Chapter Five
MAX PUSHED his plate away in disgust. Every holiday was the same: a horrible, awkward bust. The only change in scenery was Jed, and his silence only added to the strained atmosphere at the dinner table. And, Jed didn’t even bother to eat, something Max couldn’t understand.
Max found himself surreptitiously observing Jed as the oppressive attempt at the Brady Bunch dragged on. Jed’s profile was as unreadable as ever, but for some reason Max thought he looked different—wearier, older, and maybe even slightly thinner. Was such a thing possible in just a few days?
One thing was for sure: Jed was definitely distracted. Though his attention appeared focused on keeping Tess in line, Max could tell his mind was elsewhere. Little things gave him away—like the absent way he played with Tess’s long hair, and the way his gaze drifted to the back door, like he was imagining his escape.
Max wondered where Jed would rather be, and with who. Did he have a girlfriend out there somewhere? Or a….
Nick brought his hand down on the table with a startling slam. Belle jumped. Max reached automatically for her and pulled her from her seat onto his lap. He eyed Nick warily, ready to scoop the kids and walk if he launched into a drunken tirade. Being a douche bag was one of his favorite tricks to get out of dinner early.
This time, though, it appeared over before it began. Without a word, Nick shoved his chair back, glared at Jed, and left the room.
The children watched him go with wide, innocent eyes.
“Okay, kids,” Kim said with forced brightness. “Who wants pumpkin pie?”
No one, it seemed, from the silence, but Jed got to his feet, passed Tess to Kim, and limped to the kitchen counter to retrieve the store-bought dessert. Max watched in his peripheral vision, observing the careful way Jed carried his body and the subtle grimace he tried to hide. Again, Max found himself speculating on the severity of his injuries. The way he pushed his food around his plate was odd. Max wondered idly if the two things were connected.
Perhaps too idly. Kim waved her hand in front of his face as a phone rang somewhere in the house. “You’re spacing out a lot today. Are you feeling okay?”
Max rolled his eyes, unwilling to admit the real reason for his distraction, and pointed to Flo curled up under the table, asleep and content. “You’d know if I wasn’t.”
Kim wasn’t convinced, but Max was saved from her scrutiny by Jed coming back to the table, weighed down with pumpkin pie and four sets of dessert crockery. Four. Looked like he was done pretending to eat.
Max couldn’t help his curious glance, but Jed shook his head. The motion was slight—so subtle Max nearly missed it—but the message was clear.
Leave it alone.
Well, okay, then. Max shot Jed a quick, conspiratorial grin. With Kim’s watchful gaze burning a hole in the side of his face, he could relate to a desire for privacy.
Something akin to relief colored Jed’s expression. He leaned back in his seat and watched the kids demolish their dessert with a fond fascination that made Max smile. For creatures so dainty, they sure could put a hole in a pie.
Max was about done with his own pie when Nick reappeared in the doorway, an unlit cigarette in one hand, the cordless office phone in the other. He held out the phone for Jed. “It’s for you.”
Jed took the phone, his faint grin evaporating into a smooth, impassive mask. He held it to his ear and listened silently. Then, without uttering a word to whoever was on the other end, he hung up and walked out of the kitchen.
IT TOOK Max a while to settle the kids in their beds. With their parents yelling at each other downstairs, it was hard to convince them that everything was okay.
Tess fell asleep first. Max left Flo guarding the door and took Belle to her room across the hall. He took his time tucking her in. Kim was a hurricane when she was pissed. Combined with Nick’s drunken belligerence, they could scream at each other for hours. Tess’s room was at the back of the house. Unfortunately for Belle, the kitchen was directly below her.
“Is Daddy mad at Uncle Jed?”
Max measured his words. Despite Nick’s growing indifference to his children, Max held out hope that one day he’d remember how bloody lucky he was. “I don’t think he’s mad, bug. I think it’s going to take them a while to get used to each other. Uncle Jed’s been gone a long time.”
“That’s what Mom said. Is Uncle Jed going to leave again?”
“I don’t know.” Jed seemed attached to Belle and Tess, and fond of Kim, but Max didn’t know him well enough to judge whether they were reason enough for him to stick around. “I think he’s got some stuff to figure out before he makes a decision. Would you like him to stay?”
Belle nodded, her eyes dark and solemn. “I heard Mom tell him that he needs to put his head somewhere safe. It’s safe here, isn’t it?”
Max swallowed the lump in his throat. “Sure it is.”
“Then I want him to stay. He keeps Tess from breaking my stuff.”
At that, Max had to smile. Tess was like he’d been at her age: a notorious vandal. Nothing was safe, no matter who it belonged to. “I think he should—”
The shouting below cut off. Alarmed, Max twisted his head toward the door, listening for any sound of Kim’s distress. He heard nothing, so he bid Belle a hasty good-night and ran down the stairs.
He skidded to a stop by the kitchen table, where Kim sat alone. “I thought he’d finally clocked you. Don’t tell me it was the other way around?”
Kim pushed back her chair and scowled. “Stop it. You know he’d never hit me. If you must know, Jed came back and hauled him outside. I’m hoping they’re finally talking and not killing each other. Nick can’t go on like this.”
Max scoffed. “Yeah, sure. You think Nick would have the balls to get into it with someone like Jed? In case you haven’t noticed, Jed isn’t exactly a shrimp like you.”
It was a low jibe. Mocking Kim’s petite five-foot stature in the same breath as calling her husband a spineless prick was a bad idea. Fortunately, he was saved from her wrath by Nick skulking back through the French doors.
Max watched him squeeze Kim’s arm as he passed her. He wasn’t impressed, but it was as close to an apology as Nick ever got. Max glanced around for Flo, eager to make his escape before he let his irritation get the better of him, but strangely she was nowhere to be seen.
“She’s outside,” Kim said, reading his thoughts. “I think she was looking for Jed.”
The knowing smirk on her face confused Max, but she left the kitchen before he could figure it out. Puzzled, he headed for the back door, and sure enough, he spotted Jed leaning against the back wall of the house, tossing a ball into the darkness for Flo to retrieve. They looked like they’d been playing their game for a while.
Max joined him at the wall and mirrored his pose. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
Jed kept his gaze on the shadowy gloom. “It’s not the worst I’ve ever had.”
Somehow, Max could believe it. “It’s not the worst I’ve had here either. Who was on the phone?”
“Frank.”
“Your dad?”
Jed launched the ball to the back of the sweeping garden without answering, then sighed, his face weary and resigned. “When were you going to tell me my brother’s an alcoholic?”
Again, Jed’s candor caught Max off guard. Kim was good at dodging the term, and it had been a long time since he’d heard it acknowledged so bluntly. “I thought you knew. Nick’s pretty good at hiding it, but he drinks a lot at home. I figured you would’ve seen it.”
“Does he hit them?”
“No! God, no. The worst he does to the kids is ignore them, and he’s never hit Kim. I don’t think he’d dare, and believe it or not, he’s not always like this. Kim says he’s been worse since….”
Jed rolled his eyes, his disgust clear. “He’s not putting this shit on me.”
Jed’s tone was even, but Max sensed the anger and resentment simmering beneath it. “I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault,” Max said. “It is what it is. The girls have learned to live with it, and he’s not so bad sometimes.”
“What about you?”
“What do you mean?”
Jed shrugged. “It can’t be easy watching him treat your sister like crap.”
“It’s not, but she’s an adult, and she makes her own choices. No one forces her to stay with him.” Max felt a bump on his legs and bent down to retrieve Flo’s ball. “It helps that I never really see him. He works a lot, and he tends to give me a wide berth. Doesn’t want to catch my gay-boy cooties.”
“Don’t let that bother you. He’s been hiding from mine for years.”
Max came upright slowly. He’d misunderstood. There was no way Jed was gay. It would explain some of the excruciating tension between the two brothers, but Kim would have told Max something like that.
Her knowing smirk flashed unbidden into his mind. Surely not…. “You’re gay?”
Jed tilted his head to one side. “You didn’t know?”
Max’s world seemed to spin on its axis. “I had no idea. Nick, uh, never said, and my gaydar’s pretty shitty. Must have something to do with my brain’s funky frequency.”
Jed nodded. Suddenly, he seemed completely exhausted. He turned his face to the sky and closed his eyes. “He told me about you. I guess I figured it worked both ways.”
Max couldn’t picture the words “my brother’s gay” ever leaving Nick’s mouth, but he kept the thought to himself. He was pondering what to do next when a noise from an open upstairs window set his teeth on edge.
Oh yeah. It wasn’t enough that he had to watch Kim let her husband treat her like shit, he also had to listen to them make it up. He pushed off the wall and whistled for Flo, intending to bid Jed a hasty good-bye.
Something stopped him. Maybe it was Jed’s unreadable eyes or defeated posture, but instead of walking away, Max reached out and touched his shoulder.
“Go get your stuff. Let’s go home.”