Page 26 of Constantly Cotton
“Hey,” Burton murmured. “Stop. You did good.”
Cotton looked down to where Jason had already closed his eyes and snuggled into the blanket around his shoulders, shivering a little. He held the back of his fingers against his forehead and sighed. Still a little warm. Not raging, but not healthy either.
“Do we have to get in the car right away?” he asked. “It’s so hot outside, and traveling sucks when you’re sick.”
Burton took another bite of his burger. “No. In fact, we can wait until late. If there was a tracker on that car, they’ll find it and assume we’re going east and head out that way. We might be able to shake them if we head for the cabin after they’ve gone looking for us.”
“Won’t your people, or whoever, be able to track you?” Cotton had no idea how these things worked.
Burton shrugged, but it didn’t look as nonchalant as Cotton thought he wanted it to. “I broke out an emergency ID. I’ve got a couple of them that the government doesn’t know about, but they take some time to set up. I hate to burn one, but, well, it’s Jason and it’s important. I think we’re safe.” He yawned. “Besides, I have been stuck in that little apartment across from yours for a week and a half. There is something really exhausting about staking out a place for that long. And Ernie was there the whole time, and we couldn’t even hold hands.”
“Why not?” Cotton asked. “Regulations?”
Burton looked at him funny. “Rudeness! Jai put off a trip to see his own boyfriend to keep watch on you all. That would have been low-class to get all snuggly while he was there.”
Cotton smiled. “Are all Jason’s friends gay?”
Burton paused, thinking about it. “I think… I think all of Jason’s friends know what it is to keep a secret,” he said after a moment. “And because of when Jason and I started up in the military, that secret is being gay or bisexual.”
“Was Jai in the military?” Cotton asked, suddenly hungry for all of this. His history was painful, and stupid, and probably boring, but Jason was a hero. Cotton wanted to hear who his friends were.
“Jai is… hard to explain,” Burton said, thinking about it. “Let’s say there’s a gas station out in the godsforsaken stretch of highway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles that’s almost a hellmouth for weird shit and gay men with a special set of skills. My boyfriend works there, my best friend runs the place, and all sorts of interesting people have gravitated that way, including Rivers and Cramer. And the people there may not always do things the legal way, but I’d trust pretty much all of them to do the right thing.”
Cotton thought about that. “That’s fair,” he said softly. “I… I mean, sex workers aren’t that great with authority because people assume we’re criminals. But just because what we’re doing isn’t legal….” He paused, thinking about it some more.
“Doesn’t necessarily make it wrong,” Burton filled in for him before yawning again.
“Yeah,” Cotton said, taking a sip of his soda. “Do you need a nap? I could stay up and read a book or something if you do.”
Burton finished his burger and started on his fries. “Actually, that would be almost as fantastic as this animal style. Kid, give me ten minutes to finish this off, and I will take you up on that. Give me a couple hours, and we can leave when it gets dark. How’s that?”
Cotton grabbed the bag of books and pulled outThe Cold Dish, which Curtis had told him he’d like. “Sounds like a plan,” he said, turning on the reading lamp. “Happy to be of service.”
Burton paused. “Make no doubt about it, Cotton, Jason needed you this last week. I’ve… I’ve known him a long time. He lets his guard down aroundnobody. Maybe Ernie because Ernie’s psychic and we all assume he knows everything anyway, but other than that, nobody.”
Cotton was still trying to digest that Burton’s boyfriend was psychic when Burton kept going.
“You could be the first person he’s trusted close to his body in ten years,” Burton continued. “And I’ve never seen him be with another soul as human as he’s been around you. So I don’t care if you’re a unicorn, sex worker, you’re the unicorn who made my boss—one of the best men I’ve ever known—happy, even for a short time. Make no mistake about it, your service is fucking important. To Jason, because he’s needed that for a long time, and to me, because I’ve been worried about him for almost that long. So you take care of yourself, you understand me? You are literally the sunshine in that man’s life right now. Have no illusions. You are needed.”
Cotton stared at him, but he finished his speech and went to work on his fries, using a fork because they were messy. Cotton watched him eat for a couple of seconds before opening the book and pretending to read.
He had too much to think about to see any of the words.
BURTON TOOKthem to Target before they lit out of town, and Cotton ran inside and bought fleece blankets, granola bars, and a flat of water.
“I’ll stock the cabin before I leave tomorrow,” Burton told them, “but this will do for breakfast.”
“I got cookies too,” Cotton told Jason as he snuggled in. “And some bouillon cubes. I figure most rentals have coffee, right?”
“Yeah,” Jason mumbled. “Basic hospitality. How’d you know that?”
Cotton shrugged. “My family used to like to vacation when I was a kid. The coffee maker in the bedroom always seemed to be the coolest damned thing.”
Jason chuckled. “My family went camping. Tents, propane stove, building a fire so you could defrost enough to go fishing.”
“Heathen,” Burton said succinctly from the front of the car as he pulled into the mild traffic of the humid, sweat-dripping night. “For us, camping was going without cable.”
“We could go without cable,” Cotton said confidently, the childhood memories holding the sweetness of nostalgia without the sting of having them suddenly ripped away, “but going without coffee was for barbarians.”