Constantly Cotton by Amy Lane

Author:Amy Lane [Lane, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-64108-286-0
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2022-04-04T16:00:00+00:00

HE AWOKE to voices in the kitchen—Briggs and Daniels, if he wasn’t mistaken—talking to Cotton.

Also the smell of chicken broiling.

Cotton was getting better about eating without prompting, but Jason had noticed he was so very good at making healthy meals. Yes, Jason had conspired with Briggs to get some steak and marinade into the refrigerator at the next shopping trip, and some baked potatoes would be great, but Jason got that if Cotton was going to eat and feel comfortable eating, he would have to eat the foods that made him feel in control of his own body.

His hard work at healing, at doing the right things to function in a frightening world, humbled Jason Constance to no end.

Jason had been given so many advantages—good family, good education, good ethos—and he’d cursed them so many times in this last year. He could have had a promotion, or been retired, or been rich, dammit, but instead he was tracing crimes across the planet and trying to pin down the one rabid soul responsible who had been twisted beyond humanity, and then sanction his death. His own soul had been withering, disintegrating under the pressure, but watching Cotton, he felt like he hadn’t understood the depths of his own self-pity.

Cotton should have been loved. He should have been nurtured into adulthood. He should have never been forced to sell his sex, or his body, or his control over his own life. But he had been. And he wasn’t bitter, and he wasn’t vindictive, and he wasn’t crying in a corner. Instead, he’d taken the scant blessings in his life and was looking forward to forging a better tomorrow with them.

And Jason found his only bitterness was that he wouldn’t get to see what Cotton’s better future might be.

But he refused to think about that right now. Instead he splashed some water on his face and made it to the kitchen, where Cotton was pulling dinner out of the oven and Briggs was setting the table.

“He must love us,” Briggs said as Jason emerged from the living room. “He baked potatoes and had me buy butter and sour cream when I was in town today.”

Jason made an ecstatic little “Ooh” with his lips, and Briggs laughed. Jason glanced up to where Cotton stood after setting the broiler pan on the top of the stove, and Cotton winked.

“I didn’t say I was eating potatoes!” he protested. Then relented. “Okay, potatoes, yes, but not with butter and sour cream.”

“I’ll take it!” Jason said happily, and Briggs held his hand out for the down-low five.

Jason didn’t leave him hanging.

He sat down in his usual spot—the one with his back to the corner of the kitchen and the full view out the wraparound window—and looked at Daniels, who was typing furiously on his laptop as he sat.

“Important?” he asked softly.

Briggs replied quietly, “Burton started listening for chatter on your mob guys, Karina and Dietrich Schroeder. Swear to God, Colonel, it’s like listening to the same chatter when we’re chasing down a target.

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