Chapter Twenty-Five
JED TOOK a tiny, tentative sip of hot rooibos tea. He swallowed with even more caution. The warmth was soothing against his dry, sore throat, but his diaphragm tensed, waiting to see if his stomach would reject the intrusion.
It didn’t, and he let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He felt like a bulimic teenager—terrified to put anything in his mouth. He’d even waited until Max was out of the room to dare try.
He took another small sip and set the plastic mug down. The flickering TV caught his attention. Max had switched it on earlier, bored, no doubt, with watching Jed sleep away most of the day. Jed shut it off and set the remote aside. Another glance around revealed Max’s favorite hoodie folded up on the bedside table. He slipped it on, wrestling a moment with the cacophony of tubes attached to his body. The woodsmoke-scented cotton was worn and soft. American hospitals were overheated and stuffy, but as ever, Jed felt cold to the bone, especially without Max’s smile warming the room.
Max. Jed closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Max was the only thing keeping him sane, but underneath his light touch and gentle smile, Jed could see how unsettled he felt cooped up in the hospital. Jed understood. He felt the same. On the outside he was so tired he could barely raise his head, but on the inside….
On the inside he was screaming.
The door opened. Jed jerked his head a little too fast. He absorbed the accompanying wave of dizziness, expecting to see Max, but no one came in. Instead, the door handle seemed to catch and jump back up.
A scrabbling noise came next. Jed frowned and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The door wasn’t much farther than the bathroom. He figured he might make it, but was saved the trouble of falling on his ass by the appearance of Flo and a wide-eyed Belle.
“Hey, bug. Where’s your mom?” Jed pulled the oxygen tubes from his face and tossed them aside, thankful Dan had brought him some sweatpants. “And where’s that pesky sister of yours?”
Belle hesitated a moment and glanced behind her. “Tess is at home with Mrs. Dagastino. Mom’s talking to a nurse. I thought Max was in here. The nurse asked Mom if you were together, and she said you were.”
Irritation washed over Jed. He was pretty sure he knew which conversation Belle had overheard, though he had no idea how Kim was so sure of her answer.
Flo grumbled. Jed blinked, realizing he’d left Belle standing in the doorway, and held out his hand. “You want to keep me company until your mom comes looking for you?”
He lowered the bed and Belle hopped up to sit beside him. Jed eyed the small pink satchel slung across her tiny frame. “What’ve you got in the bag? Anything good?”
Belle’s face brightened. “Ooh, yeah. I forgot. I brought your morning mug from the cabin. I got it while Mom was chasing the chickens.”
The image of Kim chasing Max’s scruffy chickens in her designer shoes made Jed smile. “I have a morning mug?”
“Sure you do,” Belle said, earnest and solemn. “Uncle Max said you use the blue one in the morning and the brown one at night. The brown one was broken, so I brought the blue one.”
Jed took the chipped blue mug from her with a rueful smile. He hadn’t noticed himself falling into such a clear-cut routine, but he could believe it. Army life was all about structure and order, until you went to war and there was none. In times like those, comfort was often found in the smallest of things.
He picked up the forgotten plastic cup of cooling tea. “You got here just in time. Stay still.”
The tea sloshed messily into the blue mug. Jed mopped up the spilled drops with a napkin, balled it up, and threw it into the trash can on the other side of the room. Belle giggled at his perfect aim, but the concentration threw him.
He gripped the bed to steady himself. Belle peered at him, anxious in a way that made her young face too old. “Are you still sick? You look all funny.”
“I’m fine, bug. Where did you say Uncle Max was?”
“I’m right here.” Max appeared in front of him and lifted Belle from the bed. “Belle, your mum’s looking for you. Let’s go find her before she gets mad, eh? Can you take Flo back to Uncle Dan for me? He’s going to take her to visit the kid’s ward.”
“Can I go with him?”
“If your mum says it’s okay and Dan doesn’t mind. Go on, now. Say good-bye to Uncle Jed.”
Jed enveloped Belle’s tiny frame in his arms and squeezed gently. She was often aloof with him, and hugging her was a rare privilege. “Tell Tess I’ll be home soon, okay?”
“Will you be home before Daddy?”
“Probably.” Jed swallowed the lump in his throat. “Look after your mom for me.”
He felt a little odd when he was alone again. He blamed the lingering sedation from the endoscopy, a procedure he had little to no memory of, save a strange dream about Hector Valesco living it up in the sixties.
“All right?”
Jed jumped. He hadn’t noticed Max returning to his side. “What?”
Max rubbed Jed’s shoulder. “Sorry. I saw her sneak in, but I let her be for a minute. She was a little freaked when Kim told her you were sick. I think she was worried she’d never see you again.”
Jed kneaded a tender spot in the back of his neck. “S’okay. It was nice to see her. I miss the kids.”
Max set a paper bag down on the plastic seat and nudged his hand aside. “Here, let me.”
He manipulated Jed with the rough pads of his nimble fingers until Jed felt so boneless it was all he could do to stay upright. “Man, you’re good at that.”
“You should let me do it more often then,” Max said shortly. He trailed his fingers over the back of Jed’s neck one more time, then stepped away. “Do you want to lie down?”
“Nope.”
Max handed him the chipped blue mug. “Then drink up.”
Jed took a small sip, then, under the pressure of Max’s relentless, silent insistence, took another, bigger mouthful. “Happy?”
“You’ll do. I brought you some food, but the nurse said I can put it in the fridge if you don’t want it today.”
“Maybe later?”
Max didn’t answer. He took the half-empty mug from Jed and set it slowly and deliberately aside, as though he couldn’t quite remember what he was trying to do.
Jed regarded him for a moment, taking in his darting eyes. He took Max’s hands and waited, and sure enough, he slipped into an absence seizure. It was brief, mere seconds, if that, but it was enough for Jed to know Max needed to wind down.
“Come up here.”
Max looked down at their joined hands. “Huh?”
Jed patted the bed. “Bring your food and come up here. Can’t promise I’ll keep it down, but I can try.”
It took a moment for Max to register Jed’s sudden change of heart. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but Jed persevered until Max relented and jumped up to sit cross-legged at the foot of the bed.
Jed scooted back, and, following Max’s silent direction, he put the foot of his bad leg in Max’s lap. He squinted at the small foil-covered bowl Max held. “What did you bring me?”
“Yam stew. You don’t have to eat it, though. I just figured it was better than….”
“Hand it over.”
Max complied, but his skepticism was clear, and not entirely unfounded. Jed unwrapped the bowl and poked its contents with the fork Max helpfully supplied.
“If this is gonna work, you need to distract me. Talk to me about something else.”
“I’m sorry for what I said about Paul.”
Okay. It wasn’t quite what Jed had in mind, but he supposed now was as good a time as any. There was so much they needed to talk about, but this was something he’d found himself thinking about, even in moments when he couldn’t breathe through the crippling pain in his belly.
“Don’t be sorry. You were right. I do… I did love him, probably more than I should have, but it’s not the same as how I feel about you. I thought it was, but it’s not.”
Silence. Max opened his mouth and shut it again, before he seemed to gather himself. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Say nothing at all for months on end, then kill me dead in three sentences?”
Jed shrugged. “It’s a gift. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I flipped my shit at you. I should’ve given you a chance to explain.”
“I wouldn’t have, though, would I? I would’ve walked away. I’ve done it before.”
“With your ex?”
Max leaned over and pushed Jed’s fork-holding hand toward the untouched bowl of food. “Yeah, I guess. He was a good guy, but there was too much stacked between us, you know? The seizures, all the shit I couldn’t tell him. Even the city was too much for me. We were screwed from the beginning.” Max paused a moment. “What about you? Any crazy exes lurking about?”
“No exes at all.” Jed took a tiny mouthful of food, chewed, and swallowed before he could think about it too hard. “I’ve never had time to make that commitment, but I don’t think that’s because I’m gay. It’s not something I ever wanted.”
Max absently rubbed circles into the ball of Jed’s foot. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Did your mum know you were gay?”
Jed swallowed a second, more adventurous bite of food. “No. She died when I was a kid. Even I didn’t know I was gay. I was dating little Molly Sue from across the street.”
“You had a girlfriend?” Max tried and failed to hide his amusement. “How old were you?”
“Nine, I think, maybe eight. I can’t really remember, but my mom had no idea.”
“Do you think she would’ve minded?”
Jed had a pretty good idea where this was headed, and it was something that had played on his mind even before he knew the truth about Max’s parents. He’d seen with his own eyes what happened to openly gay men in Africa… young men mutilated and burned alive. “I don’t know how she would’ve felt about it. I wasn’t old enough to know where she stood on shit like that.” He paused and waited for the protest in his belly to settle down. “What about yours?”
“No, God, no. I think my dad had an idea, but my mum… fuck, no way. She was a progressive thinker, and I know she loved me, but it would’ve devastated her.”
“That can’t have been easy. Being a gay teenager is hard enough.”
“Tell me about it.” Max shifted on the bed. Jed felt his warmth seep into his legs and up his body. “I hated it. I remember being at school and watching my mates with their girlfriends, and not understanding why I didn’t want that too. I guess I figured it went hand in hand with being a freak.”
“You don’t think like that now, do you?”
Max shook his head, his eyes fixed firmly on Jed’s foot. “No. Coming here changed me in more ways than I can ever explain. It was hard, really hard, but it gave me a way to start over, you know? I’m happy being gay now. I would never wish it away.”
“Me too.” Jed chewed slowly. The bowl was far from empty, but he knew he was done. “I was never ashamed, but I did spend a long time trying to ignore it. Sometimes, I guess I still do. Until I met you, it was easier that way.”
He set the bowl aside. Max looked as though he might protest, but he said nothing. Jed took a moment to compose himself. He felt sick, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle. He glanced around. His gaze fell on his laptop. “How did that get here?”
Max followed his stare. “You asked me to bring it for you.”
“Huh?”
“You said you wanted it.”
“When did I say that?”
Max checked his watch. “About five hours ago. What’s in that bloody IV? Rohypnol?”
It may as well have been for all Jed could remember. Most of the day was a blur. Max squeezed his foot. The sensation was unfamiliar but intimate, and gave him the courage to ask a loaded question of his own. “Do you remember the day your parents were killed?”
Max stilled his devilish fingers, his face drawn into an expression Jed had never seen before. He thought perhaps he wouldn’t answer, then Max let out a long breath, like he was lifting a weight from his shoulders. “Not really. I used to get flickers from time to time—sounds more than anything else—but not anymore. Now it feels like it happened to someone else.”
Max was lying, by omission, if nothing else, but this time, Jed let it go. Every man was entitled to his own nightmares.
“The worst part was not being able to go to their funerals. I was in intensive care, and everyone thought I was dead.”
Jed stretched out the kinks in his spine. “That sucks.”
“I know. I was awake, though. I got to choose the song for my dad. Kim told me they played it.” Max exhaled a shaky breath. “I cut my hair a week later. A nurse had put a radio in my room, and the song came on as I was shaving my head. It made me worry that he wouldn’t recognize me if we met in another life.”
A nurse came in. Max ducked his head. The nurse fiddled with Jed’s IVs and touched his arm. “Do you need anything? You look a little pale, honey.”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
She left. Jed pulled Max’s hands away from his face. “What song did you choose?”
“Hmm? Oh, a Cat Stevens one.”
“Which one?”
“‘Trouble.’ It was my dad’s favorite.”
Jed didn’t know that one, but then he didn’t know much about music, period. He tugged on Max’s hand.
Max looked startled. “What’s up?”
Instead of words, Jed pulled on Max until he got the hint and leaned close enough that Jed could kiss him. The kiss was light and sweet, like they were lying in the sun, touched by its warmth without a care in the world.
Then Max pulled away with a smile that broke Jed’s heart.