My Doomsday Bodyguard Wants a Raise novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Ten More Slips
Bai Jin hunts for whoever used his stamp while Gong Ting's second raise ends against a filing cabinet, and the door is ringing before either of them stops.
The chop had a chip in it.
Bai Jin had known that for years, because his father had dropped the stone on a tile floor in the first week he owned it.
A tiny nick at the lower right corner left a notch in every stamp.
The note from the gate lay on his desk under the lamp, and the red mark at the bottom of it had the notch.
He put his own stamp beside it on a clean slip and pressed down.
The same notch, the same red.
"It's mine," he told the empty office. "Or it's a perfect copy."
Nobody answered.
The chop spent every night in the safe in the corner, and the safe took two keys.
Bai Jin carried one.
He did not want to think about who carried the other.
At nine he went down to the Floor and told the compound the fire was out.
Nobody was to touch the burn marks on the east gate until the paint dried.
Three hundred and eighty people stood between the shelves and listened.
They looked tired, and they waited for the day's news.
"Sergeant Gong held the gate all night," said Bai Jin. "He's off the wall until dark."
A guard at the back muttered that the sergeant did not do off.
"He does when I say," said Bai Jin.
"Sergeant Gong goes to bed when I say. He gets up when I say. Anyone who wants him can come through me."
The Floor was very quiet for a moment.
Somebody coughed into a sleeve, and an old woman by the rice shelf made a small, delighted noise.
Bai Jin realized what he had said a moment after everyone else did.
He kept his face still and walked out.
The boy from the night before trotted after him up the stairs with his notebook open.
"Boss Bai? Can I say something? About the Stadium?"
"Say it walking," said Bai Jin.
"Their rice is short. I sold them dried mushrooms twice and watched their trader weigh it."
"Ten percent light. They put a thumb under the pan."
"You're sure?" said Bai Jin.
"I counted. I count everything."
"Write it down," said Bai Jin. "All of it. Every stall, every sack, every day."
The boy nodded so hard his hair fell in his eyes.
The infirmary doctor was waiting at the top of the stairs with a tray of bandages, and she had been waiting a while.
"Your sergeant refused a sedative," she said.
"He has nine stitches in the forearm and a burn behind the ear. He asked me to bill you."
"Bill me for what?"
"The nine stitches." She looked at his hands. "You should let me look at those."
"They're fine."
"They've been fine since the Stop," said the doctor, and went away down the stairs without finishing the sentence.
Bai Jin shut the office door behind him and found he had been holding the doorknob too hard.
Gong Ting was already inside.
He stood by the filing cabinet in his canvas jacket, one sleeve cut off at the elbow.
A white bandage ran from his wrist to his elbow along the old scar.
"I told you to go to bed," said Bai Jin.
"I heard you tell three hundred people." Gong Ting did not move. "That was a lot of people."
"It was a slip of the tongue."
"Boss. Raise," said Gong Ting.
"You got forty slips last night."
"That was last night." He held up the bandaged arm. "Ten more. And no nights."
"The nights are when the raiders come!"
"I'll sleep in the guardroom. I'll hear the bell." Gong Ting looked at him steadily. "Ten more."
It was absurd.
It was the fourth absurd thing that morning, and Bai Jin's hands had started to shake again, so he put them behind his back.
Gong Ting saw that.
He always saw that.
"Show me the arm," said Bai Jin. "If I'm paying for stitches I want to see the stitches."
Gong Ting held out the arm.
Bai Jin took hold of it, because it was something to do with his hands, and turned it under the lamp.
The skin was warm and the hair on the forearm was dark and rough against his fingers.
The stitches were tidy.
His thumb moved on the edge of the bandage without his permission.
"You're shaking," said Gong Ting.
"I'm cold."
"It's September."
Then Bai Jin was against the filing cabinet with both wrists caught in one big hand and pressed to the steel above his head.
He had not seen Gong Ting move.
"Let go," he said.
"Tell me to."
"Let go of me, Sergeant," said Bai Jin.
"That isn't telling me to."
Bai Jin looked at the stubbled jaw, the nose broken once, the dark eyes level with his own mouth.
He thought of last night, the hard body pinning him to the shutter, and the thick heat against his hip.
"Don't," he said.
"Don't what?"
"Don't stop."
Gong Ting's free hand went to his belt and had it open in one pull.
The first touch was rough, a big palm closing around him through his shorts.
Bai Jin's head knocked back against the cabinet with a clang.
"Quiet," said Gong Ting.
"Shut up."
"Quiet, Boss."
Then the hand was inside, hot and callused, and Bai Jin was already hard in it, already thrusting up into the grip.
He got one wrist free and went for the front of Gong Ting's trousers.
Gong Ting was just as hard.
Bai Jin took the thick weight of him out into his palm and gripped.
The sound the big man made in his throat sent heat straight down Bai Jin's spine.
"That's the arm you stitched," said Gong Ting.
"I don't care about your arm."
"Good."
They stroked each other against the cabinet with their foreheads nearly touching, panting.
Gong Ting's thumb dragged over the slick head.
Bai Jin twisted his wrist on the upstroke, which he had been thinking about since spring.
"Harder," said Bai Jin.
"Ask me."
"Harder. Please. Sergeant."
The shop bell on the Floor door rang, loud and cheerful, three floors down.
Then there were footsteps on the stairs.
Gong Ting did not let go.
He held Bai Jin on the very edge, close enough to feel it, and spoke low against his temple.
"Overtime is extra, Boss."
He stepped back, tucked himself away with one hand, and opened the office door as the doctor knocked.
Bai Jin stood against the cabinet with his belt open and his whole body ringing and could not think of a single thing to say.
The doctor looked at him.
She looked at the sergeant.
She put the tray down on the desk and left again without a word.
Gong Ting stopped in the doorway.
"Boss," he said, and he was not joking anymore. "Somebody on this side of the wall used your stamp."
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