Cross was glad to let the intensity fade. He managed a weak smile. “Glop, probably, but this is the private wing. A better quality of glop.”
“Makes all the difference. And tomorrow you come home?”
“Yeah.” He couldn’t sound enthusiastic. He’d be at ground zero again, lying around, foot elevation for almost all his wakinghours, painfully navigating chores on crutches, unless he was willing to have a nurse come in. He probably should, but after six weeks in the rehab center, he was willing to trade pain for privacy.
“Cool. I moved my stuff into the spare room.”
“Huh? You said you wouldn’t live with me.”
Rusty tapped his biceps in a minimalist punch. “Not when I was going to be your poor little boy toy, right? But now you need me. I know you. You’re going to try to do too much around the house, and not have your foot up, and refuse to ask for help.”
Cross pouted, aware he was being ridiculous. “No! I want to heal. I’m not stupid.”
“But you are independent. Marie said I should emotionally blackmail you into hiring a nurse, but I figured we’d both be happier if I moved in.”
“I won’t be good for anything, for weeks,” Cross pointed out. The pain in his foot was growing, a radiating burn in his heel and calf, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” a female voice said from the door. “I need to do some patient care.”
A nurse. Cross looked at Rusty. “You should probably go home and take it easy.”
“Is that really what you want me to do?”
He dodged the question. “I’ll be doped up anyway.” He wasn’t too proud to ask for meds right now.
Rusty smiled, as if that answer pleased him. “I’ll be out in the hall till she’s finished, and then I’ll come on back in and annoy you until glop time.”
Some kind of tension inside Cross unwound at those words. “If you want.”
“Oh, I want.” For a second Cross thought Rusty might kiss him, but he glanced at the nurse and then stood and got out of her way. “Later, dude.”
Dude.As the nurse bent to check him, Cross realized how desperately he didn’t want to be “dude” to Rusty, even in public.I’m coming out. Don’t know how or when, but it’s happening, so Rusty can kiss me when we both want him to.
That resolution carried him through the nurse’s exam, through peeing into a bottle, and on until the press of a button swept a tide of chemical relief over him, and he slept.
Chapter 26
Rusty had no ambition to go into nursing. He could handle blood and puke and shit, because you didn’t grow up on a farm and get to stay prissy about those things. What he couldn’t handle would be grumpy-ass patients. He was making an exception for Cross, but damn, it wasn’t easy. “Pork chops or hamburgers?”
“You don’t have to cook. I can order in.”
“Sure, you can spend a gazillion bucks and get a Michelin star team to come give you a ten-course tasting meal or whatever. Except I’m about to get dinner on the table, so which one?”
“Whichever you want.”
“Aargh.” Rusty tugged at his hair. “Look, pick a fucking main dish. Then get back to the living room and get your fucking foot up on the fucking couch. Above heart level.”
“I know what the doctor said.”
“But do you fucking do it? No, you’re here hovering in the kitchen letting your ankle swell up and fall off.”
“It’s not going to fall off.”
Rusty whirled away from the fridge and pointed at the living room. “Lie the fuckdown!”
“This is my house and my food and my stove you’re about to use—”
“You know what? Order the fucking meal. See if I care. Or get one of those perfectly balanced precooked meals for one out of the freezer and microwave it. Whatever. I’m going for a run.” He slammed out the side door, wondering if he would set off some kind of warning sensor. Cross had walked him through the passive security features of the house when he moved in, and they weren’t kidding around. Only surveillance, no machine gun nests or anything, but everything outside the house was scrutinized within an inch of its life and there were alarms of all kinds.
