Dustin slippedinto the hall.
He came back with a glass of milk, a small mixing bowl, a dish towel, and a half-formed plan.
Greg eyed him warily. “What’s the bowl for?”
“Application.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“You’re about to.”
Dustin sat on the edge of the bed, poured milk into the bowl, and dipped the towel.
In the dim light, the whole thing looked deeply stupid.
That wasn’t going to stop him.
“This is going to be cold,” he warned.
“Just do it.”
Dustin did.
Greg made a high-pitched sound, and Dustin started laughing so hard he almost spilled milk on the sheets.
“Cold,” Greg said, with feeling.
“I told you.”
“I didn’t think it would be this cold.”
“But is it helping?”
A pause.
Then, grudgingly, “Yes.”
“See?”
“I suppose.”
Dustin held the towel in place. The laughter in him softened into something quieter, warmer, more dangerous.
He couldn’t believe how utterly ridiculous this reaper was.
Or how much he’d needed exactly this in his life.
CHAPTER 33
Dustin woke to the smell of bacon.
For one disoriented moment, he was sixteen and late for school and Cathy was going to yell at him for sleeping through his alarm.
Then his shoulder throbbed, the road rash pulled when he moved, and the last forty-eight hours came back in a rush that left no room for nostalgia.
Greg was sitting on the edge of the bed.
He was already dressed. The clothes Dustin had given him to sleep in were folded on the nightstand beside the climbing hold.
