he said. “Do you thinktheywant to seeThe Black Phone?”
Billy grinned at him. “Well,yeah.But you go sit down and cover up, and I’ll make popcorn.” He paused, growing sober. “And yeah, I know you can do it, but let me? Please?”
How could he say no?
IN ALL,it turned out to be a good night. The guys stayed over, two of them taking the guest room, one taking the couch, and one taking the recliner. Billy slept next to him, giving Sean all the news before they fell asleep.
“How’s Cotton?” Sean asked softly, fighting sleep with every breath. The boy had watched the movie breathlessly, leaning quietly against Billy’s shoulder as they sat on the couch. Looking at them, Sean hadn’t experienced jealousy, although he’d expected to. Instead he heard Billy talking about how the flophouse guys had become his brothers. Yeah. Sex was confusing sometimes, but the trust Cotton put into the guys around him—that was crystal clear.
“Cotton’s sad,” Billy told him. “But something happened. Something really exciting.”
And then Billy told him that his friend had gotten—completely unsolicited—an offer for a full ride at a nursing school down south. And the director of the nursing school had the same last name as the “soldier guy” Cotton had fallen in love with.
“So,” Sean said slowly, “is he going?”
“Yeah,” Billy said with a sigh. “At the worst? It’s a career I think he’d be really good at.”
“At the best?”
Billy laughed a little. “His top-secret boyfriend will come visit, and Cotton will get his Happy Ever After.”
“Do you believe in that?” Sean asked, almost holding his breath.
Billy breathed softly on the back of his neck. “I might,” he murmured. “I’m working on it.”
Sean smiled. “Fair,” he said.
“Hey, cop-man?”
“Yeah?”
“If you’re feeling up to cleaning off your porch, think you’d let me do sexy things to your body sometime when there’s not a dozen other people in the house?” On that note, he thrust his groin gently into Sean’s backside, letting him know that while it wasn’t exactly urgentnow, they could maybe make it urgent if Sean was interested.
“God yeah.”
“Good.”
Hero’s Due
BILLY DROPPEDhalf the flophouse off at school the next day, leaving Randy at Sean’s house—just in case.
“Just in case what?” Sean asked suspiciously. “I do something crazy like fold laundry or take an extra lap around the park?”
“You can’t go to the park,” Billy sniffed. “I’ve got the Charger, remember?”
“It’s only a mile,” Sean told him. “We can walk there and then walk back.” He grinned at Randy, who grinned back. “It’ll be an adventure.”
Billy looked at Randy and shook his head sternly. “It’s Friday,” he said. “I’ve got one class. I’ll be back by lunch. We can go then.”
Randy nodded with the eagerness of a puppy. “I hear you,” he said. “Onlyyouget to take him to the park. Understood.” He smiled obsequiously, and Billy fought the temptation to pat him on the head.
“He overdoes it,” Billy said.
“I’ve only got two weeks more before I go back to work!” Sean argued. “I mean, I’ll be on desk duty, but my PT regimen says I should be walking two miles by then!” Billy knew very well it infuriated Sean that Rivers had gone in for heart surgery and had been back to running in the mornings at six weeks, and Sean was still walking with the same amount of recovery time. It probably didn’t seem fair, although from what Billy understood, in Jackson’s case they had been clearing out scar tissue from an old injury to his heart, and in Sean’s, he was trying to recover not only from the knife wound but also the trauma of having his chest cavity fill up with air, as well as the surgery to relieve the condition. Both had their lives threatened, but Jackson’s procedure had involved more delicacy and less raw tissue damage than Sean’s.
