“Tomorrow morning,” he said.“And they should probably sleep for a day or two, and then we’re off scoping out the next job.”
“Good,” Liam said.“So we’ll do the same.”
“Don’t you want to do the tourist thing?”Josh asked in surprise.“I know you get to travel a lot, but….”He smiled winningly.“Bavaria.Andechs Abbey is close by, and there’s several schlosses.”
“Castles,” Liam supplied dryly, because, dammit, helivedin Europe.
“Yes, but schloss sounds so much grander, you think?”
“It does,” Liam agreed, cupping the back of his neck.A soft shudder seemed to encompass him then, and Josh melted a little farther into the very comfortable couch and took another bite of soup.“You all comfy, boy-o?”Liam asked.
“Yeah,” Josh admitted, and Liam took the half-finished bowl of soup from him.
“So you need to listen to me, because I don’t want this to be a fighting point.It needs to be an agreeing point.”
“Go on,” Josh said, swallowing.
“I won’t keep a secret from your folks any more than I’d keep a secret from you, do you follow me?”
Josh, looking mildly embarrassed, nodded.“Yes, I follow.”
“So here’s what we’re going to do.I am willing to hope that today’s little incident was no more than pushing yourself too hard these last weeks, plus travel, which always whacks it out of you even if you’ve been doing it from the cradle, understood?”
Josh swallowed.“Yes.”
“Good.So we’ll take some days of rest—real rest.If we sightsee, we take a car, walk around for a bit, take the car back.No scaling walls, no hiking that dreadful hill to Andechs Abbey, which is a shame because their beer is first-rate.”
Josh sighed.“I haven’t even been able to taste it—everybody says that.”
“Well, we’ll have to come back,” Liam told him gently.“But if you’re up to full strength by the time Carl and Michael get here, I’ll hold my peace, we’ll do the gig, and you’ll see your doctor when we get back to the States.Fair?”
Josh nodded like he was off the hook, but he wasn’t.
“But if—” Liam had to clear his throat.“If, evenonce,you scare me again like you scared me on the train today, we will end up at Europe’s famed social health care quicker than you can ask how much it will cost.Do you understand?”
“Don’t rub it in,” Josh mumbled.“Everybody in America knows you’re more civilized than we are.”
“Well, some idiots put the City of Batshit Crazy in charge,” Liam said with compassion.Most folks in Europe felt sorry for their friends in the States these days.It was a terrible place to live right now—they could either fix it or flee.He was proud, really, of Josh’s family for working so hard at fixing it.It was one of the reasons he was here.
“I’m really okay—” Josh began, but Liam shook his head and allowed some of his fear to show.
“Boy, I’ll forgive you if you’re not okay,” Liam said, wrapping his arm around Josh’s shoulders and pulling him close.“I’ll forgive you for getting sick on me in the middle of this adventure and making me call your parents and tell them this happened on my watch.You know what I won’t forgive you?”
“Dying?”Josh asked, and Liam’s heart twisted, knowing that it had really come that close in November, and he and Josh hadn’t even been allowed tobethen.
“Pushing me away again,” Liam whispered.“Not again.So you get used to that.You give me an honest evaluation.So right now, scale of one to ten?”
Josh grunted.“Five,” he admitted.“I’m fucking exhausted.”
Liam let out a slightly easier breath.“Fair.Stay honest.If you’re not at a seven by the time Carl and Michael are up and about, you and I will go to the doctor, and if it’s more serious than iron and sleep, we call your parents, understand?”
“Yes,” Josh said, all the fight apparently beaten out of him by what had mostly been a pretty awesome day.
“Fair.”Liam shuddered the last of his own stress into the couch, which he had to admit was extremely comfortable.“Now what are we watching?”He indicated Josh’s computer, which was all set up with a movie, something mindless and entertaining and not in German, which Liam was fair at speaking, but his brain wasn’t up to it today.
“Reacher,” Josh told him, and Liam let out a delighted laugh.
“Trying to see how the other half lives?”he asked, indicating the title character’s enormous size and muscular physique.
