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Nodding, North hugged Shaw against him. They lay for a while, neither of them speaking. And then North said, “I will kick down every fucking door in this universe if I have to.”
Shaw let out a tiny giggle.
“I’m serious. You want to talk about how I’m half-mule or I was raised by a mule or I’ve got mule energy or I’m channeling Gladys the Groovy Mule, fine, great, fucking fantastic. But I am serious, Shaw. I’ll find you. And I’ll bring you back.” He took a deep breath. “But I’ll try, you know, giving you some space first.”
For a long time, Shaw said nothing. Then he whispered, “Thank you.”
Outside, the sky was a blue so bright that it was almost a blaze, and when North closed his eyes, he thought he could still see the intensity of the expanse. He breathed slowly, under the comfort of Shaw’s weight, the warmth of another body. And, as soon as he let his guard down, all the frustration and disappointment of the last few days crowded in again.
As usual, Shaw’s mind ran along the same tracks. “It’s over, isn’t it?” He was so quiet they were barely even words. “They’re going to get away with it.”
North opened his eyes. The cracked plaster of the ceiling stared down at them. Finally, he said, “I guess so.”
27
“It’s a two-hour car ride,” Emery said, “not the Met Gala. Close your suitcase so I can put it in the fucking car.”
Three days later, everyone was going home. Everyone, in this case, being North and Shaw and Jem and Tean. They had waited for a new development, some break in the investigation that might give them an angle on the organization operating out of the Cottonmouth Club. But nothing came. And, if North were being brutally honest with himself, maybe they had spent enough time chasing their tails.
“This is why I said you didn’t need to come say goodbye,” North said as he yanked the zipper shut.
Shaw, meanwhile, was completely ignoring Emery by pulling what had to have been the third Renaissance Faire tunic out of his suitcase and saying, “But I just don’t have the right breechclout.”
Emery started to growl.
“Why don’t we step outside?” John-Henry said, touching Emery’s arm.
“Because, John, I’m helping.”
John-Henry sighed.
“You know what you could do?” Auggie was saying from where he sat on the motel bed. “You could sew your own breechclout. That way, you could pick out the right fabric and everything.”
Shaw’s head came up with excitement.
“Don’t these places provide a pack-and-play?” North said.
At the same moment, Emery said, “Isn’t there some sort of institutional daycare—” He cut off, glowering at North, of all people, and went back to haranguing Shaw.
“Or we could go on another dream-quest,” Auggie said.
“All right,” Theo said quietly.
From the way Auggie smirked, he must have gotten what he wanted.
One flight suit, two pairs of clogs, and a near-life-ending encounter with a scarf later, Shaw was packed, and Emery headed for the stairs with the bag.
“What the fuck do you have in here?”
“My bronze dildo collection,” Shaw said, hurrying after him. “Be careful, they’re antiques. Oh, let me tell you about them. The first one I found at a garage sale, only it was a witch’s garage sale, and—no, wait, it was a harem—”
“I changed my mind,” North said as he grabbed his bag. “I’m staying.”
“Does he really have a bronze dildo collection?” Auggie asked.
“How the fuck should I know? A little help here, sweet cheeks?”
Auggie grinned and grabbed North’s bag, and his steps rang out on the stairs as he called after Shaw.
