Page 69 of Sean's Sunshine

“And you don’t need to work so hard to keep me. I’m easy. You may be weak, but I’m easy. Remember that.”

Sean had chuckled softly because Guillermo was anything but easy, and he wanted to say that. Wanted to tell him that he was prickly and independent and snarky, and Sean loved him anyway, but then there was the big scary word, the one he wasn’t sure they should say yet, so he’d let the moment carry him off to sleep.

“What are you brooding over?” Billy asked now, catching up with him as he started his second loop.

“Did you have a nice talk?” Sean chided him. “Did Bob and Jim have good stuff to say?”

“Uh-huh. Bob’s dog is getting fatter, Jim’s dog is getting spazzier, and somebody broke into another house last night.”

Sean tried not to trip over his own feet. “Dammit!”

Billy chuckled. “Thought you’d like that.”

“Where was it?” Among other things, when Sean and Billy had put up their “murder board,” they’d tried to anticipate where the next robbery might be.

“Exactly where you said,” Billy said. “No dog, no man there at night, no cameras.”

“What did they take?” Sean asked, regaining his stride around the park.

“Bicycles—nice ones,” Billy said. “Two, three hundred dollars resale. Seriously.”

Sean nodded. “This guy’s smart,” he said as they continued to charge their way around the path. “Nothing big enough for grand theft. Even the dirt bike—under a thousand dollars resale.”

“So we gonna do some cop shit?” Billy asked, sounding excited. “Stakeout? Talking to bike shops? What?”

Sean was on the verge of breaking his heart and telling him they were probably going to turn this over to the property crimes division when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and frowned at the name on the screen before holding a finger up to Billy as he put it to his ear.

“Yeah, Ellery, what’s up?”

“So how’re you doing?”

Sean came to their usual bench and sank gratefully onto it. “Getting a little better,” he said cautiously. “I can move. Why?”

“I know Henry asked you, but I’m making sure you’re still up to babysit.”

Sean frowned at Billy, who shrugged back. “Your boyfriend? I thought he was housebroken.”

“You heard about Friday, I take it,” Ellery asked, his voice flinty with that Boston accent and to the point because that was Ellery.

“Yeah,” Sean said. “We heard. Why?”

Ellery let out a breath, and Sean heard the weariness in the sound. “This weekend was rough,” he admitted. “Fever, chills, and God, the wound. It’s a nightmare. Anyway, I don’t want him home alone tomorrow. Since you’re still convalescing, you know, I thought….”

Sean shrugged. “Yeah, we’re planning to come over tomorrow. Rivers can beat the shit out of us on video games.”

Billy’s eyebrows went up. “That’s unlikely,” he said with a certain amount of swagger. He did love to practice, but Sean shook his head.

“Jackson’s got his own control,” he said, preparing the kid for disappointment. “I think he plays it in his sleep.”

Billy’s cackle could probably be heard over the phone. “Gameon!”

Sean smiled. “Yeah,” he said into the receiver. “It’ll be fun. Pet the cats, give your boyfriend shit—it’s all good.”

The relief in Ellery’s voice warmed him. “Thank you. Seriously, thank you. If I could lock him in the hospital until this is all over, I would, but….”

“Yeah,” Sean said softly. “No worries. We’ll be over around nine. How’s that?”

“Perfect,” Ellery said. “I leave at eight. I mean, how much trouble can he get into in an hour, right?” And before Sean could curse him out for jinxing the entire day, Ellery had hung up.