Spencer looked over the bed to where Colonel waved his good-natured tail like a broom. “You little scam artist,” he said to his dog. “And they bought that?”
Colonel panted and wagged his tail some more, and Spencer kept fondling his ears. “We won’t tell anyone,” he murmured, tired. Theo hadn’t let go of his hand yet, and Spencer was fine with that. The warmth, the contact, all of it, helped heat his center mass, and seriously, that part of him hadn’t felt toasty since they’d loaded up the chopper the day before.
Then he recalled something Theo had said and struggled to sit up. Theo kept hold of his hand and put his own surprisingly strong hand in the center of Spencer’s chest.
“Take it easy, big guy,” Theo said. “No running laps just yet.” His face did something complicated then, and Spencer didn’t like it one bit.
“What? What was that look?”
“You talk to me first. Why did you try to climb out of bed?”
“You’re coming home with me? How does that happen? I fall out of a helicopter and Virgin Woodchuck Dream Date follows me home? Is there a rule in the Game of Life I missed somewhere?”
Theo gave Elsie a speaking look, and she answered. “The doctor said you’re going to need someone with you round the clock, and a nurse for at least an eight-hour shift for the first week. Theo’s going to get some spending money to set up your guest room so he can be your housemate.”
“But I won’t need that forever,” Spencer burst out. “I don’t know why I need it now! We can’t just give Theo a temporary job. He’s already had his home blown out the side of a cliff. He needs something long-term.”
“Well, if you agree to let him room with you, Glen says once you no longer need his help, we need an office manager and two more pilots, so there you go. You’ve got a roommate, Theo has a job on Preston’s ranch of a million dogs, and everybody’s happy.”
Spencer looked at Theo helplessly. “Are you?” he asked. “How can you be happy coming out to live on a dog ranch in Napa? You’ve got a chance to go somewhere, Woodchuck. Get out of your town—”
“Be somewhere I’m needed with people I care about,” Theo said, and the hand on Spencer’s chest went from heavy to tender as Theo used his thumb to gently stroke the side of Spencer’s neck. “Even a loud-mouthed jackass who will probably be a hellish patient.”
Spencer blinked at him and saw that he had big brown eyes as liquid and velvety here under the fluorescent lights of the hospital room as they’d seemed the day before, when the world was water and hell was about to swallow them whole.
A shiver of awareness passed through him, and then a bolt of pain, but in his side, where he remembered being skewered by a tree, but… but… ah, God! Fuck!
His vision washed black, and when he came to, he was exhausted and sweaty, and a nurse was injecting something into the IV in his arm.
“What in the holy mother of fucking hell is wrong with my leg?” he asked blearily, and the nurse looked at Theo and Elsie like he would rather they explain it than him.
“Uhm,” Theo said, glancing at Elsie, who shrugged. “There’s not much left of it.”
“It’s been amputated?” Because that didn’t seem logical. It hurt too much, goddammit!
“No—it’s… well… you had that loose flap of flesh, Spence, and then you soaked it in a bacteria pond for a good hour. There’s not enough antibiotics in the world—they had to… uhm, cut off the skin and then scrape the infected flesh off.”
Spencer’s vision went dark again, and he had to work hard to breathe through his nose. “I have helped doctor wounds for five years,” he said, “and that is one of the grossest things I have ever heard.”
“Well,” Elsie told him grumpily, “I blame you. Anyway, it’s like when you have a burn. They’re going to have to keep ripping the scab off and hope it fills in some of the missing, uhm, meat to support your weight.”
“Oh Jesus,” Spencer muttered, absolutely horrified. “I’m useless. Jesus, Woodchuck, you would have done fine! You should have just pushed me off the raft and let me die!”
“Spencer, don’t be an asshole—”
Elsie, he’d expected. What he hadn’t expected was Theo, standing up to his full height, which was damned near six feet, grabbing him by the hospital gown, thrusting his face into Spencer’s, and growling at him like a bear on his last fucking berry.
“Listen to me, you demented, brain-damaged lunatic. I don’t know who told you that all you were in this world was a body, but they have lied to you, Spencer Helmsley, and lied to you badly. If my time as your roommate does nothing else for you, I will make you see how much you mean to the people you have touched with your kindness, including your dog, who is not even a teeny bit stupid and is possibly the most wonderful animal in the world, next to Mrs. Andreas’s cat, who is now our cat, so don’t argue.”
“We’re keeping the cat?” Spencer asked helplessly, his eyes burning for no good reason.
“Yeah, Spence. That’s your takeaway from this discussion. Mrs. Andreas can’t keep him because she’s going to stay with her son who has asthma. But now you know. You’re keeping me, and we’re keeping the cat, and nobody who loves you gives a dookie about your usefulness as a workhorse, but we really hope our friend gets better. Are we clear now?”
He was still right there, right in Spencer’s face, yelling at him about Spencer being needed, and he may have been full of shit, but God. He was so beautiful. Spencer would have said yes to whatever it was he was yelling about.
Spencer became aware that he was staring stupidly as Theo wound down, and he tried to fight back against that sudden influx of… well, caring that he’d been unprepared for.
“I’ll know you care when you can say ‘shit’ instead of dookie.”
Theo scowled at him. “Okay, Spencer. You’re full of shit, and I don’t give a dookie. How’s that?”
And here was exhaustion, aided by painkillers and made exquisite by the knowledge that he may have been wounded but he was not alone.
“That’ll work.” And with that, sleep took him, so fast he wasn’t even aware it had happened.
HE awoke to find Theo curled up asleep in what looked to be a blessedly uncomfortable chair and Elsie stretched out reading a book on her phone. He must have made a noise because she stood and took the chair next to the bed.
“How you doing?” she asked softly, her eyes darting to Theo.
“Peachy,” he answered, his eyes doing the same. “How is he?”
“Exhausted.” Her mouth quirked. “But nothing was going to stop him from coming today. He’ll probably be here tomorrow afternoon too. I’d say I don’t know how you inspire that kind of loyalty, dickhead, but I do know, so that’s fine. I also know you don’t shit on it, either, so I won’t tell you to play nice.”
Except she just had. “Someone has got to warn that kid away from me,” he said, nodding soberly.
She shook her head negatory. “Not. Me. He threw you in the basket, jumped on top of you, grabbed both sides, and hung on. That there is the best metaphor for a relationship I have ever seen or heard of—there will be no warning away, not from me. I love you best, honey, so listen to me when I say he has already been adopted by the team, and we vote him into your life, whether you want him there or not. Make it easy on yourself.” Her voice dropped tenderly, and he almost squirmed in embarrassment because she was his sister. “Want him.”