Read Online If I Must Lane by Amy Lane - Free Book Online Page B

putting it back together. He also had a bruise on his hip from running into his bureau when it was in the hallway, and another on his shin from tripping over one of the drawers on the floor of Ian’s bedroom after he’d decided the damned chest couldn’t be moved by just one person when it was full.
    But he was done. In fact he was sweeping up the dust buffalo and spare pen caps that had littered the floor under the desk even as Ian walked in.
    “What are you doing?” Ian asked, and Joel looked up and grinned.
    “I’m fixing our bedroom… wait. What is that?”
    Ian looked down at the little fawn-colored fuzz-bundle in his arms, and the thing looked back at him and mewed.
    “It’s our new cat.” Ian licked his lips nervously and ducked his head and then powered through. “He’s a boy, but they chopped off his balls, because at the vets I guess that’s what they do. He’s had all his shots, and he’s a baby. So he’ll be around awhile. So, you know. You need to stay, at least as long as he does.” There was a hopeful look from those wild-sky eyes. “He’s my promise, right? I even had a tag made for him.”
    Joel closed his eyes, opened them, felt them burn a little and squeezed them tight again. Carefully he set down his broom and walked over to the fuzz-bundle and stroked it between the eyes.
    Unlike Manky Bastard, who had never really warmed to him, this one started to purr.
    “He’s awesome, Ee,” Joel said softly, wondering what he was going to get Ian for Christmas now. Didn’t matter. This meant the world to Ian. Joel wouldn’t take it from him for the world. “I think he even likes me.”
    “He’s your color too!”  Ian said out of the blue, stroking the light-brown fur.
    Joel choked on a rather weepy laugh.  “Are you telling me you went out and got a Mexican cat, pappi?”
    “I don’t think so,” Ian said with a rather shy smirk.  “He doesn’t meow with an accent.” 
    Joel laughed and wondered when he’d become such a cat person, and Ian reached around the little neck and pulled out a tag. “See, it’s got our names on it.”
    Joel read the tag and smiled, and his eyes burned some more. “ Joel and Ian’s Manky Bitch. If lost call…”
    He raised up on tiptoe, leaned over the kitten, and kissed Ian’s cheek. “It even has my cell phone on it.”
    “Yeah, in case I lose the handsets again.” It had happened the week after Thanksgiving in an experiment involving radio vectors and Lobachevskian geometry that Joel never did understand.
    “I actually found them,” Joel said with a smile. “They were under your desk. Here, want to see what I’ve done?”
    Ian blinked and stepped gingerly over the pile of dust on the floor. “You’re moving out?” he said with enough uncertainty to make Joel thwack him on the back of the head.
     “No, genius, I’m moving in. See, there’s your computer desk in the guest bedroom. And that’s my drawers, in our room.”
    “But that’s your bed!”
    “Not after I get a new comforter, and that way Mel don’t have to stay on the couch, because that girl can sleep!” Joel was nervous. His accent, which he let slip more and more these days when he was at home, had suddenly gotten even thicker. “Anyway, here’s your desk, in here. Even if you don’t remember a shirt, it’s like an office now. No sex happens in here, I don’t pitch a big queenie fit if you forget shit, you know?”
    “You didn’t pitch a fit,” Ian said softly. “You got mad. I’m the one who pitched a fit. I’m sorry about that.”
    Joel shrugged. “I wouldn’t have gotten that mad if I wasn’t sort of committed here, you know?”
    Ian put the kitten down to go chase dust buffalo and wrapped his arms around Joel’s shoulders. “I know, Joel. You’ve got to believe that I know.”
    “So, now we’ve got a cat and an office and a bedroom that’s ours together. Can you relax about me leaving? I’m not planning on going nowhere, pappi. I like it