Josh’s lips finally twitched.“He was hurting himself not taking me without my consent.”
“Why didn’t you go?”Danny asked.
“Superstition,” Josh said baldly, because that’s what it boiled down to.“I kept telling myself if I could just get the job done, then I could sleep and—”
“Bollix the job!”Danny cried, and Josh blinked.
“Danny…?”Josh said, genuinely surprised.
Danny shook his head and put a hand against Josh’s temple with as much reverence and absolution as a priest.“It was never about the job,” Danny whispered.“It was about doing something together.Don’t you get it, Joshua Daniel?Togethermeans you have to be there too.”
“That’s not entirely true anymore,” Josh told him, suddenly feeling like the parent.“Grace, Molly, Chuck, Hunter, Lucius—they risked theirlivesthe other night.”
“That was our choice,” said a familiar voice, and Josh rolled his eyes and hey, there was his headache.And his best friend.Together at last.“We love you, Recovery Boy, but I’m not getting a face full of cocaine for you.I wasdownfor that clusterfuck.You talk about fixing the world?That shit wasprimefor being blown out of existence, I shit you not.”
Danny’s glance toward Grace, who was apparently curled up by Josh’s feet—he could see him now—was affectionate.“Eloquent, Dylan Li,” he said.“And you shall have to elaborate on the face full of cocaine.Sounds… invigorating.”
Grace shuddered, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.For the first time ever, Josh could see the beginnings of a beard on his friend’s usually smooth face.He would have to tease him later.
“Blew chunks like aboss,” he admitted.“Molly force-fed me the liso, andblech.In case I ever wanted to do drugs again, now I don’t.Hooray!”
“But how did it happen?”Josh asked, curiosity overriding the headache and weakness and the awful feeling of being near tears.
“A gust of wind through a plastic entrance tarp while I was setting the charges,” Grace said, shaking his head.“Oh my God—rightin the kisser.Had a cloth mask, but fuck me, next time I’m going full WWI gas mask because that shit washeinous.Blew the charge early, I was so hyped.It was a goatfuck.”He grinned tiredly.“And then we get here and you’re in the hospital again.I could cheerfully kill you.”
Josh felt those tears again.“But you won’t because you still love me, right?”
“Yeah,” Grace said, dismounting the foot of the bed and coming up to hug him, in spite of the driplines and monitors and such.Carefully, because he’d had practice, he climbed in next to Josh and snuggled.“Still love you.Liam loves you too, by the way.We had to pry him from your side—he wasn’t smelling too great.You neither.Get a shower, hippy.”
Finally situated, Grace’s body went limp, and Josh was pretty sure he’d fallen immediately asleep, like he did.
“Well,” Danny said, wiping his face, “that was a timely break to save you from getting chewed out.Are you ready now?”
“They were counting on me,” Josh whispered.“I didn’t want to let them down.”
“We could have done something else,” Danny told him, smoothing Josh’s hair back from his forehead with a cool hand.“God, Josh.What have we done—your mother, your father, me—what have we done to make our love feel conditional?”
Josh closed his eyes and swallowed.“Nothing,” he said.“I just… you all gave up so much for me.How could I fail?”
“You can’t,” Danny told him, and Josh heard the sob in his voice, and maybe that little sound allowed him to finally get it.“You are such a good—trulygood—person, Josh Salinger.Not simply smart.Not simply clever and fun.Good.Your heart is so pure.You can’t let us down.Not if you get sick again.Not if you quit the game—”
“I love the game,” Josh told him, closing his eyes.“No quitting the game.”
“Okay, then.So maybe don’t play it until it kills you, okay?”
Josh nodded.“Iwouldenjoy some more time with Liam,” he confessed.
“Well he… he’s been in love with you probably before you met,” Danny told him.“I’d say it was a fairy tale—”
“We just came from a fairy tale,” Josh said, remembering the oriel and the egg.“Remind me to tell Grace it’s still there.”
“My egg?”Grace asked groggily.
“Yeah,” Josh mumbled.“I checked—still real.”
“Good night.”
“Fairy tales aren’t as hard,” Danny said, ignoring their byplay as he often did.“Relationships take work, and you know that work, my boy.You’ve forged some first-class relationships, and they’ve forged their own.But you need to take Liam as seriously.”
