“And you’re going to do the same?” he prompted. “I’ve heard that voters like a sheriff with a nice bushy tail.”
“Good tip,” Kayla said, starting to pack up her gear, clearly ready for the conversation to end.
Maybe a little too ready. “Have you heard anything else about that?” Jericho asked. “Has the shit-sack done anything new?”
“He’s the least of my worries,” Kayla said. Maybe she even meant it. “That situation will either take care of itself or it won’t, but I’m not going to waste any more energy on it.”
Jericho would have liked to argue with that; taking steps to preserve a job Kayla loved shouldn’t be classified as wasting energy. But she didn’t seem too receptive to his ideas right then, so he saved them.
Instead he went home to his beige apartment, tried not to notice how empty it felt, and pretended he was simply unwinding as he sat on the couch and sipped a beer, watching TV. He wasn’t waiting for Wade, of course. He wasn’t that desperate.
When he finally found his way to bed, he slept on the side Wade had occupied the night before, but only for variety, not because he was hoping to smell Wade on the pillow or the sheets. And when his phone rang at three in the morning, he answered it before the second ring because he was a man of action, not because he’d been lying there unable to sleep.
“The question you should be asking yourself,” Wade said in response to Jericho’s greeting, “isn’t how many men you’ve killed. The question you should be asking is how many innocent men you’ve killed. When you were at war, they were trying to kill you. And since you got home—how many men have you killed who weren’t part of something dirty?”
Was that the better question? Jericho certainly didn’t have to think very hard to answer it. “None. I’ve never killed an innocent person.”
“Me neither,” Wade said quietly.
Jericho hadn’t realized he’d needed the words until they’d been spoken. But once he heard them he felt lighter, as if the world was a better place than it had been moments before.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s good to know.”
“I’ve done other bad things to innocent people,” Wade said quickly. “And I lie to them all the time, sometimes without even having a good reason. Innocent people do not like me, in general. I can’t be trusted at all, in general.”
“I’m okay with that.”
“Yeah, today you are. We’ll see how you feel tomorrow.”
“Wait. We’ll see tomorrow because you think I’m flakey and change my mind a lot, or we’ll see tomorrow because you’ve done something tonight that I’m going to be pissed about when I find out about it?”
“Maybe both,” Wade said, and the teasing tone didn’t keep Jericho from believing there might be truth in his words.
“I can’t believe you accused me of not doing things the easy way,” he grumbled, relaxing back into the pillow that did maybe still carry a little of Wade’s scent. They were both silent for a moment, then Jericho said, “Come over.”
“Can’t. I haven’t done my thing that will piss you off, yet.”
“It’s the middle of the night. Do whatever it is tomorrow.”
“It’s more of a middle-of-the-night kind of thing.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
Wade’s voice was a little husky as he said, “There are some middle-of-the-night things that are pretty damn good. I’ll remind you of them next time I see you, okay?”
“And nothing you’re doing tonight is going to get in the way of that? You’re not going to end up in jail, or worse?” Because that was what mattered. Jericho had left the rest of the obstacles behind. His career? He’d find another. His commitment to law and order? Where the hell had that come from anyway? He’d spent the first half of his life breaking every rule he could find, and it hadn’t been a problem for him, so he was reasonably confident he wouldn’t have much trouble going back to that mindset. And it wasn’t like Wade didn’t have a moral code—he didn’t kill innocent men, just like Jericho didn’t, and surely that was enough. At least for a start.
But Wade wouldn’t be Wade if he gave a straight answer to an honest question. “Jail? Of course not, Under-sheriff. I have no idea what you could be thinking of.”
“That’s not exactly reassuring.”
“Well, it should be. I’m not a freestyling cowboy like you—when I make a plan, I stick to the damn plan. And I have no plans to get in trouble tonight, so everything should be good.”
“Wade—” Jericho started, but then he stopped. He’d been about to whine. Better to be direct. Scary, but better. “I want to see you tomorrow. And the day after that, and the night in between. And I want to be able to touch you too, so don’t say that I’ll see you when you get arrested, because you know that isn’t enough.”
“We’re not going to have a you-take-too-many-chances discussion, Jay, not when you were the one in a damn shoot-out yesterday.”
“Day before yesterday,” Jericho corrected, but Wade just snorted. “You know what I’m saying. You—you need to be careful, okay?”
