The sound she makes when I lick her, when I slide my tongue between her lips and?—
“Excuse me, Mr.Casden?”a voice says.“Could you please not...move?”
I come back down to earth, and instantly realize that my dick is stickingstraightup like the goddamn Washington Monument.
“Sorry,” I say, clearing my throat.“I...fell asleep.”
“No problem,” the voice says.
I take a deep breath and think about what the rest of the Canyon Country Hotshots are doing right now.I think about it very, very hard.
That afternoon,they finally let me go visit Porter.I walk there on my own, though the nurses make me take a tank of oxygen and a mask, just in case I get winded walking from one side to the hospital to the other.
I actually do, just a little.I don’t use the tank though.
Porter’s got even more flowers than me.They’re stacked on the sink, on the bedside table, and when I peek into the bathroom, there are a couple bouquets in the shower.
His leg is in traction, and he’s got a cast plus some kind of metal framework on the thing.
“Casden,” he says as I walk in, rolling my oxygen tank behind me.
“How’s it going?”I ask, sitting in the armchair next to the bed.
“Better than it was,” he says.His words are slow and a little blurry, and he’s blinking hard at me, like he’s trying to clear a film from his eyes.“But hell, crawling through a pit of live snakes is better than yesterday was.”
“I’d take it,” I say.
He blinks again, then rubs his eyes with one hand.
“They put me on morphine and I’m high as a fucking kite,” he says.“God, why do people like this?”
I couldn’t be less surprised that Porter doesn’t like being high.The man might have some control issues.
“I couldn’t tell you,” I say.
He looks at his hands, then shakes his head.He clears his throat.
“Thanks for not leaving me behind,” he says, still looking at his hands, clenching them slowly, then unclenching.He shakes his head again and looks at me.
“You could have gone on and no one would have blamed you,” he says.
I lean forward, my elbows on my knees, and look at the tile floor.
“I wasn’t the best Marine and you can probably guess why,” I start.
“Cocky, impatient, problems with authority?”he says.
I didn’t mean for him to actually guess, but I go on.
“But I don’t leave men behind to burn to death,” I finish.
“I had my knife,” Porter says.“I wasn’t gonna burn to death.”
It’s not a nice thought, but it’s comforting in a strange way.
“What I’m trying to say, here, is that I know we don’t get along too well sometimes, but you’re one of the best men I’ve got and I’m going to spend the rest of my life glad you were on that lookout with me,” he says.
I open my mouth to say that none of us would have left him, but he holds up a hand.
