Page 63 of Sean's Sunshine
Billy didn’t have any words. None at all. What was the use of having sex like that, he thought wretchedly, if he had no words to explain how it was different from all the other sex he’d ever had?
SEAN FELLasleep against him, and Billy wriggled out of his embrace to put on his briefs and go around the house turning off lights and locking the doors. A part of him told him to put on sweats and stay up late, studying to write a paper due the next week, but that’s not what he really wanted to do.
What he really wanted to do was slide back into bed next to Sean and hold him some more, and sleep. Just this once it would be worth it to save his homework for the weekend and hold Sean’s pliant body next to his.
When he crawled back into bed, Sean snuggled into his body, trusting and happy, and Billy wondered,What do I have to do to earn this?
“OH GOD,”Billy muttered the next evening as he piloted Sean’s Charger through the suburbs to his mother’s house. “This is a mistake. We didn’t even get our stories straight!”
Sean snorted. “About what?” he asked.
Billy gave him a sideways look, checking to see if the fatigue that had dogged him all morning had finally been napped away. The day before had been busy, and the lovemaking had been strenuous, and Billy had called a moratorium on the park that morning.
“You can make phone calls,” he’d decided while Sean gaped at him in irritation. “And I’ll get my homework done, and you might not have to fall asleep at my mommy’s kitchen table.”
Sean had fumed, but in the end he’d conceded, and Billy reflected that maybe—just maybe—it was a sign of how much the guy respected Billy’s judgment—and Billy himself—that he was willing to put up with all Billy’s shit.
But Billy wasn’t willing to put up with much backtalk. The texts coming to them about Rivers weren’t encouraging. Henry had put out that he was sick and cranky, and that Ellery had his hands full over the weekend, and Sean’s partner, Christie, had said the entire department was running around like a kicked hornet’s nest because Ellery had implicated the four officers who had hurt his client—and Jackson—during the trial. Henry had asked Billy if maybe he could take Sean over to Rivers’s place on Monday because Jackson wasn’t looking like he’d be up to going back to the office by then, and that way he’d have company.
At first Sean had chafed at that. He felt like Rivers should have the chance to work if he felt like it, but Henry had actuallycalledhim and told him that Rivers did not have the sense God gave a goat when it came to his own help, and that he’d needed keepers the night before because Ellery and Jade had been going to a political function and they didn’t want him home alone.
Billy hadn’t heard all of the conversation then, but when Sean hung up, he’d looked troubled.
“What’s wrong?”
“You forget, don’t you? That every cut leaves a scar. I don’t know all the shit going on with him, but you know he avoids hospitals like the plague. They give him panic attacks.”
Billy cocked his head. “Didn’t he visityouwhen you were in the hospital?”
Sean nodded. “Yeah. Because that’s the kind of loyalty you get when you’re his friend. Best to return that if you can.”
Billy chuckled. “Good, because Henry toldmethat they picked up a dog on their last adventure, and the guys at the flophouse have been trying to take care of it. Apparently they put down a pad for him to piddle on, but he whines until they take him outside, and Henry says all the guys love him, but they’re afraid the little dude is getting freaked out with all the people coming and going. He was sort of hinting… you know… since you’ve got a little yard in the back….”
Sean had groaned. “God, is it a you kind of dog or a me kind of dog?” he asked suspiciously.
“It’s a me kind of dog,” Billy told him. “Which is good because you’ve got a me kind of dog kind of yard. But it might not happen. It’s all still in flux, right?”
Sean nodded. “But, uhm. A dog. That would be… you know. When I go back to work. Company when I’m not home. Someone to take to the park.” He’d given a brief, almost pleading, smile, and Billy realized what he was really asking.
“Yeah. Walks to the park might be even better with a dog,” Billy said. “Even a temporary dog.”
And that had seemed to sober both of them.
So preoccupied with that, it hadn’t even occurred to Billy that he and Sean would need to agree on their stories about Billy’s job. About his life in general.
And it didn’t help that Sean was super casual about it either.
“Our stories?” he asked now in the car. “Like how you’re rooming with a bunch of college students to save the rent, but now that you’ve tasted the delights of my spare bedroom, you might move out?”
Billy snorted. “I thought we were boyfriends,” he said, and then hurriedly backed that up with, “at least for my mommy.”
“We can be boyfriends in real life too,” Sean said softly.
“We are,” Billy conceded. “I just… uhm don’t want to… you know….”
“Tell everybody in the flophouse and announce you’re moving out and ready to quit porn,” Sean said with a sigh. “I get it, Billy. But we’re not going to tell your mother that. We’re going to say you were living with a bunch of other college students when Henry asked if you’d want to help me out to get a break on the rent. It’s pretty much the truth—”
“Except Rivers was the one who asked,” Billy pointed out.