Ryan (Mallick Brothers 2)

"Oh, well. I already..." she started to admit before stopping herself, looking around self-consciously, acutely aware that we had an audience. But no one was paying attention.

"Oh, really?" I asked, feeling a somewhat inappropriate rush of arousal at the idea. "Where might I find such items in your apartment? Gotta have the important stuff with us, right?"

To that, she laughed and I didn't think I would get more. But then she leaned up slightly, her lips actually brushing my ear and told me, "Second drawer down in my nightstand."

It was a goddamn inopportune time for my cock to get hard.

But it did anyway.

Judging by the way her eyes went just a little heated, she felt it.

"Dusty," Bry's voice called, making her jump like she was caught and I knew with an absolute certainty that she was wet just thinking about my cock. Which, well, only made it fucking harder.

"Yeah?" she asked, her voice with just the slightest touch of airlessness to it that he didn't, but I sure as fuck, knew for what it was-desire.

"How the fuck did they get you out of the hotel?" Bry asked the thing I had been wondering for hours, but was too relieved with her presence to remember to ask.

Lo turned slightly in her seat again too, interested. During the ride up, the whole story had come out, including the bits about Dusty being agoraphobic.

"I got a phone call that was supposedly from the hospital," she started, shaking her head like she had done something genuinely stupid and, looking back at it, was embarrassed. "They said I was your emergency contact," she said, meaning Bry, "and that you had been shot. I didn't really even stop to think about how stupid that was, how there was no way I was your emergency contact. I just... ran. I didn't even finish listening to the person on the phone. I just tore out of there and... well... they were counting on that."

Well, that made a lot of sense then.

Of course it was something like that, something involving one of the only two people who loved her enough to stay by her side. She couldn't leave to save herself, but she was absolutely the kind who could rally and leave to be by the side of someone who was always at hers.

"You are," Bry's voice cut a lengthy silence as we all digested her story.

"I am what?" Dusty asked, head cocked to the side.

"You are my emergency contact. Always have been. Probably always fucking will be."

"Even though I couldn't..." Dusty started, only to be interrupted.

"Emergency contact is who you want informed if something happens to you, who knows you and your wishes best. Who the fuck am I going to put? My family I haven't seen in years? It's you, Dusty. Always will be. Figured even if you couldn't leave the apartment, you could tell them over the phone that they leave my fucking plug alone if it ever came to that. No one is pulling it on me."

She smiled at him, liking that he trusted her enough with that. She was silent for a long time, looking down at her lap. "Hey Bry?"

"Yeah?" he asked, looking over, suddenly seeming like the events of the day were catching up to him, making him seem pale and tired.

"Maybe, in like... a week or two... maybe we can try the diner again and see if it's... better this time. I mean, no promises, but..."

"Two things," he cut off what was sure to be an insecure, shy little ramble. "One, the diner changed owners and the food is the perfect kind of shitty- all grease and sugar. Two, you don't ever have to try to promise me anything. You know that."

"Sorry to interrupt the little moment everyone is having," Lo said, giving us all a smile. "But aside from him at the hospital," she said, nodding at Bry, "where are we dropping the rest of you?"

"Chaz's," I said immediately, seeing as that was where my car was.

"Alright," Lo said, turning back to the front as we got closer to town.

"Where are we going?" Dusty asked, looking as tired as I was feeling right about then.

"Think another night or two at the residence, just to make sure. Then we can go back to the apartment. Sorry, it's just..."

"Don't be sorry. I like the residence," she said, giving me a wistful smile. "I'll always have a couple really good memories of that place."

I took a page out of her book, leaning down so that my lips brushed her earlobe. "Soon as you're up for it, I'll give you a couple more," I promised.

Her arm tightened around me and she buried her head again.

We dropped off Bry with an invite to check-in at the residence in the morning. Lo brought us to Chaz's where I situated a half-asleep Dusty into my car, grabbing something out of the glovebox, then taking it and handing it to Lo.