“Honestly?” Max let out an irritated breath of air and rubbed his hand over his head. “I know it’s ironic, and hypocritical given what Kim told you yesterday, but I’m so bloody pissed off you didn’t tell me you were ill. I could’ve helped you. It didn’t have to be like this.”
Jed took a moment to absorb that Max seemed to know Kim had been to see him. His mind was slow, clouded by pain and drugs, but the conversation he’d had with Kim would stay in his mind forever. “You do help me, more than you know. And I’m sorry, okay? It’s something I had to deal with, and I guess I didn’t deal with it very well.”
Max put a cautious hand on Jed’s chest. He rubbed a small circle that made Jed’s eyes fall closed for a brief, soothing moment. “Trust me, I understand that part. I just don’t get how you could let me… how you could sleep with me when youknewwe were both hiding something so huge from each other.”
“Because it didn’t change anything, at least not for me.”
“But it did, didn’t it? I saw the way you looked at me the night of the wedding, like you didn’t recognize me, and maybe you didn’t. That’s not right, Jed. It’s not bloody right.”
Jed started to shake his head. The room swam. He licked his dry lips and let his head fall back on the pillow.
Max gave him a moment, then took his hand again. “I’ve only been with one other person since my… since I came to America. I lived with him and tried to be everything he needed me to be, but I couldn’t do it because there was a big black hole between us, like a bridge I couldn’t cross. It was different with you. Everything’s different with you.” He paused and took another deep breath. “I would’ve told you about my parents, Jed. I don’t know when or why, but I would’ve. I don’t think you ever would’ve told me about this.”
Jed closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear to see Max so sad, but he had nothing left.
Max pulled the thin sheets back over him, and his kiss on Jed’s cheek was like a gentle breeze.
Chapter Twenty-Four
MAXDRUMMEDhis fingers on the arm of the hard plastic chair. His stomach growled. It was midmorning, and he’d missed breakfast, but he didn’t care. Unable to sleep, he’d caught a bus back to the hospital at the crack of dawn, only to find Dan had never left. Jed had been unwell overnight, and Dan had stayed by his side throughout.
The sickness had eased by the time Max reached Jed, but the pain was so bad he’d needed a shot of morphine. Max didn’t get much sense out of him before he passed out, and he didn’t wake up until an orderly came to take him down for the scheduled endoscopy.
Endoscopy. Max scowled. Yet another word he’d had to look up. He didn’t want to live in ignorance of what Jed was going through… of what he’d already been through. He wanted to know it all, to have enough knowledge to support Jed the way he deserved, but, fuck, it was hard. Max was horrified by what he’d learned the past day or so, and it was almost enough to make him forget that Kim had saved him the trouble of confessing his own deepest and darkest secrets.
Almost. In many ways, Max didn’t know how he felt aboutthat. He’d had twenty-four hours to reconcile himself with the fact that Jed knew everything, but despite years and years of hiding, from himself as much as anyone else, Max couldn’t find it in himself to care. None of it mattered, not now. For the time being—for the next half hour or so, at least—nothing mattered except seeing Jed safely return from having a camera-tipped tube forced down his throat.
Max got up and walked to the large window in the waiting room. The sun was out in Portland, disguising the bitterly cold wind. From behind the spotless glass, he could almost pretend it was a bright summer day instead of the back end of winter.
The thought depressed him. Jedcouldn’tspend the summer in the hospital. Max had plans for the summer, fantasies he’d dreamed up while hard at work alone in the boat shed. Fishing, swimming in the lake, all the produce he wanted to show Jed they could grow in the garden. Jed liked the garden. Max often saw him reading on the stone steps to the greenhouse. Only the lashing rain drove him indoors.
Dr. Howarth said he only wanted to keep Jed in a few days, but as Max stared across the hospital parking lot, a persistent sense of foreboding began to brew in the pit of his stomach. Jed had an incurable, life-changing condition, and so did Max. Realistically, what kind of future did they have? What if they both got sick at the same time? How could he take care of Jed if he couldn’t take care of himself?
“Max?” Hector Valesco appeared quietly beside him, placing his warm weathered hand on his arm. “You all right there, son? How’s that boy doing?”
Max smiled in spite of himself. Jed would turn thirty-three on his next birthday. Aside from his rakish grin, there was nothing boyish about him. “They took him away to do an endoscopy… a test on his stomach.”
“Ah, I think Carla was talking about that this morning. It doesn’t sound nice, but it is a quick procedure, she said. It shouldn’t take long, no?”
“That’s what they said.”
“Then come away from the window, son. Rest a little. Anna will be cross if she sees you so weary.”
“Anna’s here?”
Hector drew Max away from his staring contest with the window and led him to the hard plastic chairs. “Not yet. She had to stop at Carla’s with some groceries, but she will be here soon. Lord help the boy when she gets her hands on him.”
Max could relate to that. It had been a few years since a seizure had last landed him in this very hospital, but Anna Valesco’s fussing wasn’t so easily forgotten.
The image of her smothering Jed was comforting. Max slouched down in his chair and tried to let Hector’s gentle small talk wash over him, though Hector seemed to know he wasn’t in the mood to chat. About ten minutes had passed when a nurse popped her head around the waiting room door. “Are you with Sergeant Cooper?”
Max started. It felt strange to hear Jed referred to by his military title. He saw it on his mail all the time, but it was rare that anyone acknowledged it aloud. “Is the procedure finished?”
“Not yet. There was a delay in starting. Jed hasn’t responded well to the sedation. Would you like to come down and sit with him? It might help.”
“Um….” Max looked down at his twitching hands and jittery knees. He longed to go to Jed and comfort him, but in his heart he knew he couldn’t be without Flo right now.
Hector laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll go. Are you going to be okay by yourself?”