Chapter Twenty-Seven
JED SANK down on the bathroom floor. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d puked in the past week, but somehow, each time felt like the worst yet. He pressed his hand to his chest, as though he could catch his breath in his fist. It didn’t work. He felt like he’d been hit by a truck, and worst of all, he knew it was his own damned fault.
That was what he got for being a total dick to Max and then forcing down far too much food to make up for it.
“You okay, dude?”
Jed laid his head on his knees and stayed very still. Dan had rolled by not long after Max left for the night, talkative and buzzed from a postwork drink with the boys. It struck Jed as ironic that he’d been sober his whole life and yet he was the one puking his guts up. “I’m fine.”
Dan slid down the wall and sat next to him. “You don’t look it.”
“Fuck. Off.”
Dan stayed, but held his tongue and instead rubbed Jed’s back.
Jed drifted for a while, trying to repress the ominous weight in his chest. His heart hammered, like the end of the world was looming and there was no escape.
He raised his head, looking for something to ground him.
Dan met his gaze with a tentative grin. “Shitty day?”
“Yup. Your sister bugged me all afternoon. I bit her head off, then I was a dick to Max, and I need a fuckin’ cigarette.”
Dan laughed. “I have a pack in the van, but I don’t think they’ll make you feel any better.”
Jed refrained from pointing out they couldn’t make him feel much worse. He straightened his left leg and stretched it out in front of him, accepting the plastic cup of water Dan passed his way. “Thanks.”
“No worries.” Dan socked him with a featherlight punch. “And don’t sweat it about Max. He’s the nicest guy I’ve ever met. He’ll be cool, no matter how much of a prick you are.”
Jed said nothing. Dan was right: Max was the nicest guy in the world, and that made taking his shit out on him even more heinous. Max had been through enough. He didn’t need Jed’s crap thrown in his face.
“How long have you two been a thing?”
Jed winced at the stubborn stiffness in his neck. “You want to talk about my sex life?”
Dan raised an eyebrow. “No, actually, I was yanking your chain. So you are banging him?”
“I’m not banging him, I love—” Jed broke off and closed his eyes, resisting the urge to knock his pounding head on his knees. “Don’t talk about him like that. I’m not too decrepit to put you on your ass.”
Jed wanted to say more. He wanted to do more, like wipe the surprised smirk off Dan’s face, like pick up the phone and tell Max he loved him, but instead he punctuated the closest he’d ever come to a declaration of love out loud by scrambling to his feet and puking in the sink.
This time, he couldn’t stop the low, pained groan getting out. The bathroom went dark. He swayed.
Dan caught him. “Dude, you don’t look good. Want me to get someone?”
It took Jed a minute to answer, but once he’d found his tongue and flighty sense of balance, he felt better. “No, it’s fine. I feel all right now.”
Dan wasn’t convinced. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Jed in such a mess, and it took Jed a while to persuade him he was okay to shuffle back across the room unaided. Once Jed was safely at his bed, though, Dan collapsed in the chair, clicked on the tiny TV, and passed out.
Jed glared at him, already knowing Dan’s content snoring was going to drive him nuts. He looked around for something to throw. There wasn’t much—a paper cup, a magazine. A book he liked too much to damage with Dan’s thick skull.
In the end, he settled on opening his laptop and trying to curb his growing agitation by writing a witness statement he’d been dodging for months.
The document was macabre and grueling. The storm raging outside didn’t help much. Jed squinted at the screen, trying to pull together his scattered memories of an incident he’d shoved to the back of his mind. To him, the incident had been minor, a bad day at the office, but shit had gotten blown up and an American had died, and when an American died, people wanted to know why. Usually, anyway.
Jed sighed and rubbed his head. It should’ve horrified him that the death of a young man had become trivial, but it didn’t. It was what it was, and he wanted to wrap it up so he didn’t have to take it home.
A little while later, he shut his laptop with a bang. The report was done, but he wasn’t sure how coherent it was. After a while, the words had begun to blur on the page, and he’d had trouble remembering the language he was writing in.
He set the laptop aside and rubbed his chest. Every part of his body seemed to hurt, but the persistent ache in his chest bothered him most. More, even, than the jackhammer in his head. He pressed his fist to it, breathless, like he’d run round the lake, but without the rush of endorphins.
A sudden flash of light hurt his eyes. He glanced at the window. Lightning. Outside, a storm raged. He watched the rain lash the windows and the trees whip back and forth. It took him back to the last real storm, took him back to rolling over and pulling Max inside him, letting Max consume him in a way no other ever had.
Back then with Max, despite the heartache of saying good-bye to Paul, Jed had felt warm and loved. He’d felt safe. Now a brewing coil of anxiety took hold deep in the pit of his stomach, gnawing and biting until he was sure he could crawl out of his own skin.
Jed slid from the bed, disconnecting the fresh IVs that had appeared a few minutes after Max left for the night. He ignored the jolt of discomfort that shot through his body. It was a typical pain, the type he lived with every day, and not enough to stop him limping over to the window. He stared out at the storm. The black sky and turbulent wind matched his mood. He thought of the cabin, exposed and isolated, and his stomach churned. Max had lived there for years by himself, but Jed didn’t like the thought of him out there alone in this weather.
Dan muttered something in his sleep. Jed considered him. Dan was a creature of habit. If he’d been out drinking in Portland he’d have left his car at Carla’s place, and his keys in his right hand pocket.
Jed debated creeping over, lifting the keys, and making a bid for freedom. Dan slept like the dead. He’d never hear him coming, and even if he did, there were ways of keeping him quiet….
Whoa. Are you seriously considering thumping your best friend in his sleep? Dude, get a grip.
Jed tried, but even with Paul’s voice ribbing him from beyond the grave, it was hard. Unease clawed at him like a creeping vine, slithering over his skin and invading the rational part of his brain. He wasn’t a nervous person, never had been. If bad shit was going to happen, it would happen whether he worried about it or not, but in that moment the rush of irrational fear sweeping over him was borderline hysterical.
Damn it.
Jed laid his head on the windowpane. The glass was cool and calming, a balm to the liquid tar of the black mood seeping into his bones. He closed his eyes and willed the knot in his chest to dissipate. For a while, it worked, until he felt a hand on his arm.
“Jed?”
Dr. Howarth. Great. Jed let out a silent sigh and opened his eyes. “Making the 2:00 a.m. rounds?”
“Something like that. I like to check my patients are where they should be. Any chance of coercing you back to bed?”
Jed wanted to be a prick and say no, but he’d been on his feet a while, and the idea of lying down was appealing. He left the turbulent entertainment of the window and returned to his bed.
Dr. Howarth watched him with curious eyes. He didn’t seem to notice Dan snuffling like a pig in the chair. “How are you feeling tonight?”
Jed reconnected his IV tubes to the needles and leaned back on the cabin-scented pillow Belle had brought him from home the day before. “Same as ever.”
“Remind me,” Dr. Howarth countered. “Did you eat dinner?”
“Some.”
“That’s good. Any issues keeping it down?”
“A bit, but that was my….” Jed frowned. He’d lost his words. What the fuck? “I ate too much.”
“I see. Well, things seem to be coming together. I was talking with your partner yesterday. He was telling me about the produce you grow at home. It’s all good stuff, Jed. With a condition like yours, the little things count.”
Jed said nothing. Couldn’t. He heard the words, but they made no sense.
Dr. Howarth’s gaze flickered to the IV stand. “You seem a little tired. Do you want to try and sleep now?”
“Hmm?”
“Sleep,” Dr. Howarth repeated. “It’s late. I know nights can get a bit noisy in here, but you should take the opportunity to rest while you have nothing else to do. I know you’ll be out running up a storm as soon as I cut you loose.”
It seemed like the doctor was talking in riddles, but one word resonated in Jed’s foggy brain: sleep. He retrieved Max’s hoodie from the bedside table and zipped it up.
“Cold?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you cold?”
Jed shook his head and lay back on the bed, waiting for Dr. Howarth to leave him alone so he could sleep off the bone-crushing headache that was growing worse by the minute.
He expected Dr. Howarth to leave. He didn’t. He sat down in Max’s chair.
“What are you doing?”
“Charts,” Dr. Howarth said vaguely. “My office is being remodeled. Do you mind?”
Seriously? The dude was going to sit in the corner and watch two grown men sleep? Whatever. Jed pulled his hood over his face, too tired to argue. Two more days. That was it. He could cope with two more days, right?
THE NOISE in Jed’s head was deafening, like a pneumatic drill, driving into his skull. Someone shook him, called his name, and pulled on the hood covering his face.
“Jed? Can you wake up for me a moment? Jed?”
Dr. Howarth.
“Jed? Come on, wake up for me.”
Jed opened his eyes. White hot bolts of pain shot through his head. He tried to sit up, but his arms failed him.
Dr. Howarth eased him upright. “You’ve spiked a fever. You might’ve picked up a virus, but I’m running some antibiotics through you to be safe.”
“Antibiotics? What for?”
“You might have an infection.” Dr. Howarth grasped his wrist and took his pulse the old fashioned way. “Can you take your sweat jacket off?”
It took Jed a moment to comprehend the request and even longer to decide he was too fucking cold to be taking his clothes off. “I’m fine.”
“I know you are. I need to examine you. You can have it back when I’m done.”
Dr. Howarth won the stare-down, because Jed forgot his objections. He took off Max’s hoodie and sat back while Dr. Howarth listened to his chest and palpated his strangely pain-free abdomen.
“I’m going to hook you up to the monitors,” Dr. Howarth said. “I want to check out your heart rate for a moment. You can rest if you want.”
Jed kept his eyes open, but the crazy beeping of the monitors made him jump.
The commotion roused Dan from his uncomfortable slumber on the chair. “Jed? What’s going on?”
Jed couldn’t answer. Dan moved, his body a blur across the room. He reached Jed’s side as Dr. Howarth draped the long neglected oxygen tubes back on Jed’s face. “What’s happening?”
“Maybe an infection. We’ve given him antibiotics and something to bring the fever down.”
“What’s up with his head? Why is he holding it like that?”
I’m not holding my head.
“We’ve given him something for the pain. Keep him talking for a moment, will you?”
The door opened and closed a few times. New hands touched Jed, but none of them the right ones. A shiver passed through him. He was cold. He longed for Max’s hoodie… no, he wanted Max. Max. Max. Max….
Jed jerked his head up. “I don’t want you to drive in the rain.”
“Huh?” Dan grasped Jed’s shoulders. His grip was light, but his big hands felt like spiked metal clamps. “Dude, I’m right here.”
“What?”
Dan stared at him. “Don’t worry about it. Whatever it is, it’s gonna be fine, okay?”
Dr. Howarth reappeared before Jed could formulate an answer. He shot something into the IV in Jed’s hand, then moved to the window and closed the blinds. He said something. Dan shut off the lights.
The impact was instant. Jed slumped, like he’d had a bucket load of the morphine he hated so much. His head collided with something warm and solid. Dan. Someone groaned. Huge arms came around him. Yeah, definitely Dan.
“Jed? Look at me, come on, man. Talk to me.”
Jed opened his eyes. The room was dark and unfamiliar. Something scratched at the back of his hand. An IV. Really? Another damn fucking IV?
Dan nudged him back into awareness. “You okay?”
Jed shook his head. He was used to pain, but this? This hurts.
“I know, dude, but they’re gonna fix it, okay? Whatever it is, they’re gonna fix it. Max is coming. Stay with me until he gets here.”
The words went over Jed’s head. All but three.
Max is coming.