Page 61 of Tied Over

“What are you doing?” Hayden asked him.

“You don’t hold your breath to get rid of hiccups?” I asked.

“No. You drink water.”

I met Bodhi’s eyes. “Have you ever tried drinking water?”

He blew out his breath. “Yeah. It doesn’t work,” he said, taking a deep breath and holding it again.

“I’ve never even heard of that,” I told Hayden.

He stood there watching Bodhi finish the bandage, and then Bodhi pointed at my duffel.

“Just get me a T-shirt,” I told him, “and do you have my zippered cardigan with the hood? The lightweight one?”

His head tipped like he was confused.

“With the…yanno”—I moved my hand up and down, miming lines—“the vertical stripes.”

Head back like yes, he understood, he nodded and bolted from the room.

Deep sigh from Hayden.

“Are you all right?” I asked him.

“No,” he confessed.

“Anything I can do?”

He looked at me a moment and then huffed out a breath. “Sadly, no. Because if you go home, so will he.”

I understood. Our reestablished bond was eating at him, and no doubt it would have annoyed me as well if our roles were reversed. The Callahan and Redeker show was back on the rails, and at the moment he had to be feeling like a third wheel. Most people did when they were around us. “Listen, Hayden, if it’s bugging you to have me here, distracting him with work stuff and ’cause I’m hurt, I’ll take the next flight out. No problem.”

“But that’s what I mean, Jed. If you go, he’s out of here. I had no idea you two were so close. I thought you were just partners.”

“Yeah, but this, me and Bodhi, this is how all the partners I know in the marshals service work,” I explained. “Your partner is basically in your pocket all day, every day. That’s the gig. I would take a bullet for him. He’d take one for me. We spend eight to twelve hours together five days a week, and sometimes more. There’s no way not to know that person best.”

He took a moment. “I met him when he had just finished that assignment with the DEA, and then directly after, he was with Yamane.”

“Yeah…not his partner. He was babysitting him. I’m the real one.”

“Yes, I see that quite clearly.”

Bodhi returned then with my cardigan over his shoulder.

“That’s Jed’s?” Hayden asked. “You wear that all the time.”

“Yeah. That’s why it’s a little big on me. His chest is wider, and he’s a bit taller.”

“I’ve got two inches on you, buddy.”

“Like that even matters,” he said, going to my bag and pulling out a pale-blue T-shirt. “You know you could hang your stuff up so it’s not all wrinkled.”

I squinted at him as he gently put it on over my head.

“Fine,” he said, “yes, I am usually the one who does that for you when we’re stuck in some shitty hotel somewhere.”

“Remember that place where the moths were bigger than your head and ate your Foo Fighters hoodie?”