She laughed. “I can’t do that.”
“Then pick a number out of a hat. Really, you’d be doing him a favor. He’s all twisted up about how he should take care of me, but I’ve been taking care of myself for nine years. I’m not gonna stop now.”
“I get the picture.” She shook her head, smiling. “Do you have any proof of your finances? Letter from a shelter you stayed at? Anything?”
“I should be in your system. Several clinics over the years.” I handed her my expired ID.
She turned to her terminal. After a few moments, she said, “I found your record. Looks like you had a social worker vouch for you in Chicago, and Kansas City, and in Salt Lake.”
“Yeah. There’s no one local now, though.” I sighed. “If you can’t take my word for it, I’ll head back to Gaynor Beach, find a shelter worker or somebody. I can spend a couple of days in a shelter to make my status official.” Theo would watch Mimsy. Most shelters didn’t allow pets.
She clicked through a few more screens. “I think I can put you in as a continuing patient at the Group A level, just one more time. You’ll need new documentation in the future.” She made a few entries, then handed back my ID. “California has ID fee-wavers if you can’t afford a new one, but they’ll ask for a social worker to sign off if you have no fixed address.”
“I hope I’ll finally have an address, and a job,” I told her. An unfamiliar pride warmed me although really, all I’d done was sneak into the place and keep Theo from dropping broken glass on his head.
“I’m glad.” She smiled warmly. “Group A in California has zero testing fees. Go on out to the waiting room and the nurse will call your name.”
“You’re an angel,” I told her. “If my cat was here, she’d totally dance for you.”
She eyed me like she had new doubts about my sanity, or maybe my sobriety.
“I have a trained cat. She helps me busk for money. We do a show. Sometimes she dances.”
“Ah, that makes more sense. Good luck, Shane.” She opened the door.
The exam was about as much fun as having your blood drawn and your dick swabbed ever is. Theo was waiting in a corner of the lobby when I came back out. I headed over and dropped into the chair beside him. “Now we wait.”
He passed me a slip of paper. His name and info andRapid HIV test – negative.
I grabbed his hand and squeezed, glad and scared.Theo’s okay. What if I’m not?I’d met one couple where the guys were both poz and they said that made it easy to know what each other was going through. They said mostly they didn’t think about it too much, although sometimes getting meds was hard when they traveled.
If it was only one of us, between me and Theo, I wanted it to be me.How about neither, though? I’m due a break.Of course, considering Theo and Arthur and Foxy and the venue, my life had been full of breaks lately. Maybe I wasn’t due one more. I’d sucked a lot of dick since my last test.
“You okay?” Theo murmured.
I realized the tips of his fingers had gone white in my grip and let go. “Fine. I’m good. Fifteen more minutes.”
“You want to walk around the building and come back?”
That sounded like a great idea. I bounced to my feet, let the receptionist know I’d be right back, and pushed out the door into the afternoon sun.
“You know it’s not that bad anymore, right?” Theo said quietly. “HIV, I mean. With treatment, you can even go undetectable and still bareback.”
I nodded a few times. My head knew it. My gut, which had seen all kinds of sick folk without money for simple care, thought my head was a fucking optimist.
“We can sit in the car,” Theo suggested.
“Or walk around all these pretty pink and white buildings?”
“Salmon and cream, you philistine.”
“Let’s walk.” I strode off along the sidewalk. Theo kept pace without saying anything. I liked having him there. I’d done this walk before, a couple of times, all by myself. I remembered the first time, in Chicago on a chilly, gray day, cursing myself for some of the guys I’d fucked around with and watching my breath steam in the dank city air. I’d had gonorrhea that time, and the antibiotics were thankfully free, and life went on a little colder in my head. This was different, in the warm sun with Theo at my shoulder.
“You know I won’t dump you,” he murmured as we rounded the low, pink building in front of the clinic and walked along the street. “Not even if you have twelve STIs.”
“I don’t think there are twelve.” That came out a sharper grumble than Theo deserved. I sighed. “I won’t dump you if you have something, either.”
“And ifyouhave something? Promise to still stick around?”
