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couldn't even look at him. Ian turned his face into his pillow to keep from cursing
    out loud, shivering when Cal smoothed over his hair and cupped the back of his neck.
    "It's all right," Cal whispered. "You go back to sleep. I'll call in sick for you. They'll understand."
    Rubbing his hand down Ian's arm, Cal pulled the sheets up higher, rolled the edges down
    (because that was part of the whole tucking in process), and leaned forward, kissing Ian's cheek.
    "I'll miss you. Call me if you need anything, okay?"
    Ian knew he should come clean, get his ass out of bed, and go to work, but for some reason even
    he didn't understand, he nodded and said, "I'll miss you, too." Then he listened to Cal going
    through their daily routine without him.
    Ian spent his day staring at the fish, suddenly too tired to get out of bed. There was bound to be a
    moral to this story, but all he could come up with before he fell back to sleep was, love hurt.
    Like whoa.

    ***
By five o'clock, Ian was feeling pretty shitty. Not just for, in effect, playing hooky for an entire
    day and leaving Cal to take up the slack, something he'd probably be doing until late if Ian knew
    anything about it, but also because the idea of Cal tucking him in was appealing enough that Ian
    actually considered lying there and hoping it'd happen again. He was a sick, sick puppy. There
    was no denying it. He'd just have to figure out a way to live with it, or, you know, get laid, so he
    could stop getting caught with his hand on his dick in the first place.
    For now, there was only one sure-fire way to get out of this funk.
    Buy more fish.
    And ice cream.
    Eat ice cream while buying fish.
    That was the ticket.
    He was halfway through the door, in that never-never land between the jingling bell and the
    squawking macaw, his ass pressed against the glass because his hands were full of chocolate
    milk shakes and greasy take out bags, when his phone rang.
    Of course. It had a knack for doing that. Ian was convinced it was a trick phone that somehow
    calculated his exertion to annoyance ratio via sensors in his jeans, wired into his zipper, 'cause he
    kept a lot of anxiety in his pants, and rang when he reached critical mass.
    And why, oh, why did he have it in his front pocket? Why did he have it set to vibrate? It wasn't
    like he was actually on set where he was supposed to be and had to worry about ruining a shot
    Go Fish - 25
    with an untimely phone call. And why was he wearing those jeans with the extra deep pockets
    that went all the way to his... inseam? He was hanging a little to the right that day. He never
    really paid attention to that before. If he did the whole 'notes to self' thing, he'd have, Phone/Dick
    = YIKES tattooed on his thigh.
    Yes, he knew what the slash meant. Google was his friend.
    So, the phone rang, and Ian busted his ass on the door trying to get away, get away, get away
    from whatever possessed thing was molesting him, and the chocolate milkshake under his right
    arm erupted over the front of his shirt. Cold, cold, cold didn't really help matters any. If he
    could've stretched his face any farther with the gasp erupting from his chest, his eyebrows
    would've actually left his forehead and bobbled around above his head like those teeny bopper
    antenna head bands from the eighties.
    This would have been the worst day of his life, except for the little angel who swooped in and
    saved him.
    Marcy darted in from nowhere and caught the half-empty milkshake, the full one, and the greasy
    bag before they could hit the floor. Working in a pet store must've been great for developing
    reflexes. Ian stood there, gasping, his stomach sucked in, arms stretched over his head like the
    Wolf Man preparing to eat a baby... or the cleavage the baby was nestled in.
    "Holy... Nnnngggghh!" The phone rang again, and Ian crammed his hand into his pocket. He
    didn't even think about how obscene it must've look when he pulled the vibrating monster away
    from the treasure