Page 34 of Gunpowder

Blair heard a familiar baritone. “I don’t want to trouble you if—”

“Hey, I said I owed you a drink. Get your ass in here.”

Dr. Garrett didn’t refuse a second time. He followed Felix inside and stomped his boots on the mat in front of the door, rain dripping from his hair to run down the collar of his navy pea coat.

“Hey, Doc,” Blair greeted, more thankful than ever that his assumptions about his relationship with Wren had been corrected or man, would this have been awkward.

“Mr. Kennedy, you look well. I heard your stitches were removed without complications.”

Blair flushed. The pleasant smile on Dr. Garrett’s face gave him no hint as to whether or not he knew the rest of what happened after he got his stitches taken out. He wanted to know, but at the same time he was glad the doctor’s face betrayed so little. There was no telling how the boss would react to him messing around with the “punk kid” he met after Phantom tried to take out Adam. He was going to tell Felix—just not yet. He was working up to it.

Felix leaned against the bar. “What brings you to our neck of the woods?”

“I was visiting an old classmate of mine at the Flushing Medical Center,” Dr. Garrett said, leaning next to Felix. “I was on my way back when the weather became rather unsuitable for travel.”

“Stay as long as you like. What’s your poison?” Spencer asked.

“It’s still early. Just a ginger ale, please.” Dr. Garrett looked over at Felix. “Tell me, Bane, what do you get up to when you aren’t troubling your friends here?”

“That’s his sole purpose in life,” Julian said, sticking a paper umbrella in his glass.

“I get people what they need,” Felix said.

Dr. Garrett chuckled. “I’m well aware of your profession. I was just curious if you had any hobbies besides selling weapons and lighting things on fire.”

A thunderclap drew Blair’s eyes to the covered windows again. He wondered where the masked rider from College Point was, what they were doing. Were they sitting around with the rest of Phantom like he was with his own gang? Were they shedding tears for a member that would never walk again? No, he told himself firmly. It doesn’t matter. Ace had tried to take Adam out—he deserved what he got. Blair closed his eyes like that would block out his own memory of panicked cries and the crunch of bone. He heard Doc and Julian laughing over something and wondered what the exchange would be like if Doc had been in that basement to see the cage fight.

No, he told himself again, forcing his eyes open. The point of this war isn’t to be better men than Phantom. It’s to win.

He couldn’t listen to the idle chatter around him anymore. He got down from the stool and threw a hand up. “I’m headed home, I’ll catch you guys later.”

Felix was too busy talking to Doc to notice he’d said anything, but Spencer waved him goodbye, and Julian sat his empty glass behind the bar before raising a hand as well. “I think I’m going to do the same. Wait up, Blair.”

Julian walked with him even though they lived in opposite directions. He wanted to catch up, but Julian’s idea of catching up was just heavily sugar-coated prying, so before Blair knew it he was fessing up to seeing someone and Julian was demanding to know who.

They stopped in front of a bakery for Julian to ogle a massive cake on display and Blair stared through the window without really seeing anything. All he could focus on was the hazy memory of some asshole taking his vitals after he woke up from being shot, sharpening into the image of the same man walking into the room when he took Tristan to the hospital for his fever. “It’s the med student who saved Adam.”

Julian’s face in their shared reflection on the glass went blank. “The one Felix almost punched?”

“The one a lot of people probably almost punch.”

They turned away from the pastry shop to continue walking, and Julian’s laughter rang out high and clear above the pattering rain and the buzz of conversations around them.

“You don’t think it’s a bad idea?”

Julian twirled the umbrella again. “Life’s too short for good ideas. I know you have your head in the game with Phantom, I don’t think I have to warn you about getting distracted. I’ll let someone boring like Spencer do that.” He smiled over at Blair. “When are you going to see him again?”

His darkened mood from the bar was starting to retreat under Julian’s sunny influence. His heart felt a little lighter as he answered, “I don’t know, I’ve got to leave him be for right now so he can study for exams.”

“Did he tell you to?”

“I mean, he said I wouldn’t hear from him much because of them. I’m sure he needs to concentrate.”

Julian gave him a look, and even once they parted ways and Julian’s colorful umbrella had melted into the distance, Blair was still thinking about what he’d said. Wren hadn’t told him to leave him alone, Blair had just assumed he would prefer it that way.

No, no. Blair was going to leave him be. Wren was a grown man, he didn’t need to be checked up on.

Blair made it a grand total twenty-four hours before he was exiting the coffee shop two buildings down from Wren’s apartment. He peered down at the cup in his hand as he took the elevator to the fourth floor. It had one of the little plastic sticky-things in the lid, it should stay hot until Wren came to get it. Blair hadn’t known what to get him, but he was sure that Wren had an abundance of whatever he liked in his coffee, so he ordered it black.

---