Cayenne belly crawls over to the cat who is curious and sniffs her.
Once Waylon shows me what he set up for the cat while I was gone, we plug in his console and finally settle in for the night. He’s on the other side of the house since tomorrow the room next to him will be taken over by Tucker, and Waylon will share the bunk bed with Cam.
“You positive you feel okay?” I ask Waylon as Cayenne hurries in to join him. He’s on the top bunk, a single that sits over the queen mattress below it.
Cayenne thinks this is little more than an obstacle, leaping onto the queen and springing onto the top bunk. Waylon laughs while he pulls her in.
“I’m good. You showed me all of the defenses this place has. I’m pretty sure we could live through the apocalypse in here.”
“Alright. Good night,” Jackson says.
I smile at Waylon. “Sleep tight. Hopefully your new cat doesn’t keep you up all night.”
“I think he’s exhausted,” Waylon says as he eyes the cat who is already asleep next to him and Cayenne who is curled up on his other side. Why he wouldn’t sleep in the larger bed with all of the animals, I don’t know, especially because he’ll have Sarge beginning tomorrow as well.
“Night,” Waylon tells us.
“Good night,” I say before Jackson and I head toward our room.
NINETEEN
JACKSON
“You want to watch something?” I ask while Leland brushes his teeth. I’m shocked he even remembered my toothbrush. I thought for sure his brain would be going: guns, guns, fence, guns, fence, Randy, guns.
“Sure,” he replies, so I find a movie and start it before crawling into bed. As soon as he’s ready, he joins me, but before he can crawl in, I grab him and pull him down onto my lap.
“This feels suspicious,” he says, body rigid while I pull him down.
I give his arms a tug. “You’re not a plank; your limbs can bend.”
“I don’t think they can.”
“You can cuddle and it won’t hurt you,” I say as I force his legs to bend enough that I can draw him onto my lap.
“I feel like with this position, I’m going to get a talk or something equally appalling.”
“I feel like I should give you a talk, but I know you well enough to know that it’ll go in one ear… you know what? It probably won’t even go in the ear. Are these things working?” I ask, tapping his ear.
“All I can hear is, ‘Leland, you should have brought The Fence… The Fence… The Fence.’ Did you hear that echo there at the end?”
“I just… you know… it’s really odd, but I feel like that is the absolute last thing I was thinking that I would like you to bring. Maybe my car? Yeah, I think the car would have been a significantly better choice.”
“Oh, your Mistress is fine.”
“You think they’d steal your single slab offencebefore they’d steal my sports car?” I ask.
Leland is silent for a moment before looking back at me. “I’m sorry, did you… did you say something?”
“It’s a good thing I love you,” I say as I kiss the side of his head.
He grins at me. “Yeah? How much do you love me?”
“More than the Mistress, that’s for sure.”
“Oh? Damn… that’s impressive.”
“Thank you.”
