by Jerry Cole
Eve moved to stand next to Luke and put an arm around him to rub his back without a word.
Anya was bouncing in her very ugly faux fur boots. “If he didn’t get a flu shot because of me and because of the wedding I am never going to forgive myself…” She looked at Luke. “You had one? Please tell me you did…”
“Yeah, early in the season. It was pretty effective this year, so I should be okay.” Luke sighed and leaned his head back. “Fuck… Jack…”
Leslie returned with a cup of coffee in one hand and a box of tissues in the other, and she shoved the box at Anya right as the other woman started sniffling. “The doctors are on the phone with his parents right now. They’ll give us an update in a minute. He’s awake and capable of talking, but the fever is making him pretty incoherent.”
Luke sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He still hadn’t gotten a haircut, and it was almost long enough for him to pull it back. Jack seemed to like it long, anyway. “This is not how I anticipated meeting his parents.”
“I mean, I met them in a hospital after he got half-blown up. Seems to be a bit of a pattern,” Anya sniffed, already sounding stuffy from crying.
Luke looked at her blankly.
“Did he not tell you that story?” she asked, voice quiet.
“No, he was pretty vague about that entire period. He told me he met you after he nearly got killed, but not what the circumstances were. It made him upset every time he tried to tell me, and I wasn’t about to press him on it. He wanted to tell me, just never could get it out.” Luke could feel his head pounding.
She sighed. “Yeah… not surprised he wouldn’t tell you many details.”
Eve put her arm around Anya’s waist, murmuring something that Luke couldn’t hear over the beeps and yells and other noises of the hospital.
“It isn’t my story to tell, but…” Anya chewed her lip. “Fuck it, it sounds like he tried to tell you anyway… It was right after he got news his best friend had died. He ran into a situation that hadn’t been properly analyzed and caught the edge of a blast. It slammed him into a truck and gave him a pretty nasty concussion, broke some ribs, and collapsed a lung. I’d never seen him before in my life, but I was a medic with a team nearby, and so we went in to assist. He was airlifted out and survived, but his parents said he wasn’t himself for years after. I didn’t know him before, obviously, but he was a much angrier person than he is now.
“And Luke, God’s honest truth here, I’ve known Jack for seven years now, and I’ve never seen him so happy since you two got together. I mean he always seemed content, but for the first time in ages he isn’t running around trying to fix everyone’s problems like he’s terrified we’re all going to leave if he doesn’t.” Eve reached over to squeeze his arm. “He seems really, genuinely happy with you.”
Luke was saved from having to answer her by a doctor coming up to them, expression tense. She was also Chinese and looked to be about his age. If his parents had had their way, he would have married someone like her. They had accepted him being gay and had never loved him any less, but he knew they would have preferred that path for him.
“You’re the group with Mr. LeJune?”
“Yeah, that’s us,” Leslie replied.
“In here then, please.” The woman gestured to a room labeled “conference” and then stepped in after them and shut the door. “I’m Dr. Liang.” She looked at Luke. “You’re the boyfriend? The one who called the ambulance?”
“Yeah… I’m Luke.”
“Did you have any warning that he was sick before this evening? You told the admitting nurse that he just had cold symptoms before this.”
“Yeah…I mean, it was a bad cold, and he worked from home for the last few days, but I didn’t think it was anything more than that. I got home from work around 10, and he was watching some shitty TV show and eating ice cream.” Luke was hugging himself, feeling sick again that he hadn’t insisted Jack go to a doctor earlier.
She nodded grimly. “His fever is high, and he’s not coherent. We’re doing a culture and starting him on broad-spectrum antibiotics, but I’m not making any promises.” She paused, then continued. “We can let you in to see him, but he likely won’t be responsive. We have to get his fever down quickly, and keep his blood pressure up.” She looked expectantly at the four of them. They all nodded. “Okay, follow me.”
Luke felt like the entire situation was a bad dream. They had just won the case. Things were going to be okay now. How could this have happened? Jack was in amazing shape and ate a ton of vegetables and barely drank. How could the flu have sent him into shock in just a few hours? His brain was racing through everything, irrational as it was, and he wanted to go back to bed and pretend none of this had happened. The doctor showed him down a hall and past a nurse’s station. She didn’t say anything, and she looked exhausted. Finally, she stopped in front of one of the little cubicles within the ICU area and nodded, then headed off to the nurse’s station to speak with a man typing at a computer.
Jack was now in a hospital gown and on an IV, looking somehow even worse than before. His skin was splotchy and still covered in sweat, and he had a mask over his face for oxygen. Luke sank down in the chair next to the bed and grabbed Jack’s hand, not knowing what else to do, but knowing he definitely didn’t want to leave.
“I’m surprised they’re letting us in here…” Leslie seemed a bit confused.
“His parents probably told them to,” Anya sighed and leaned against the wall, looking at Jack with a resigned expression. She was bouncing a foot nervously, but she wasn’t shaking or jumping like she had been earlier, which was an improvement at least. “They’re on their way. Just texted to say they were getting on the plane.”
Luke looked up from Jack’s face. “Do they know… about me?”
Anya gave a small smile. “Yeah, I’m sure Jack was gushing to them about you. He tells his parents everything. They’re a pretty close family.”
“Oh…” Luke swallowed hard and squeezed Jack’s hand again. “I… I figured I would meet them soon. Jack talked about going out there for a long weekend, or possibly meeting them on a cruise or something. He… was planning on us taking a vacation. As soon as I hired people and had them trained and up to speed.”
“His mother is Becca, his father is Rich. They’re both nice people. They’re obviously going to be worried sick and stressed and snappish, but don’t take that personally because I promise they’ll love you. His dad can be abrasive when things aren’t going well, but he doesn’t mean anything by it, and as soon as this all passes, he’ll be hugging you and buying you a scotch.”
“But I didn’t notice he was this sick… I should have made him go—”
“Luke, stop,” Leslie cut in. “You couldn’t have known. Yeah, he had the flu, but how would you have known it was going to turn into sepsis? Not like he’s a kindergartner or a granny.” She flopped into the other chair in the corner, while Eve hopped onto a counter and began to swing her legs like a child. Dressed in pajamas with her hair in a braid, she looked far younger than the other two women, despite being the same age. Luke didn’t even want to think of how old he looked right now.
“Eve and I will go pick them up at the airport when they land.” Leslie rubbed her head. “You and Anya should stay here in case he comes to.”
Eve nodded her agreement.
They were in for a long night.
***
Jack woke up with a splitting headache, pain in his chest and stomach, and what he instantly recognized as a cannula up his nose. He was also freezing, despite the weight of blankets on him. The lights were dim, but he could hear the beeping and whooshing he recognized from his last stint in a hospital. There were voices coming in through the partially closed door that he recognized instantly as his mother, Anya, and Luke.
He tried to talk, but it came out as a cough. One of them must have heard him because his mother’s head appeared in the door, and a second later all three of them
were bustling in, looking relieved.
“Oh my God, Jack, you’re awake!” His mother exclaimed. Her gray hair was pulled up into a messy, greasy bun on top of her head, and she had massive bags under her eyes. Luke and Anya didn’t look any better than his mother.
“Yeah…” he coughed, throat still sore and head pounding. “What happened? Why am I in the hospital?”
“You had the flu, and you developed sepsis,” Luke replied. “You almost died.” His voice was rough and scratchy. He sounded almost as bad as Jack did.
Jack blinked and tried to sit up a little. “Fuck… I remember you shaking me… and I think maybe an ambulance…”
Luke nodded. His mother sat down next to him and gripped his hand, rubbing it between her own. “We were so worried about you…”
“How long—”
“About three days.” Anya smiled ruefully.
“Fuck…” Jack fell back down completely. “Christ… Didn’t realize it was that bad.”
“It could have been worse, apparently. The doctors thought you might go into full organ failure.” His mother’s mouth was a tight line. “Your blood pressure dropped so dramatically they thought you’d die before we even made it off the plane.”
Jack glanced at Luke. “Not how I expected you meeting my parents, Love.”
All three of them laughed more than the joke warranted, mainly out of relief.
“I’m just glad you’re awake.” Anya was smiling properly now. “I’m going to go get the nurses. They wanted to know when you came to.” She made her way back out into the hall and the door thumped shut behind her.
“Is Dad here?” He looked at his mother.
“Eve dragged your father out to sleep for a while. I stayed at your condo last night with Luke. We’ve all been taking shifts. Your friend Leslie has been coming by a lot as well.”
“She helped me find some emergency hires so I could stay here as much as possible. She’s more of a fairy godmother than a lawyer.” Luke shook his head.
“Yeah…” Jack felt his eyes getting droopy again, and tried to fight to stay awake.
The nurse came in with Anya a second later, and he answered a few questions while they did a vitals check. A doctor came in a few minutes after that. His mother was texting frantically, muttering something about a group chat, and Luke hugged her. Jack wanted to ask some other questions, but he was out before he managed it.
***
Luke watched Jack doze off again and felt an odd mixture of emotions that he couldn’t quite put a name to. He was exhausted. He was elated. He felt almost numb. He supposed that most of it came down to how tumultuous the last 72 hours had been.
“You should go home and get some sleep yourself.” Anya nudged him. She had produced a cup of coffee from somewhere, and he took it gratefully. It wasn’t good coffee by any means, but it was hot and it had caffeine. It was around 4PM and he had arrived here at 7AM. Pao was going to be mad that he hadn’t been home consistently for days.
Luke sighed. “Yeah, probably. He’s waking up and talking coherently again, at least.”
“And I’m sure you haven’t slept well the last few nights.”
“No, not really.”
Jack’s mother, Becca, moved over to their corner from where she had been standing and talking to the nurse. “Luke, you absolutely should get some sleep, Sweetie.” She was a tall, attractive woman who had aged gracefully, and she had been nothing but kind to Luke since she had met him. “From what Leslie told us, you weren’t exactly having a boring week before all of this anyway.”
“No, I wasn’t.” He took another long sip of the coffee. “You’re probably right… doesn’t make a ton of sense for me to stay here, now that we know he’s going to be okay.”
Becca hugged him. “We’ll call you if anything happens, I promise. The nurses said it would be at least a week before he’s well enough to go home.”
Luke nodded again, head fuzzy, and said his goodbyes. He kissed Jack’s forehead and headed to the parking lot where his car was waiting.
He didn’t remember driving home, arriving, feeding Pao, or getting in bed, but he woke up to the sun in his face at 8AM the next day and realized that he had slept almost 14 hours. Pao was standing on his chest and meowing at him urgently, and he made yet another mental note to buy an automatic cat feeder. His parents had purchased one ages ago, but Pao, being smarter than average and twice as determined, had successfully managed to wedge his paw in the mechanism and dispense an entire week’s worth of food in a matter of hours. His mother had sent Luke a photo of the clearly stuffed Pao sitting amidst the wreckage with the caption ‘No regrets.’
Luke looked over at the other side of the bed, then grabbed Jack’s pillow and buried his face in it. It probably wasn’t a great idea, given how sick Jack had been, but the hit of his smell made Luke feel a lot better. Sleeping alone in the house again almost made him feel like the past few months had been a dream, and he hadn’t really been in a relationship with an engineer-and-baking-celebrity at all. Of course, Jack’s clothes were in the closet, and his cooking supplies were in the kitchen, but that wasn’t as real to Luke as the smell of Jack’s shampoo on the pillow.
He carefully dislodged the still-meowing Pao and got up to feed him. There was some very dreary sunshine coming through the clouds, which was more than they’d had in days, and he felt a little better about everything. He poured Pao’s food in his bowl, then checked his phone. The group text had updated, and Jack was waking up more frequently and for longer periods.
A message from Nate said that the new manager was doing great and had already managed to talk one of their suppliers into giving them some free scallops after a minor mix-up with a shipment of asparagus. Apparently their order of 10 pounds of asparagus had turned into 40 pounds of asparagus, and a shouting match between a chef and a delivery guy. The new manager, a guy named JR, had immediately called the supplier and had words with them.
Luke laughed to himself. He really had never gotten the hang of haggling and arguing with people. His mother had been the master of it.
He looked around at the kitchen and the house, and something took hold of him. Luke walked over to the ugly floral curtains that had been hanging in the dining room since before he could remember, and he yanked on them. The old, dusty, sun bleached fabric ripped almost immediately and then came off the hooks with almost no resistance. The watery light poured in, and he looked out over the yard, which needed to be mowed, and the flower beds, which he hadn’t touched. His father had been an avid gardener.
Luke looked down at Pao, who had finished inhaling his breakfast and was washing a paw with wild abandon. “What do you think, Pao? Time to get rid of some crap?”
Pao looked up at him for a second, paw suspended in the air, then continued licking.
***
Jack looked up when he heard the door open. He was watching a movie and dozing. His father had wandered away earlier, muttering something about getting lunch, and there was no telling where the hell he’d gone. His father had always had a tendency to wander around buildings until someone told him not to.
Instead of his father, though, it was Luke. He was holding a box of donuts and grinning.
“Hey! I was wondering where you disappeared to…” Jack leaned up for a kiss as soon as Luke got closer, and the other man obliged.
“I was sleeping, and then I woke up and ripped all of the curtains off the windows.”
Jack blinked at him. “What?”
“You heard me.” Luke sat down on the side of the bed and handed Jack the box of donuts. “I just… my parents aren’t their stuff. And I need to quit moping and remember that. And I always hated those curtains.”
Jack took a custard-filled donut and looked thoughtfully at Luke. “I mean, I’m proud of you. And I’m glad you feel ready to do that. Just a bit surprised at the timing, is all.”
Luke blushed and looked down. “Yeah, well, I realized that I couldn’t see either of us in the hou
se. I’ve been keeping it as a shrine… partially because I had no money, and partially because… I think I just felt like if the house stayed the same, they’d wander in like nothing ever happened someday. But… that won’t happen. It can’t happen. And I almost lost you, and it terrified me.”
Jack reached over and squeezed Luke’s hand. “Luke…”
“I’m okay. Just… it scared me. And I realized that I didn’t want my being weird about the house to become a thing. I love you, and while you do have a lovely luxury condo… eh, maybe it might be easier to cook huge things in a big kitchen. We can figure things out, but… yeah. I just need to start moving forward more. Because I want to see both of us in my life.”
Jack laughed and set the donut box on the side table so he could pull Luke over into a tight hug, careful of the central line and monitors. “I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Epilogue
Luke heard the buzz of his phone and groaned. It was early, and he had a morning of peace before a long series of parties that weekend, and he debated ignoring the phone until it went to voicemail. Jack pulled him tighter against his chest and muttered something against Luke’s neck, sticking his nose into the freshly-shaved undercut that Luke had allowed Eve to talk him into.
Finally, he flipped the phone over to look at the screen. It was Leslie. He answered it, debating if he could kill his own lawyer and get away with it.
“Happy Valentine’s Day!” Leslie chirped from the other end of the line.
“You’re a sadist,” Luke grumbled.
“Maybe just a little. Listen, I have good news for you! Brock Walford just got arrested and marched into a cop car in front of God and everybody at breakfast! He was eating at some trendy hipster spot, and there was a nice, large audience. Looks to me like the DA wanted to prove that the Walfords aren’t above the law after all. Best part? He was on a date with some Swedish model, and she took video of the whole thing and posted it online immediately, and it is already going viral. EVERYONE is going to see his stupid, rich face getting hauled to jail.”
