“I’ve never been so sick in my life, Blondie.”
“I know.” I rub a soothing hand over his sculpted stomach, the muscles more pronounced because of an empty stomach and dehydration. Lean muscles pop out from beneath skin that seems too tight, all the way to the soaked boxer shorts he’s still wearing.
Stopping at the end of his unmade bed, I pull out the single desk chair and sit it behind his legs. “Sit down for two seconds.” When he doesn’t focus on me, I reach up and grab his jaw. “Hey. Sit before you fall. Let me help you.” As if I’m shouting in his face, he scrunches his eyes closed and collapses into the chair, not even stirring when the frame creaks from his sudden weight.
As soon as he’s stable, I rush around his bed and tear the sheets up.
The entire apartment smells like vomit.
I take the cover in my arms and toss it to the floor, then I ball the sheets and toss them into the sticky vomit bucket. “Where do you keep spare sheets?” When he doesn’t answer, I look up just in time to watch him teeter to the left. Bounding over the bed and knocking groceries to the floor, I throw myself at the mercy of the universe and pray he doesn’t crush me to death. Catching him with both hands on his shoulder, I push back and jam him against the counter in an effort to stop the chair wheels from rolling away. “Kane. Wake up.”
“Sleepy.”
“I know. Come on, you’re letting the team down. Seriously, this isn’t cute – it’s annoying as hell. Wake up, pull yourself together, and help me.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Itistomorrow! Jesus.”Fuck it.I step back and let him slide to the floor. “I don’t care. I’m here to help you, but if you can’t even sit for three minutes, then I can’t deal with that. I’m not your mother.” I step back to the bed and look around the small room. “Where are your spare sheets?” Again, he doesn’t answer. Of course. Because he’s unconscious under the chair.
Shaking my head, I step to the chest of drawers he took jeans from yesterday. There’s almost no storage in this whole place, so pulling the drawers open, I go in search in the only places they could logically be.
Not in the top drawer, I move to the second. Socks and underwear.
Third drawer holds jeans, and tucked in the back, is a second and third gun. He hoards bullets the way a tire fitter hoards valve stops, or regular people hoard pennies.
A lifetime ago, not only would I besurprisedto find guns in a drawer, but it would scare the crap out of me.
Today, I’ve become desensitized, so I simply shake my head and move on.
Finally getting to the bottom drawer, I find lime green sheets that make me laugh. I’ve moved on from anger and exhaustion, and stepped firmly into hysteria.
The dark man, thekiller– the drug taker and possible drug seller whose other sheets are dark just like everything else in his life – has a lime green set of sheets.
That shouldn’t be funny.
In fact, I have lime green sheets, too.
But it is funny, because if I focus on the guns and the unconscious guy at my feet, I might cry again.
I take the fitted sheet from the pile and tuck it under my arm and I make my way to the single window in the apartment and work on the rusty locks. The fire escape exposes us to all sorts of crazy assholes, but I can’t live with the stench any longer.
Pulling the window up and gulping in the chilly air from outside, I cast an eye over the parking lot and stop at the man I spoke to on the way in. Not the flannel shirt guy, but the one who’s scared of losing his dick. I don’t even have a knife, much less a fishing knife, but the fact Murphey sits on my hood and waves with an odd grin settles my nerves.
A milkshake sits by this thigh, a burger fills his mouth, and as he smiles like a fool, he looks almost like he’s giggling with unadulterated pleasure.
I think I gained a sort of security guy.
He’s still going to terrorize everyone else, but ten bucks bought me an ally.
Awesome.
I turn back to the room and pull the sheet from under my arm. Whipping it out wide, I begin on the corners. Surprisingly, despite the horrendous fucking night I just lived through, I managed to keep the majority of spew in the bucket. The sheets remain unscathed except for the scorch marks and single hole from the bullet I put through them
Oops.
Tucking the corners in, I work methodically and take comfort in his light snoring. He didn’t snore the night before last, but I guess a drug overdose and a giant hangover will do that to a guy.
Taking the top sheet, I repeat the process and whip it out. For such a guy’s guy, it surprises me that his sheets are wrinkle free. The corners were perfectly matched and folded.