Chapter 47

Jason wasn’t as badly injured as Scooter had originally feared, thank God. The grease had jumped him in a line across the forearm when he sprayed the fire suppressant, scalding a second degree burn. Weirdly like someone had burned him with a string, the wound was a twisty sort of jagged mark. Scooter was still guilt-stricken every time he looked at that brutal red line, but Jason had just waved it off. “Chicks dig scars,” he’d said, and then Kat had demanded to know why exactly he wanted to impress “chicks,” and cursed him out in her fake-angry Ukrainian, in which she’d mostly called him an assortment of vegetables.

Scooter had insisted on covering half of the emergency room bill, which had eaten up a good chunk of the insurance check (he’d offered to pay the whole thing, but Kat had given him that Lookof hers). And they were still down the profits from last weekend and the time they’d been closed for cleanup and repair.

But it could have been worse. Could have been so much worse. Andy was a gift. He was a gift and a blessing, and he would have been anyway, even if Scooter hadn’t…didn’t…wasn’t…lusting after him? That seemed crude and not exactly right.

“Hey, Kat,” he called out as she passed by, having hung up her apron for the night. “Borrow you for a sec?”

“You’ll have to ask Jason; he’s very jealous,” she said solemnly.

“Please take her!” Jason called from the kitchen. “She’s terrible!”

“You’re all mine now,” Scooter said. “Have a seat, close the door.”

“At least you pay better than he does,” Kat said, smirking. She closed the office door and draped herself across the spare chair.

“What…” Awkward, but he pushed ahead. “What does Andy like?”

Kat beamed at him. “You, mostly.”

“I don’t fit very neatly into a package,” he said, rolling his eyes. “And it’s very hard to gift-wrap. Plus, technically, I think slavery’s illegal. What does he need, want? Like? He talks to you more about personal sorts of stuff. I need ideas, Kat.”

She considered him for an unnervingly long time, until he wanted to squirm in his chair like a kid waiting for a scolding. “What is the gift for?”

“Why are you interrogating me?” Scooter asked plaintively. “I thought you’d be happy that I was…making an effort.”

“Of course I am,” she said. “It’s about time. But gifts can carry many messages. I cannot help you if I don’t know whether this is a gift that says, ‘thank you,’ or if it is a gift that says ‘make passionate love to me.’ These are important distinctions.”

This was…a language he didn’t speak. Which made him wonder if this was another girl-thing, like saying this shade of blue didn’t go with that shade of blue when it was all blue, dammit. “If there is a gift that says ‘I’d like to fuck you through the mattress’ I think it’d be kinda creepy to actually give it to him,” Scooter said.

Kat gave the matter some consideration. “Not after you’ve already fucked him through the mattress a few times,” she decided, and slanted a curious look at him.

Scooter pushed his chair back on two legs and folded his arms. “I haven’t. Nosy.” Because, really, after he’d said that, Kat was going to ask, and if he didn’t tell her, she’d go ask Andy and try to play it off as some cultural misunderstanding. “I don’t know, exactly. ‘Sorry I’m an asshole, thanks for saving my livelihood.’ Do gifts come in that complicated a sentiment?”

He’d expected her to laugh, or perhaps say something sly. He hadn’t expected her to sit forward and stare intently at him. “Have you been such an asshole,” she asked carefully, “that you must apologize for it?”

Scooter held up his thumb and forefinger. “Little bit.” He looked at his hand, raised his finger a little more. “About this much.”

Kat’s lips pressed together. “You cannot give him a gift to apologize.”

“Pretty sure Kay Jewelers thinks you can,” Scooter said. “Not, that, you know, I…” He cut off that thought. There was a dark, possessive part to him that would rather like to see Andy wearing jewelry that Scooter’d given him.

Kat waved an impatient hand. “Jewelry stores also think that the amount you spend on an engagement ring is directly related to the strength of your love. Jewelry stores know nothing. But you, you cannot give Andya gift for an apology.” She stressed it, carefully enunciating each word.

“I think you’re going to have to break that down for me, Kat,” Scooter said. “I’m gettin’ that it’s important, but I don’t understand why. So help me understand, because if I don’t get the reason for it, I’m gonna fuck it up somewhere down the line. Why not?”

She smiled a little, and then sighed. “Do you remember when Andy first came here?”

“‘Course.”

She nodded. “He was running,” she said, though Scooter already knew that. “He had been hurt—we all know this, even if he chooses not to talk about it. He was afraid. He could barely bring himself to say no, to argue with anyone.”

That was true. Andy also rarely responded to a question with a straight answer. He usually asked a question back, instead, even if it was something as simple as whether he wanted to catch a movie. Accommodating, that was a good word to describe Andy. Scooter shivered, suddenly painfully aware of the direction of Kat’s point.