Page 93 of Constantly Cotton

“Yeah.”

“You can’t tell ’em I said that, though, because I really wish they would stay out of this shit. Worries me sick, I can tell you. Anyway—so they were just supposed to do recon…”

Ernie knew what Lee was doing, even as he closed his eyes. He was distracting Ernie, making it so he didn’t focus on the scary thing he’d just done. He made the story funny, because Ace and Jai weren’t super-slick assassins, but he also let Ernie see how proud he was to have friends who’d do the brave thing, the smart thing, the thing that needed to be done.

Ernie’s eyelids felt heavy, his soul as tired as his bones. Burton wrapped up his story and started on another one about Ace in the desert that Ernie had already heard before but loved. Before he knew it, Cruller was whispering, “Love you, club boy. You did the right thing,” in his ear as he drifted off.

“Love you, Cruller. Come home soon.”

“No reason to stay away.”

And Burton signed off, leaving Ernie to slide into a few hours’ sleep, content in the knowledge that this was true. Lee Burton knew exactly who Ernie was—he’d known since the beginning. And he’d loved him and had been proud of him for exactly those things.

Good. Ernie probably couldn’t change—but he’d try if it meant keeping Cruller happy. He was glad he didn’t have to, not yet.

Part 6

ACE BLINKEDthrough sandy eyes as the soldier next to him shook him awake.

He felt a little bad about leaving Jai and Burton in Sacramento, but they’d needed to make sure Jason was okay and that all the bad guys had been rounded up or shot.

Or knifed in the chest. Ace wasn’t sorry about that either—the bad guy had been aiming a gun at Rivers and Rivers was a good guy. Acewassorry that he’d only gottencloseto the guy’s heart and he’d needed to hit a car door before he drove it in completely and died. But the guy had been a scumbag, and it was no skin off Ace’s nose when scumbags suddenly had problems breathing ’cause they accidentally shoved a knife further through their heart than it needed to be.

In fact, the op in Sacramento had been fun, but no sooner did they have Jason Constance tucked away some place that needed guarding than Burton had gotten a call that said Ace was needed back at the garage, and Ace had remembered that Sonny was his priority.

There was something going on that Burton and Sonny hadn’t been telling him. He knew it. He knew that they probably kept it a secret for the same reason he wasn’t going to tell Sonny about blowing up that ritzy disgusting palace in Vegas or about how really out of control that morning’s op had been. Ace got it. Sometimes you just didn’t want people to worry, that was all.

By the same token, sometimes just knowing someone was trying not to worry you was worrisome as it was.

Burton had tapped a helicopter to fly him to Victoriana. It had been waiting at a private airfield outside of the former Mather Air Force Base, so while all the drama in Sac had gone down before six-thirty a.m., it was not even ten by the time the helo set him down in a patch of sand about two hundred yards behind the gas station. Ace thanked the guys who’d given him a ride, fed him a breakfast sandwich, and then let him sleep, rocked by the motion and thewhup-whupof the chopper’s blades. Then he slid out of the bay doors, keeping his head down as he ran. Behind him, Burton’s special ops brethren had slid the bay door shut and taken off, and Ace wasn’t even sure if they knew what he, Jai, and Burton had done that day.

Which made him happy, mostly, because seriously, the less the military people knew about him and his gas station, the less he and Sonny would be bothered by shit like this when it didn’t travel right to their front door.

As he trotted in the still-scorching morning heat, he took in the gas station and felt his hackles start to rise.

The garage bay door was shut and a Closed sign was in front of the clerk’s cubicle. Approaching the side door, he saw Ernie stumble out of the house, looking tired and wonky and like he’d slept under a helicopter, because his hair was a curly, bristly tumbleweed.

“Sonny’s in there!” Ernie called, trying to get his long, loose limbs to make a run. “Don’t go in without saying who you are! Sonny! It’s Ace! No shooting!”

Shooting? Who in the name of all the little green fucks had given Sonny Daye a gun?

And for the little green fucks’ sake,why?

Before Ace could voice these concerns, he heard the click of the chain and dead bolt locks on the inside of the garage, and Sonny—looking exhausted and crazy-eyed—opened the door.

“Ace?” he said with a smile. “That sure was fast. You called me super early in the morning and I sent Ernie back for some more sleep. We ain’t got much sleep, you know—we had some things happen.”

From the depths of the sweltering garage came a moan, and Ace was pretty sure his eyes about jumped from his skull.

“Uhm, Sonny? Who’s in there?” And, oh God. “And why do you got a gun in your hand?”

Sonny grimaced. “You got your knife on ya, Ace?” he asked.

Ace, in fact, did—he’d pulled it from the bad guy’s chest himself. Leaving evidence was never a good idea.

“Yeah—do I need it?”

“Well, I’ll give you the gun, but I think the knife might be better. Nobody with a knife ever shot someone on accident.”