Then Milo got sick, which made me all kinds of alarmed. I was googling his symptoms when Jordan called me.
“Did you miss me?” he said, presumably joking, after I answered the call.
“There’s something wrong with Milo,” I replied, still peering at the screen. “According to Google, he has both rabies and cancer.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He looks pale.”
Jordan chuckled. “Oh, he’s pale. Call the vet before he dies.”
“I’m being serious,” I growled. “He’s not behaving like himself. He’s just lying there, looking all gloomy.”
“Hmm, it reminds me of someone I know,” Jordan mused. “You probably gave him too much to eat.”
“Impossible,” I countered. “He had breakfast as usual, then a few snacks before lunch, and a tiny piece of apple pie because you know how much he loves apple pie. Do we have a thermometer at home?”
“You’re the cutest asshole ever, do you know that?” Jordan said. “Incidentally, have you received Chief Bibb’s invitation to his annual Halloween party?”
I rolled my eyes. “God, not again.”
“Yeah. He said he emailed it to you.”
“I didn’t receive it.”
“You’re lying, Adam.”
“Suck my dick, Jordan.”
“I would if you’d let me.”
I hung up after that, only to find Milo throwing up pieces of my sock all over the kitchen tiles.
“It serves you right,” I said, pointing a finger at him. “I hope you learned something today.”
The look in his eyes told me he’d learned nothing, but I still cleaned up after him and made him drink lots of water. It wasn’this fault that he was born stupid, but it was my rotten luck that I was stuck with taking care of him.
It was late in the night, or so my internal clock told me, when I heard the front door open. I could hear Milo jumping out of bed, Jordan rummaging in the kitchen, and then the shower running. I was drifting in and out of sleep when Jordan climbed into the bed.
“Hold up,” he said, moving closer to me and sniffing me. “Have you showered?”
“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled into a pillow.
“Without me? Why? How?”
“I used the plastic stool you have on the balcony to sit on it.”
“Are you insane?” Jordan exclaimed. “That stool is not stable enough. You could have hurt yourself.”
“Apparently, it’s stable enough, which means I don’t need you to help me shower anymore. Thank God.”
“Not if I hurl that stool out of the window.”
“Don’t you dare,” I growled, turning toward him, only to recoil. “Jesus! What the hell happened to you?”
Jordan smelled like a shower, and his hair was damp, but all the water in the world couldn’t wash off the shiner gracing his cheek.
“Who did this to you?” I demanded, feeling enraged. “I’m going to kill that fucking bastard.”
