Chapter Eleven
MAX FELT like he was swimming through cold wet sand. Every part of him hurt, like he was thawing out from being frozen. He shuddered, a whole body shiver from the top of his head to his toes, and a swoosh of air left his chest.
Panic and fatigue warred with one another. Fatigue seemed to be winning.
Through the fog, he felt a presence beside him—warmth and a familiar voice. He couldn’t make out the voice, but he crawled toward the warmth, chasing it and hiding his face in it. A blanket of peace washed over him, and the persistent tremor in his brain finally stilled.
It was still dark when he woke next. First he became aware of the crumpled sheets leaving imprints in his exposed skin, then the comforter draped over him. It was a few minutes before the clean-scented mass he’d mashed his face against made itself known as a warm, cloth-covered body.
Jed?
Max raised his head, startled, and found Jed’s gaze. A ripple of humiliation crept over him, coupled with relief that he wasn’t alone. He’d suffered more seizures than he cared to remember, but the sensation of his brain turning somersaults in his head still scared the crap out of him. Even safe in bed with Flo close by. Even safe in bed with Jed.
A jolt of fear swept over him, jarring his sore and exhausted body. Jed cupped Max’s chin in one hand, touching the rough pads of his fingers to his neck as he scrutinized him with intense green eyes.
Looking for signs of madness, no doubt.
Max’s head throbbed with the effort, but he stubbornly held Jed’s gaze until the other man seemed satisfied with what he saw.
Jed dropped his hands. Max felt cold without his touch. He wanted to say something, but he wasn’t sure he trusted his swollen tongue yet.
Perhaps sensing his predicament, Jed gently tugged on his shoulders and eased him back down so he was lying on his side with his head on Jed’s chest. “Easy now, it’s okay. Rest.”
In his mind, Max hesitated, though his body had already curled into Jed. “Don’t want… hurt you.”
“You won’t. You’re on my good side.”
Reassured, Max allowed himself to drift into the hazy world he was often stuck in postseizure. With his eyes fixed open, he wasn’t asleep, but he wasn’t quite awake either.
Instead he lay very still, lulled by the steady beat of Jed’s heart, and tried to gather his wits. His mind felt fragmented. It was early, not yet dawn, but the last thing he remembered was cooking dinner. He couldn’t recall eating and he definitely didn’t remember coming to bed. And though he was inordinately grateful for his presence, Max couldn’t figure out how Jed had ended up in his bed. In fact, he couldn’t remember seeing Jed at all the previous day.
The effort of speculating made his head hurt, and he gave in to exhaustion. The world around him began to fade out until something clicked in his faulty brain. “Oh shit. This is your bed, isn’t it?”
Despite the labored cadence of Max’s speech, Jed chuckled. The sound rumbled through his chest, smooth and warm. “It was your bed first. Least that’s what Flo told me.”
Max flexed his stiff neck and glanced at Flo. “I need to let her out.”
Jed restrained him. “She’s been out, Max. She even watched over you while I fed those damn chickens. Lie down and rest now.”
It was all too easy to obey. Max lay down and settled his head back on Jed’s warm chest. Jed pulled the covers over his shoulders and wrapped a strong arm around him. The gesture was so comforting, Max wanted to cry. He was often overemotional after seizures—hyper, angry, or tearful—but in the dark room, nestled into Jed’s side, all he felt was an overwhelming need not to be on his own.
LATER THAT day, Max woke up properly to find Jed wide awake beside him. He forced his body upright. Jed steadied him as he got shakily to his feet, but didn’t protest when Max shrugged him away and drifted off to use the bathroom.
Max washed up, brushed his teeth, and retreated to his own room to change his clothes. Once dressed, he eyed the mud-splattered T-shirt he appeared to have slept in. Coupled with the fact that he’d somehow ended up in Jed’s bed, it wasn’t looking good for his dignity.
With a weary sigh, he bent to scoop up the offending dirty clothes. The change in equilibrium threw him. He lurched forward, suddenly disoriented, but like magic, Jed was there.
He settled Max on the edge of his bed and stepped back. “You should eat something. Are you, uh, hungry?”
The uncharacteristic stutter caught Max by surprise. Uncertainty wasn’t Jed’s style. He said exactly what he thought or nothing at all. And though he had strange eating habits of his own, aside from poking fun at his ability to consume his body weight in pasta, he’d never taken much interest in what Max put in his belly.
Max considered the question. He should probably eat something, but a vague memory of his metallic-tasting dinner from the night before was beginning to filter into his brain, and he wasn’t in the mood to revisit it.
“Max?”
“Hmm?”
“What about meds? Do you have anything you need to take?”
Distracted, Max frowned and tried to remember if he’d taken his medication the day before. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I’ve got some pills in the locked box under the sink. Key’s in the fruit bowl.”
“The fruit bowl?”
“Yeah, I figured the kids weren’t gonna look in there.”
Jed smirked, but left the room without comment and he was back before Max could blink with the pills and a bottle of water.
Max reached for the water and swallowed the medication. He set the bottle on the nightstand. When he turned back, Jed was gone. Max considered getting up and tracking him down, but his wobbly trip to the bathroom put him off. With a heavy sigh, he admitted defeat, crawled into bed, and reached for the remote Jed had helpfully left within reach.
He was dozing through the second Young Guns movie when Jed finally reappeared. His hair was damp, though Max hadn’t heard the shower run. Max sat up and took the bowl he held out. “What’s this? Oatmeal?”
“Not quite. It’s congee. Asian porridge.”
Max took a bite of the rice, egg, and soy sauce mixture. It was good, really good, though he wasn’t sure why he was surprised. Jed hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he could cook rice a hundred and one ways. He was often cagey about his travels and his Army life, but perhaps without realizing, every time he cooked for Max, he revealed a little bit more. Jed’s version of congee was traditional Tamil food. Max filed it away in the ever expanding Jed part of his dysfunctional brain.
Jed disappeared with the empty bowl. Max heard him moving around the cabin, but it was a while before he came back. During that time, Flo took it upon herself to keep him company on the bed. When Jed reappeared a little while later, he looked as though he might leave them to it.
For the second time that day, Max panicked. He couldn’t bear the thought of spending the rest of the day on his own. He stared at Jed, hoping he could convey his plea without voicing it aloud. Jed had seen him dribbling on the floor, but a smattering of pride stopped Max asking him to stay.
Jed eyed him for a long moment, his expression torn, then he sighed and clicked off the light in the hallway. He made his way across the room, his limp more pronounced than it had been for a while. Max raised a curious eyebrow, but knew better than to ask.
Jed eased himself onto the bed and stretched out, pushing the comforter aside and lying on the very edge of the mattress. Max thought he looked like he was planning a quick escape, but he didn’t take it personally. The man didn’t seem to like his own bed much.
“You look better. Want to tell me what happened yesterday?”
Max watched, amused, as Jed petted Flo and she rolled onto her back and lolled out her tongue. She was as much under Jed’s spell as he was. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
“You don’t remember?”
“Nope. It’s a blur. I know I had a seizure, but I don’t know when. How did I end up in your bed? Please tell me I didn’t drop in on you and start seizing?”
Jed glanced up, still idly scratching Flo’s belly. “Not quite. Flo’s barking woke me up. I found you in the boat shed. I don’t know how long you’d been there. You walked back to the cabin, but Flo led us into my room, and she wouldn’t let me leave.”
“How many seizures did I have?”
“Three, I think. A big one in the boat shed that I know of, and maybe two smaller ones on the bed? They came on pretty quick. I called Carla, but she said that’s normal for you. She said to take you to the hospital if you had another grand mal, but you didn’t.”
Jed’s voice was low and calm, and his posture on the bed remained relaxed. Max was usually alone when he woke up from a seizure, but sometimes he came round to find Kim in hysterics that lasted for days. A far cry from Jed, who didn’t seem fazed at all.
“Yeah, they come in batches,” Max said absently. “I’m sorry you got caught up in it. It’s been a while since I last dropped like that.”
“How long?”
“Six months, maybe? I try not to keep track.”
Jed shifted on the bed, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling. His face was always weary, but in the dying light of the day, he seemed oddly alert. Strange, because, though Max had lost most of the day to a postseizure haze, he was almost positive Jed hadn’t slept at all.
“When did you swap bedrooms?”
“Huh?”
Jed grinned a wry grin that made him seem much younger than his thirty-two years. “You might want to watch that dog of yours. She talks.”
Max scowled. “Very funny. I switched before you moved in, if you must know.”
“Why?”
Max chewed on his lip as he debated his answer. It was difficult to explain the way he’d seen Jed’s eyes light up when Max had shown him the room with the view. Until that moment, there’d been no life in the weary stranger at all. “It made you smile, and I thought maybe it had been too long.”
Jed let out a sigh that was soft and long suffering all at the same time. “You’re probably right. And thanks, I do like the room. That window makes me feel like I’m out in the open. I like that. Sleeping inside still feels kinda weird for me.”
It was probably the most Jed had ever revealed about himself in one breath, but Max let it pass without comment. Jed didn’t like to talk about himself, and some days he didn’t like to talk at all. “Where did you go yesterday? You weren’t stuck at the hospital all day, were you?”
“Hmm? Oh, no. I went to Seattle for a meeting. I had PT in the evening, but Carla took it easy on me.”
“She did, eh? That doesn’t sound like her. What’s in Seattle for you? Work?”
“Yeah, I suppose,” Jed said. “I’ve got all this linguistic shit in my head, so I figured I might as well use it.”
He went on to explain about the translating work while Max tried to comprehend how anyone could speak as many languages as Jed did. The dude was smart. Seriously smart. Even Max was sharp enough to know he’d been wasted in the Army.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something, actually,” Jed said, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled over them. “Though I guess now isn’t the best time.”
Curious, Max rolled onto his side and propped his head up with his upturned palm. “What’s up?”
Jed shifted his body too, facing Max in a position that felt natural and intimate. “Is there any reason you don’t have an Internet connection? Does it mess with your epilepsy?”
Disappointed, though he couldn’t say why, Max shook his head. “I have the access points, it’s just not hooked up. I can’t really afford another bill. Do you need it for your work?”
“Yeah, but I guess I could work at the library—”
“That would defeat the point of working from home. But I don’t have a computer anymore.”
Jed grinned. “Neither did I until yesterday. What happened to yours? Did you break it?”
Max glared again, though it was halfhearted. Jed had lived with him long enough to learn his propensity for breaking anything even remotely technological. “No, I sold it. I figured the tools I needed were more practical.”
He made to turn away, but suddenly found himself captivated by the sight of Jed stretching his arms over his head. Jed was wearing a hoodie over his T-shirt, but Max could see the outline of his tattoo poking out over his wrist.
Naturally, Jed caught him staring before he could look away. “You like ink?”
Max shrugged. It wasn’t something he’d ever really thought about until he’d met Jed and become transfixed by the dark flame design that circled his entire forearm. “Sometimes,” he hedged. “What does the writing mean?”
In answer, Jed rolled his sleeve up and revealed the script that ran through the flickering flames. “The script was done a few years after the artwork. It’s Indonesian and means ‘death doesn’t bargain.’”
Max shuddered as the air in the room seemed to shift, but this time, it wasn’t his brain playing tricks on him. This time it was the flicker of torment in Jed’s eyes, a flash of haunted darkness that told him the tattoo was far more than a simple piece of body art.
With a shaky hand, he tugged Jed’s sleeve back down. “I went to Indonesia once. Jakarta, I think, but I was a baby. I don’t remember it.”
Jed dropped his arm back to his side and curled it close to his body. “That’s a long way from home. How did you end up there?”
“My dad worked away a lot when we were little. He took us with him sometimes. I don’t remember most of it, but the pins on the map remind me where I’ve been.”
A look of comprehension colored Jed’s features. “You get around.”
Max shook his head. “Used to. Apart from coming here, I haven’t traveled since I was six years old.”
“I never left the damn state until I was eighteen.”
“When your dad threw you out?”
Jed’s gaze sharpened, and Max remembered too late that he’d learned that from a heated argument between Kim and Nick long before Jed even came home. Jed had never divulged what drove him from Ashton to join the Army. “Sorry. I like to put my foot in my mouth.”
Jed exhaled quietly, and the hard stare disappeared. “You’re okay. You’ve got nothing on some people I’ve known, but enough about me. How long did you live with Nick and Kim? Tess told me her room used to be yours.”
“A few years, off and on.” Max reached for a pillow and jammed it under his head. “I shared a house with a… well, with a boyfriend, and when that didn’t work out, I moved in with Kim until I figured I couldn’t live with your brother.”
Jed’s expression hardened again. “He kicked you out?”
Max shook his head as he tried to get comfortable. With his stiff and sore muscles, it was difficult. “Oh, no. I wanted to leave. Kim meant well, but you know what that house is like. In the end, it made my seizures worse. I have less here than I’ve ever had, at least before—”
He broke off as he realized his loose, postseizure tongue was about to say too much, but he wasn’t quick enough for Jed’s sharp mind.
Not that Jed said so out loud. His subtly arched eyebrow was enough to tell Max he’d caught the slip.
“They went away for a while,” Max said by way of explanation. “When I was a teenager, I was seizure free for three years.”
“What happened?”
“They came back. Shit happens, I guess.”
“I guess,” Jed echoed, but Max could see he was suddenly miles away.
Jed did that from time to time—slipped away to another place. From the tortured look in his eyes when he came back, Max could tell it wasn’t anywhere nice.