Taking the staircase down, he crossed the foyer, and hit the vestibule. Outside, he walked fast through the pebbled courtyard and entered the Pit through its stout front door.
The familiarity of the couches and the plasma screen and the Foosball table eased him.
The sight of the empty bottle of Lag on the coffee table? Not so much.
“Butch?”
No answer. So he went down the hall to the cop’s room. The door was open and inside . . . there was nothing but Butch’s huge wardrobe and a messy, empty bed.
“I’m in here.”
Frowning, V doubled back and leaned into his own room. The lights were off, but the sconces in the hall gave him enough to go by.
Butch was sitting on the far side of the bed, his back to the door, his head hanging, his heavy shoulders curled in.
Vishous stepped inside and closed them in together. Neither Jane nor Marissa was going to show up—both were busy with their jobs. But Fritz and his crew were probably going to sweep through here some time, and that butler, God love him, never even knocked on closed doors. He’d lived here too long.
“Hey,” V said into the darkness.
“Hey.”
V went forward, rounding the foot of the bed, using the wall to navigate. Lowering his ass onto the mattress, he sat beside his best friend.
“You and Jane okay?” the cop asked.
“Yeah. S’all good.” Such an understatement. “She arrived right around the time I woke up.”
“I called her.”
“I figured.” Vishous turned his head and looked over, even though that hardly mattered in the pitch black. “Thank you for that—”
“I’m sorry,” Butch croaked. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry. . . .”
The hoarse exhale that came out was a sob barely covered up.
In spite of being blind, V put his arm out and curled it around the cop. Pulling the male close to his chest, he laid his head down on his buddy’s.
“It’s okay,” he said roughly. “It’s all right. It’s okay. . . . You did the right thing. . . .”
Somehow he ended up moving the guy around so that they were stretched out together and he had his arms around the cop.
For some reason, he thought of the first night they’d spent together. It had been one million and a half years ago, back at Darius’s in-town mansion. Two twin beds side by side upstairs. Butch had asked about the tats. V had told him to mind his own biz.
And here they were in the dark again. Given all that had happened since then, it was almost unfathomable that they’d
ever been those two males who had bonded over the Sox.
“Don’t ask me to do that again anytime soon,” the cop said.
“Deal.”
“Still. If you need it . . . come to me.”
It was on the tip of V’s tongue to say something like Never again, but that was bullshit. He and the cop had done rounds on this psychiatric floor of V’s too many times, and although he was turning over a new leaf . . . you never knew.
So he just repeated the vow he’d made to himself back with Jane. From now on, he was letting shit out. Even if it made him uncomfortable to the point of screaming, it was better than the bottle-up strategy. Healthier, too.
“I’m hoping it won’t be necessary,” he murmured. “But thanks, my man.”