If I Must Lane Read Online Free Page B

that supposed to make me feel? I can take care of you for you, but you can’t take care of yourself for me? C’mon, Ian, I worry about you.”
    “I was just fine before you came along, I swear!” Ian nodded eagerly. “I pay bills. I’ve got money. I make it to my lectures.” He smiled for a moment, shaken out of his despondency. “You should see me give a lecture, mate. I sound… smart, you know?”
    Joel nodded seriously, because he actually had seen Ian lecture one day, when Ian hadn’t known he was there. Ian had been poised and intelligent, and even funny, but that man was hard to see in the lost soul Joel was feeding now. Something in Ian’s handsome, sweet-natured face haunted him. Ian may have stayed alive, he may have made it through school across an ocean and into a job, and he may even have managed to pay the bills (he was, after all, an accountant), but whatever he had been before Joel got there, Ian had obviously not been “just fine.” No amount of thinking about teaching the guy to take care of himself would ever assure Joel that he would be “just fine” without Joel, himself, personally, to help in the task, and he just didn’t want to think any further than that.
     Instead, he cleaned up the cat tins, helped Ian into the shower, and then pulled out a T-shirt and some jockeys for the guy. When Ian was dressed, Joel made absolutely sure he lay down in bed. He slept for sixteen hours, and Joel thought he’d probably been up for the seventy-two before that. He woke up apologetic and sheepish and more than ready to accept any crap that Joel wanted to ladle out for him being (his words) a manky arse, but Joel didn’t want to bring up the incident again.
    “Just do me a favor, Ee. Feed yourself, okay?”
    “Right, mate!” And then, to make it a promise, “If I must.”

Chapter Three
     
    Joel and Melody actually fell asleep on the couch, probably in the pause between “Ian stories,” but Joel couldn’t be sure.
    They staggered to their own beds in the wee hours of the morning and slept late, which was what you got to do over your Thanksgiving break, wasn’t it? But Joel didn’t sleep too late. As soon as he was awake enough, he snagged his cell phone from the end table and remembered to call Ian.
    “Hey, Ee.” Oh geez did he sound like he just woke up? Did he sound like he was calling from bed? Suddenly the inappropriateness of calling from bed hit him, and he swung his legs over the side of the mattress and sat up so he would feel less self-conscious.
    “Joel, you having a good time?” Ian sounded happy to hear from him, and just hearing his voice on the other end of the line eased an ache Joel hadn’t known he’d harbored in his chest.
    “Yeah, mom’s trying to make me fat, and me and Mel are catching up. You staying sober?”
    Ian laughed. “I should be. You left enough food in the freezer for a horde of wild barbarians. I even went out and bought vegetables. Aren’t you proud?”
    Joel thought about his sweet, brilliant roommate, who would probably go down in history as the guy who… well, whatever it was Ian knew that the rest of mankind didn’t, he’d go down in history as the guy who figured it out.
    “I’m always proud of you, Ee,” he said sincerely. “I just miss you is all.” Oh God. That must have sounded…. In his mother’s little house in the Denver suburb, Joel fought the urge to tuck his head under his pillow in embarrassment.
    But if he sounded like a weepy asshole, Ian didn’t seem to notice. “Miss you too, mate. Here, I’ll call you after I get home, how’s that?”
    Joel doubted he’d remember, but it sounded promising. They spoke a few more moments and then rang off, and Joel showered and prepared to face his family. He couldn’t think of why, but he thought he should be embarrassed to say good morning to Mel. Had he really talked all night about Ian? What an asshole! This morning he needed to ask her about her job. Mel being Mel, there