“It takes a long time by bus. I work in three hours—my bus leaves in ten minutes.”

  Jeff looked at him with surprise and more than a little admiration. “Where do you work, Mikhail? If it means you can stay for a little longer, I’ll drop you off myself.”

  Mikhail smiled gratefully. “That would be wonderful. Thank you.” Then he turned to Shane after taking a distrustful glance at the still stunned Calvin.

  “I think I have just done a terrible thing, lubime. I don’t see how I can make it better.”

  Shane’s smile was tired—and sweet. “No worries. Calvin’s a big boy. He can take a little bit of truth, can’t you, Calvin?”

  “I just hope you can,” Calvin muttered, and Shane’s face fell. He squeezed Mikhail’s hand and caught Jeff’s eye.

  “Guys—go get friendly. Jeff, if you call him any names I’ll kick your lily ass.”

  “Oh honey, why would I pick on your little friend here when you’re such a better target? Do you want any ice cream, you big weird bastard?”

  “He is not weird!” Mikhail said unhappily, and was rewarded with another squeeze of his hand.

  Jeff’s look at him was surprisingly gentle. “Of course not, baby. My bad. Come on—I could really use some fucking ice cream.”

  Mikhail turned unhappily to Shane. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, and Shane smiled again. That plain, earnest smile was suddenly the most important thing in Mikhail’s life. Oh God—to think he might never have seen it again.

  “Well, Mickey, since you just outed me to my job, the least you could do is gimme a little kiss before you go.” Shane’s words were starting to slur, and Mikhail wondered what was so urgent that he had to talk to his cop friend before he fell asleep. That didn’t stop him from bending over and running his lips lightly along Shane’s, and treasuring the feel of his lean mouth quirking up at the sides.

  “We will talk when I get back,” he told Shane sincerely, and Shane smiled again, his eyes half closed.

  “Best part of my day.”

  And then Jeff led him by the elbow and was steering him out of the room while Calvin watched them go unhappily. When they cleared the door, Mikhail turned to Jeff and asked why it was so important that they leave the room.

  Jeff sighed, and suddenly all traces of the flamboyant flirt who had talked so crisply to Mikhail drained away. The man who was left seemed tired and very, very worried.

  “Because I don’t think the scene where Shane got hurt went well. From what I understand, Shane was peeking around a corner, getting the lay of the land, when he heard that there was an overdosing infant inside the house. He called for an ambulance and that tipped off the bad guys, and that’s when they tried to shish kebob our big, stupid cop.”

  Mikhail frowned even as he and Jeff made a left, following the arrows to the cafeteria. “Why did he even get out of the car? Should he not have waited for somebody to help before he went in?”

  Jeff looked at him and nodded. “Yeah. He knew there were kids there, Mikhail. I don’t know what to tell you—I love the guy, but he seems to have more heart than common sense sometimes.”

  Mikhail looked at him, worried about several things. “He needs someone to make him think of himself first,” he said, because this was true. He remembered that day at the Faire—all of that buying. Buying clothes that Mikhail said he should buy, buying presents for the people he loved, buying a shirt for a man he had barely met. Where in all of that was what Shane wanted?

  Apparently, you were what Shane wanted.

  Mikhail fought the urge to go sprinting back to the hospital room and looked at Jeff instead. “You would not want to….” He remembered all of Shane’s stories, about how the two of them had fought like brothers from the very beginning. No, this nice man was not a good match for his Shane. “Never mind.”

  Jeff’s mouth quirked, and some of that flirt was back. “You can’t give him away, you know. I’m pretty sure he’s yours.”

  Mikhail’s mouth pinched unhappily. “I don’t think I know what to do with something that valuable.”

  Mikhail was surprised by the genderless, comforting arm looping around his shoulder. “Sweetheart, just try not to break it. Deacon gets pissed when we’re broken.”

  They met Calvin coming out of the room when they got back, and Jeff gave him a hard look. The young officer blushed and looked away.

  “Shane’s a good guy. You… you all don’t have to worry. I’m not going to… you know. Tell the world. I wouldn’t ever just let him walk into something without backup. Who would do that?”

  Jeff scowled at him. “An entire L.A. precinct, apparently. But I’m glad to hear you’re not going to go gossip about our friend there. If we hadn’t been so worried, you never would have needed to know.”

  Calvin nodded and then looked thoughtful. “That’s not… that’s not right,” he said, almost to himself. Then he shook his head and told them, “He’s… he’s sort of upset right now—or he was before he fell asleep. That kid—the one who was overdosing—the kid didn’t make it. The one who was getting carved on when Shane got there, she’s going to be okay—sort of. I mean, you don’t have daddy carving you up like that while your little sister’s dying inside the house and actually be ‘okay’. But… anyway. Shane didn’t take it well. Guess I can’t blame him—it was the whole reason he put himself out there.”

  Mikhail felt the ice cream he’d just eaten congeal in his stomach. “That is several kinds of horrible,” he said numbly, and Jeff grunted an affirmative next to him. “Excuse me, I need to….” And he couldn’t even finish the sentence. He hurried into the room and saw that Shane’s eyes were closed. Little silver drops trembled on his eyelashes in time to his even breathing. Mikhail sighed and pulled up a chair, plopping into it and putting his chin up on the uncomfortable rail.

  Jeff came in a few minutes later and laughed softly. “Here, baby—let me fix that for you.”

  With a minimum of fuss and a practiced hand he dropped the rail on the side, and Mikhail crossed his arms on the mattress next to Shane’s head and propped his chin up on his fists.

  They were quiet in the room for a moment and then Mikhail said, “Are you a doctor, Jeff-the-friend?”

  “No—I’m a physical therapist.”

  “Why are you not a doctor? You are very good at those things that doctors do,” Mikhail mused. Shane’s even breathing was soothing, but the quiet in the room unsettled him.

  “You know a lot about doctors,” Jeff said, sounding amused.

  “My mother is dying. I have seen many of them.” He said the words automatically—it occurred to him that someday soon, they would no longer be true.

  “Wow,” Jeff murmured.

  “You didn’t answer my question.” Once again, he was asking for a past he had no right to.

  “I tested positive in college,” Jeff said softly. “Fewer sharp, pointy things in physical therapy than as an actual doctor. Less time spent in med school when my time might be shorter than the rest of the world’s.”

  Mikhail turned his head in surprise. “So you have a past too. Does your Deacon know?”

  Jeff was sitting at the end of the bed under the only available light. He had his book out—a horror/thriller/detective something—but he was looking at Mikhail as though the conversation, even with the intrusive questions, was welcome.

  “Yes,” he said softly. “I told them both.”

  “So I am the coward, then?” Mikhail asked, mostly to himself. “And so we both have pasts we may not be so proud of.” He had a sudden urge to run out and find this Deacon and confess himself clean and pure, so maybe he would feel like being here, at Shane’s bed, was exactly right, instead of a stolen privilege he would have to pay for later.

  “Everyone has a past,” Jeff said gently.

  “Everyone except Shane,” Mikhail murmured back. “He has done nothing in his life to be ashamed of.” Oh, God. He was so damned tired—he had not slept the night before, and the bus ride had been terrifying. He did not know this part of town at all, and all of his self-sufficiency had been wrung out of him as he realized he was nearly three hours from home, and if his mother’s last chemo session did not go well, he had no way to get to the hospital in Roseville to see her. (Sacramento was a terrible place for hospitals, he thought despondently. There were too many scattered across the map like drops of water.)

  “I have to agree with you there,” Jeff said quietly.

  “No—no terrible past.” He stroked the tender inside of Shane’s hard, solid bicep. The skin was so smooth under his fingers… so terribly vulnerable. “No evil deeds, no crippling regrets. Just a heart as open as the blue sky. Any evil fucker can shoot an arrow into it and make it rain blood.”

  His eyes closed, and he thought he heard Jeff gasp, but he was too tired to see why. He did not know how long he slept. At some point, he was aware that someone else entered the room and started speaking quietly to Jeff, but by then he was in that state of exhaustion where even though he was semi-aware of his surroundings, he really could not rouse himself to respond to them.

  “Hey, Benny—where’s Drew? Mmmmm… soup.”

  “Drew’s parking the car, and you’re welcome. Do you think Shane’ll want some when he wakes up?” It was a girl’s voice, but she spoke quietly, and Mikhail thought he would like her if they could talk.

  “I hope so,” Jeff said quietly. “He’s had sort of a day for someone who hasn’t moved much since this morning.”

  “Is that him?” Mikhail felt the urge to move, but he couldn’t. Sleep weighed him down and left him a little bit helpless to do anything but listen to this conversation.

  “Shane’s secret guy? Yeah—that’s Mikhail.”

  “What’s he like?” There was some rustling, and Benny pulled back the curtain that separated Shane’s side of the room from the other side of the room, which was vacant. Mikhail heard a squeak and assumed she was sitting on the other bed.

  “Like?” Jeff sounded amused.

  “Yeah—what’s he like? I’ve been trying to teach Shane to cook for a month to impress this guy. What’s he like?”

  “Skittish as a feral cat. How’re the cooking lessons going?”

  “Like shit. I had to sneak real food into Shane’s house last time because I was afraid he was going to poison the guy. I swear, Shane could fuck up a microwave burrito.”

  Jeff’s tired laugh was suddenly not snarky at all—it was pure affection. “Cooking to impress, hah? Oh, baby, that is serious.”

  “So, do you think he’s going to stay?”

  Jeff grunted. “I don’t know, Shorty. I think he wants to. I even think he’s a good kid. But everyone has their damage. He might think he’s too damaged to do this right.”

  Benny made a hmmm sound and then said, “We’d better not introduce him to Deacon until we’re sure, then.”

  “You think?”

  “Jeff, two men in my life have hurt me. Deacon personally put one of them in jail and the other one in the hospital. He doesn’t like it when people hurt us.”

  “Good point,” Jeff said softly. “He wasn’t exactly gentle with the guy who was here from the police department last night.”

  “Yeah, well, if he’s the guy who called the house, he was a snide asshole.”

  “His partner seemed all right.” Jeff sighed and leaned back. Mikhail could picture him closing his eyes and stretching out his legs. “I hope so, anyway, since Mikhail and I sort of busted Shane out of the closet right in front of him.”

  “Oooh… do tell!”

  Mikhail’s sleep deepened while Jeff was telling the story, and the next thing he knew, Shane’s hand was gentle on his shoulder.

  “Mickey! Mickey—man, it’s time to get up.”

  Oh hells. “Did I sleep through my visit?” he asked blearily, and Shane stroked a rough finger down the side of his face.

  “’Fraid so. But I just woke up, too, so I guess we’re even.”

  Mikhail looked at him unhappily. Close up he looked even worse—and even more dear. “I want to stay,” he murmured. “I want to spend the night by your bed. I want… I want to be the man that people will expect to be here.”

  Shane’s mouth quirked. “You are here. That’s enough for right now. And you have other promises to keep—don’t think I don’t know that. Don’t think I don’t respect that. Tell your mom I said hi, all right?”

  Mikhail nodded and leaned forward, pressing his forehead to Shane’s. Shane was warm, and a little clammy. Oh God. What did Jeff say? Something about infection?

  “I can come back tomorrow. I can maybe cancel my classes—I have never called in sick. Anna will forgive me.”

  “I can’t promise I’ll be really charming tomorrow. They took my temperature while you were asleep—apparently I’m going to be sick tomorrow.” Shane’s grin went a little goofy and lopsided. “’S’gonna be a laugh riot. But I’d love to see you. You have to leave on Monday, but I’d love to see you tomorrow.”

  “Then I will be here. And the next day too. But after that….” He looked up and around the room, because he needed to make sure Jeff would be there to take him home. Jeff was, and Mikhail nodded. “I want to be that man, Shane. I want to be the man people will call. I want to be the man who is here through night and day. I don’t know how to be him, but that’s who I want to be.”

  “You are that man, Mickey. What you’re doing for your mom—that’s one of those things that makes you him.”

  “But I have to leave you….” He could not even feel like a child, because the hurt was so acute.

  Shane closed his eyes, and before Mikhail could feel bad, he opened them again. “Mickey?”

  “Da?”

  “I know what loo-bee-mee means.”

  Mikhail blushed terribly. “Da?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. It is good that you know that. I am glad.”

  “Then give me a kiss and tell me you’ll see me tomorrow.”

  The touch of their lips was sweet and sustaining—but Shane’s lips were hot, and as Mikhail straightened he caught the eyes of an anxious nurse who was there with something to pump into Shane’s IV.

  “I will see you tomorrow, lubime. Please believe it.” And then Jeff had him by the elbow and was pulling him out of the room before he even had a chance to be introduced to the girl sitting on the hospital bed or the young black man who was leaning against the wall by Shane’s head.

  The trip to the dance studio was much shorter in Jeff’s little Mini-Cooper than the trip to the hospital had been on the bus. Jeff dropped him off with a wave of the hand.

  “See you tomorrow, Mikhail—I’ll be here around ten, okay?”

  Mikhail nodded, supremely grateful. “You have no idea how big a favor it is that you would do this for me. The bus ride… it is very long.”

  Jeff grimaced. “Yeah—I figure it is. And don’t worry—we’ll do our best to work you around Crick and Deacon, because I know you’re still a little spooked, but Mikhail?”

  “Yes?”

  Jeff sighed and shifted the car into neutral and took his foot off the brake. “Look, man—if you want to be the guy people call, you’ve got to be that guy. That’s all. Just be him. No dodging the scary people in Shane’s life—just be the guy in his life, and be the guy in all of it. I can see you’ve got some shit to take care of right now, but when you get back from wherever you’re going, you need to make a decision, okay?”

  Mikhail nodded. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I will see you tomorrow, Jeff-the-friend. Thank you again.”

  Jeff nodded as though he’d said more than he had and drove away into the cold traffic making its way through the dark.

  Chapter 12

  You did not desert me…

  “Brothers in Arms”—Dire Straits

  MICKEY brought his laptop and some DVDs the next day, and he sat with Shane through most of the morning and part of the afternoon, watching children’s movies and laughing through WALL•E, Up, and Lilo and Stitch. They also talked quietly—and Shane would have liked more of that, except, dammit, his head hurt and his body ached, and his wound throbbed fiercely under the pain medication. More than once he lost his train of thought when they were in the middle of a conversation, and in the middle of Lilo and Stitch, he wandered off and came back to find Mikhail’s hand fretfully on his forehead.

  “You were making noises, lubime,” Mikhail muttered. “Here, let me call the nurse.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Shane muttered, and Mikhail kissed his forehead.

  “Of course you will. Where is that fucking red button?”

  The nurse came and took his temperature and added something else to his IV and then returned with the doctor, who looked grim. Mikhail asked what the problem was, and the doctor pulled him aside.

  When he came back to Shane’s side his face looked pinched and miserable, but he patted Shane’s hand reassuringly. “Shane, do you remember Deacon’s number offhand?”

  “It’s in my cell phone—right there by the end table.”

  “Good. I… I am going to call Deacon. The doctor says you are going to be fine, but they are going to need to dose you with some horrible things that will make you sick. Your family needs to know. I will not be here when the worst of it passes, lubime. I am sorry—I will come tomorrow, but I do not think you will know I am even here.”

  Shane took his hand and tried to think beyond the pounding in his head. “I’ll know,” he muttered. “I’ll know.”

  He was aware of Mikhail searching through his cell phone for numbers and then sighing as he pushed the numbers into the standing phone by the bed. He also heard Mikhail’s relief when someone besides Deacon answered.

  “Benny, right? You are Benny? We didn’t meet yesterday—I’m sorry, I was asleep.” Mikhail finished the conversation, and Shane heard the fine edge of panic creep into his voice.

  “But Jeff will be here in an hour… oh, Christ… I will not be here when they give him the first dose. Somebody will be, yes?”

  Mikhail hung up and laid his chin by Shane’s head, as he had the night before.