Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

argue."
    "Yep," I said. "Sleep is good. Do you need anything from your apartment tonight? If you get up early enough, I'll feed you waffles and drop you home by ten."
    "I'll be out before we get there," Alan warned. "You'll have to carry me inside."
    "Maybe I'll just leave you in the truck and toss in a couple dogs for warmth. Twiggy thinks you make a great bed."
    "Meanie," he said. "That sound you hear is my Sharpie Registered Trademark permanent marker, writing your number in more bathroom stalls. I write it in navy blue and then outline it in berry red, and I draw a little heart underneath in a lovely lilac purple."
    "Do you need anything from home?" I asked again.
    "Nothing, if you'll loan me your jammies one more time."
    "Will that get me my trench back?"
    "No promises on that one, Blake." Alan stuck his hands in the pockets of the coat and strutted out the door. The rain had eased and the wind had dropped, so it didn't blow him back in.
    Back in my truck he was soon leaning against the door again. I could see him fading as I drove, going more and more limp, but he was still conscious when I parked the truck. He reached for the door handle and his hand missed.
    "Wait," I told him. "Let me unlock the house, and I'll help you."
    "Fuck," he muttered.
    I had to pull him out of the truck, and then his legs wouldn't hold him. I lifted him and he wrapped his arms around my neck and clung to me.
    "I'm not going to drop you," I said, bumping the truck door shut with my hip.
    "I hate how you make me safe," he murmured against my throat.
    "Sorry."
    " I once thought of you ," he sang, " as a white knight on a steed… something, something… "
    Alan wasn't heavy— more the opposite, to a worrying degree— but with the obstacles I had to navigate, carrying him was awkward. I got up the porch steps and past the door and through the dogs' welcome with barely a twitch from Alan and laid him on the bed in the guest room Lilia had finally cleared. He wouldn't let go of me.
    "…m not pomiscous," he muttered as I tried to pry his arms from my neck. He cranked one eye open halfway. "I'm not."
    "Pomiscous?" I asked.
    "Pro-mis-coo-us," he said carefully. "I'm not. People think gays get laid all the goddamn time but I don'…"
    "Sorry."
    "Me too," he said, and his head fell back and his arms slipped off me. I checked his pulse and it was strong and slow but not too slow. Wrestling him out of the trench coat was probably easier than it would have been had he been trying to help. I pulled his shoes off and put him under the covers and checked his pulse again.
    Crap. He really ought to be fine. I knew that, and every time I redid the math I came up with the same answer. Reason couldn't convince me, though. If I left him and he somehow did still have enough alcohol in his system to interact dangerously with the medication, I wouldn't know it until I found him cold in the morning.
    He'd deceived and then ignored Mallory, but in between ignoring me and swearing at me, he'd texted "help me." Because he knew I would.
    "Watch him," I told Twiggy, and went back to the truck for my laptop. The guest room held a comfy chair as well as the bed, and a small table I could put a late dinner on to eat as I worked. It wasn't as late as it felt like it should be, and I still had a paper to write.
    By the time I finished the paper and wrote another that was coming up, I'd chased Twiggy off the bed three times. I brought her dog-bed in to throw on the floor by Alan. She flopped down to lie watching him breathe.
    "Kindred spirits, huh, girl?" I asked her. She thumped her tail in agreement. Or just acknowledgment that I was talking to her, and thinking that the dog agreed with me was probably a sign I needed sleep. I got up to check Alan's pulse one more time then went back to the chair with an afghan.
    ****

CHAPTER 8
    The dogs stampeding out of the room woke me in the morning. Alan was still breathing in the bed, my neck hurt from the way I'd slept, and the plate that had held my dinner was suspiciously clean. I sat up and rubbed my face and Lilia appeared in the doorway. Her eyes went from Alan to me and back, and anger sparked in her eyes.
    "Again?" she breathed.
    "No. Not that." I went to her, closed the door behind me before the dogs decided Alan should get up too. Crap. I wasn't awake enough to think how to explain. I shook my head. "Let me get a shower and some coffee."
    "Some more sleep might be good too," she said, squeezing my arm because she