Only Love Page 21

  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.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  MAX RUBBED a hand over the buzz of stubble on his head. He felt frazzled. His brain hurt. It had been two weeks since Jed lost his shit over the photographs in Kim’s art boxes, and only now was he beginning to understand why.

  Jed had been in the hospital for a week, and over the past few days they’d fallen into a routine. Max came to the hospital at dawn each morning and stayed until Jed fell asleep sometime before lunch. Then he went back to the cabin, took care of business, and returned in the evening to sit with Jed until it was time to retrieve Flo from the children’s ward and catch the last bus home. Most mornings Jed was exhausted and had little to say, but the evenings invariably found him more alert and willing to talk, and tonight seemed to be one of those nights.

  Max drew the photograph across the retractable bedside table acting as a barrier between them. He stared hard at the grainy image of a low-flying helicopter and tapped his finger on the dulled surface. “This is you?”

  “The one and only,” Jed said dryly.

  “So you’d suspected I was hiding something from you, and then you found this?” Max whistled. “Okay, I get it now. That’s like… I don’t know, the worst kind of ridiculous. Where was this taken?”

  “Somalia.”

  “When?”

  “Ninety-three.”

  Jed said it without hesitation, like it had been yesterday rather than more than a decade ago. Max chanced a glance at him. He was sitting up, his good leg curled beneath his body, his bad leg stretched out. He was as inscrutable as ever, but he seemed at ease with the conversation.

  “You joined up in ninety-two, right?”

  “Right. Don’t tell me how young you were then. I don’t want to know.”

  “You’re not that old.”

  Jed hummed and absently rubbed his bad leg. “Some days I feel it.”

  He sounded distant and tired. Max frowned. Maybe he’d got it wrong and this wasn’t the right time. Kim had implored him to confront Jed about the photographs sooner rather than later, like she knew something he didn’t, but though he had the world’s best poker face, Jed was still really sick. “You don’t have to talk about this. We can forget about it if you want.”

  Jed shook his head. “That theory hasn’t worked so well for us so far, has it?” He spun the picture on the table. “Somalia was the first real conflict I ever saw.”

  “First of many?”

  “Too many, but it’s weird. I have some good memories of this place, and it taught me a lot. I learned Arabic in Somalia, and some backstreet Swahili.”

  Max settled back on the bed, maneuvered himself around Jed’s outstretched leg, and made himself more comfortable. Jed was good at telling stories when his mood was right. “Was it like Black Hawk Down?”

  Jed fixed him with another sphinxlike stare. “Couldn’t tell you. I’ve never seen that movie. Anyway, this picture was taken a year after that incident, so I doubt it.”

  Max tried another tack. “Who took the photo?”

  “It looks like a shot from an onboard camera, so probably another chopper. There were two others close by.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Looking for someone.” Jed cast his gaze over the image, as though familiarizing himself with the tale behind it. “Most of the heavy fighting was over by then. We were based within an IDP camp, helping the aid agencies with security and medical care.”

  “IDP?”

  “Internally displaced person,” Jed clarified, still staring at the picture. “They were called refugee camps back then.”

  “Were you looking for a… displaced person?”

  “No, we were looking for a kidnapped aid worker. The camp was safe, but outside militants and guerrilla groups were still fighting each other, and they both had a penchant for abducting Western civilians. Some governments, especially the Europeans, were prepared to pay big ransoms to get them back.”

  “What happened to him? The aid worker, I mean?”

  “Her,” Jed corrected. “She was a nurse. There was an incident outside the camp one day. The militants bribed some local kids to convince the medical team to step outside the perimeter. We weren’t there. We were on patrol in the village. By the time we got back, two doctors were dead and they’d taken the nurse.”

  Max sucked in a breath. “What did you do?”

  “We only had two vehicles at the camp that day. They couldn’t carry enough of us to engage a guerrilla group on their turf. We had no choice but to load up and drive like crazy back to the main base by the city. We scrambled the chopper and went looking, but….”

  “Too late?”

  Jed nodded. “By a long way. They dumped her by the roadside five miles outside the camp. It was my job to jump out and get her while the others put down covering fire. From a distance, I couldn’t see if she was alive, but she’d bled out by the time I got to her.”

  “They shot her?”

  “No. They slit her throat.”

  Max felt his heart skip a beat. Guilt washed over him. It had never occurred to him that Jed was so deeply involved in the story behind the pictures. Naively, he’d assumed Jed’s distress stemmed from the military context of the photographs. “What was her name?”

  “Nina. She was from Jerusalem.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “I did, but not as well as another guy on my team. He was elsewhere when this went down. Telling him she was dead was probably the hardest thing I’d ever done—up until that point, at least.”

  Max felt suddenly unable to keep still. He felt Jed’s gaze on him as he jumped over the bedrail to land on his feet. “This happened a long time ago. Were you sick back then?”

  “What? No. I didn’t get sick until last year.”

  Max waited for him to elaborate. Up until now, he’d left the subject of Jed’s gastroparesis alone, hoping Jed would bring it up by himself, but, of course, he hadn’t.

  After a moment, Jed sighed. “Everyone got sick from drinking bad water when we were out on ops. It was textbook, and not that uncommon, until the others recovered and I didn’t.”

  Max paced around the bed and turned the photographs over so he didn’t have to look at them anymore. “You didn’t tell them either, did you?”

  “Who? My team? No. I didn’t. My medic knew, but only because he’s a nosy bastard. Will you quit walking in circles?”

  Max came to a reluctant stop and watched Jed rub the back of his neck. He’d done that a lot tonight. Maybe he’d slept on it funny. “Why didn’t you tell them?”

  “There was nothing to tell. I just had a bellyache, man. It was nothing….” Jed gestured around him. “It wasn’t like this. It didn’t get really bad until after the second surgery on my leg. Besides, things were heavy at the time. My guys didn’t have time to worry about me.”

  Frustration burned through Max’s soul. He didn’t know enough about life at war to argue, but deep down, he suspected that Jed’s men… his friends, would’ve seen it differently.

  JED CAME awake suddenly. Max broke off midsentence, halfway to the bed before Carla could react, but Anna was already there. She caught Jed’s flailing arm with surprising strength and enveloped him in a tight hug before Max could even see if he was distressed.

  It wouldn’t have surprised Max if he was. He’d seen Jed wake from unpleasant dreams more often than either of them cared to admit. Most times Jed would get up and leave the bed, and others he would sit with his head in his hands, but each and every time, there was little Max could do but squeeze
his hand and go back to sleep.

  That wasn’t an option here. Jed said something. The words were muffled by Anna’s embrace, but she laughed. “You haven’t called me that in years.”

  Jed pulled back. Max could see by the rise and fall of his chest that he was rattled. “I forgot where I was for a minute.”

  Anna pushed his hair back from his face in a tender gesture that made Max’s heart ache. “It’s okay, honey. I like it when you call me that. It reminds me of when you were all so young.”

  Max tugged Carla from the room. Jed deserved… needed to be comforted, but he didn’t have it in him to watch him get mothered to death.

  “Quit yanking on me.”

  “What? Oh, sorry.” Max released his death grip on Carla’s arm as the door closed behind them. “Are you working today?”

  “Not here. At the VA, but I’ll be back this evening for a meeting with Dr. Howarth.”

  “About Jed?”

  Carla rolled her eyes. “There are other patients in this hospital, you know, and I have a few of his patients on my books, so we meet once a week to touch base. I should’ve met him on Friday, but he was out of town.”

  Max frowned. “Crap, I keep getting my days mixed up. I thought Jed had that weird camera thing done on Friday.”

  “He did. Dr. Phelps did it.”

  Max stopped walking. “Dr. Phelps? The douche bag with the bad teeth?”

  “That’s the one. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” Max shook himself and resumed escorting Carla out of the hospital, but though she chattered away beside him, his mind was elsewhere. Dr. Phelps. Max didn’t like that guy, and the idea of him treating Jed made his skin crawl.

  He was still agitated when he got home, and he spent the day putting together the structure for a rustic desk. Jed did most of his work at the kitchen table, and sometimes the living room floor, but Max figured he might like a table by the window.

  His mind wandered as he worked. He’d taken Jed some mail at the beginning of the week, and ever since then, Jed had been engrossed in something on his laptop. Max did his best not to peek, but even when he did, he found Jed was typing in a language he didn’t even recognize, much less understand.

  Jed’s preoccupation with anything other than his own recovery made Max wish he’d left the mail at home, but Jed’s persistent low iron levels had led the blood specialist, who Dr. Howarth had consulted, to extend Jed’s stay by a couple of days, and Max didn’t quite have the nerve to ignore the thick, ominous-looking envelope that had arrived a few days before.

  Six o’clock caught Max by surprise. He took the bus back to Portland and found Jed shuffling around his hospital room in a foul mood.

  Max hovered in the doorway, watching as Jed launched something at the trash can, closed the door of the bedside cabinet with his foot, then kicked it again for good measure. “What did that cabinet do to you?”

  Jed shot him a withering glare. “It’s no wonder they don’t know their ass from their elbow when they leave shit lying around all the time.”

  “Who?”

  “What?”

  Max blinked first. “Never mind.” He looked Jed over, trying to be subtle. Something was different… something was off. “Where’s your IV?”

  “I took it out.”

  Jed stopped pacing and hoisted himself onto the bed. The motion seemed stilted. Satisfied Jed wasn’t going to throw something at him, Max ventured further into the room. “You took it out? Why?”

  “I don’t want that crap in me, and it was fucking empty anyway.”

  “They didn’t change it?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay.” Max tried to acclimatize to Jed’s belligerent mood. He considered asking why he hadn’t told a nurse the IV was empty, but something in Jed’s manner warned him off. “I brought you some dinner. Are you hungry?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Headache?”

  Jed dropped his hand from his temple. “No.”

  Max sighed. Jed got grouchy at home too, but around the cabin they had miles of space to skirt around each other. In the hospital they had nowhere to go.

  Max considered his options while Jed stared mutinously out of the window. Max figured he had two choices: cut his losses and come back tomorrow, or stay and take whatever flak Jed chucked his way.

  The decision was a no-brainer.

  He crossed the room and put his hands on Jed’s shoulders. Jed seemed to let his legs fall open to draw him closer without much conscious thought.

  “Bad day?” Max said.

  Jed let out a defeated huff of air. “Just long. I feel like a bug in a box.”

  He rested his forehead on Max’s chest. Max wrapped his arms around him, sure he could feel Jed’s heart hammering through his skin. Maybe he could. They hadn’t touched much in the past week or so, and it felt like they’d gone back to the start.

  “I’m sorry,” Jed said after a while.

  “What for?”

  “Being an ass?”

  Max could forgive Jed anything when he was leaning on him the way he was then. “Don’t worry about it. You can show me how sorry you are when I get you home.”

  “Oh yeah? What if I’m real fucking sorry?”

  Max bent to kiss Jed, stopping when his lips were a hairsbreadth away. “Then you can show me more than once.”

  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.