Only Love

by Garrett Leigh

  “I guess,” Jed echoed, but Max could see he was suddenly miles away.

  Jed did that from time to time—slipped away to another place. From the tortured look in his eyes when he came back, Max could tell it wasn’t anywhere nice.

  Chapter Twelve

  JED WATCHED Tess scamper around the bases set out in the school gymnasium. It was the second time he’d come to softball practice. In his peripheral vision, he could see Max coaxing Belle through her batting drills. Jed’s lips turned up in a faint smile as Flo watched the ball sail through the air with mournful eyes. She wasn’t allowed to play when practice was held indoors.

  Sensing eyes on him, Max looked up and grinned. Jed grinned back before he deliberately averted his gaze. Things had been strange since Max’s seizure and the resulting round of musical beds. Max seemed to have bounced back unscathed, and neither man had mentioned the two nights they’d spent together, but despite them both returning to their own rooms, those nights hung over them like a warm haze of blurred boundaries.

  Jed had spent a lot of time with people who were vulnerable and scared, but it was different with Max. Everything was different with Max. On the second night, lulled by the metronome of Max’s deep and even breathing, Jed had fallen asleep wanting nothing more than to climb inside him and pry the epilepsy right out of his damned brain.

  But that wasn’t all that bothered him. Max had been all over the place the day after the seizure, slipping in and out of lucidity, and Jed wondered if he’d meant to tell him about the locked box under the sink. He hadn’t noticed the tattered plastic folder of old documents the first time he’d opened it, distracted by caring for Max, but later that day he’d returned to the box to stash the tramadol prescription he’d reluctantly filled. This time, he saw a crumpled folder, and this time, he couldn’t help but look.

  He wished he hadn’t. He’d known from the beginning that something about Max didn’t quite add up—the vague back story, the mysterious, unexplained absence of any immediate family except Kim. Even the frequent, brief pause when someone called his name. Jed had put it down to the epilepsy, and his own overactive imagination, but the birth certificate and expired Irish passport in the folder said otherwise.

  Max O’Dair wasn’t quite who he said he was.

  Jed considered confronting Max with the passport. Then he considered closing the box and pretending he’d never seen it all, but in the end, he left his tramadol in the box and hoped Max would realize he’d seen it and come to Jed of his own volition.

  Max hadn’t, of course. Why would he? It wasn’t like he owed Jed an explanation, and there were plenty of possible explanations for why he’d changed his name. And Kim too. Now Jed had started to pay attention, he was almost certain her name wasn’t her own either.

  “Earth to Coop? I said, you should totally come and spend Christmas with us. My mom would love to have you. Are you even listening to me?”

  Dan’s casual use of a long forgotten childhood nickname took Jed by surprise. He hadn’t seen much of Dan since he’d been back—PT and all the crap that came with it took up most of his time—but each encounter with him reminded him of something his mom had always said.

  “The sign of a true friendship is one you can pick up after decades and nothing’s changed.”

  Bullshit platitudes weren’t Jed’s scene, but he could see the logic when it came to Dan, and indeed, Dan’s whole family. If he had to acknowledge Christmas at all, there was nowhere he’d rather be than the Valesco family home. But it wasn’t to be. He opened his mouth to respond, but was cut short by Tess barreling into him.

  She collided with his left side, her sharp knees and elbows jamming into his leg, and her head thwacking his stomach with a sickening thud. “Uncle Jed! I ran all the way around twice and you didn’t even notice.”

  Jed gritted his teeth to keep the string of profanities inside. White dots danced in front of his eyes, he swayed, and for a horrifying moment he feared he would fall and take Tess with him.

  Suddenly, Max was there. He pried Tess from Jed’s grasp, and after a brief, concerned backward glance, took her off toward the far side of the gym.

  Jed stepped back, steadying himself on the wall. He felt Dan’s gaze on him as he took some long slow breaths.

  “You okay, man?”

  Jed nodded slowly, buying time before he could trust himself to speak. “Yeah, sorry, what were you saying?”

  “Christmas,” Dan said, looking puzzled. “My mom wanted me to invite you. Max too.”

  Jed shook his head. Max had already warned him that despite the disaster of Thanksgiving, the kids were expecting him at the Cooper house on Christmas Day. Coupled with the looming task of gift shopping, Christmas had become a prospect that made his skin crawl. He offered Dan a vague shrug, but his mind was abruptly diverted by the painful roll of his stomach. His blood ran cold, and all at once, he knew he had to get home before he puked all over the shiny gym floor.

  “Can you give Max a ride home?”

  Dan frowned. “Sure. Are you…?”

  Jed backed away, dodging Dan’s outstretched hands. “I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Jed didn’t see Dan the next day, or the day after that. His cell phone rang again and again, but he ignored it, too caught up trying to cope with the pain his collision with Tess had caused.

  CHRISTMAS WAS almost upon him before he felt halfway human again.

  He stood at a hospital window with Carla beside him. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.” Carla grinned. “Next time, we’ll run through the grounds together, and if you make it without falling on your ass, you can start running at home.”

  “Outside?”

  Carla rolled her eyes. “No, on the secret treadmill you have stashed at the cabin. Yes, outside. I know you’re dying to get out there. You’ve got that look—like my dog gets when I forget to walk him.”

  Jed didn’t appreciate being compared to a Labrador, but he was too excited by the prospect of regaining his freedom to care much. He hadn’t been up to PT for most of the week, and the positive news caught him off guard. With a grin of his own, he slung his arm around her slim shoulders. It was the second lot of good news she’d given him that day. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Carla said. “I know you haven’t felt good this week, but what you’ve achieved so far is amazing. You’ll get there. I promise.”

  Jed made his way home with a lightness in his bones he hadn’t felt in months, maybe even years. He’d known for a while that Carla was fast becoming a good friend, but that morning she’d come through for him on a whole new level. Passing over his credit card so she could do his Christmas shopping had been a huge weight off his mind. The only snag was her parting shot about Max.

  “You’ll have to figure him out yourself. He loves presents, but he hates material crap.”

  THAT EVENING, Max came in from a long day in the boat shed to find Jed sitting on the floor by the fire with his laptop. He looked like he’d been there a while, judging by the number of books spread out on the coffee table.

  Max studied him for a moment unnoticed, taking in the focused, intelligent green eyes and soft blond waves growing out of a military buzz cut. It was rare that he caught Jed unawares. He seemed to hear and see everything.

  Yeah, including that batch of seizures.

  A shot of embarrassment rippled through Max. Things had been a little odd since then. Between them, they’d managed to figure out he’d had a mild seizure on his walk with Flo, and another, more serious, grand mal seizure when he’d returned to the boat shed to compulsively check his tools.

  Heat flooded Max’s cheeks as he pictured the scene. He supposed he was lucky Jed found him, but a big part of him wished he hadn’t. He’d learned to live with his epilepsy, but it pissed him off that Jed had to see it. He must’ve been quite a mess for Jed to spend two nights in bed with him.

  Max recalled waking up on the second night to find Jed sleeping peacefu
lly beside him, and a different warmth rushed through him. With a book by his side, it was clear Jed hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but even in the darkness Max found he couldn’t stop staring. He’d seen Jed sleep before—on the couch, at the kitchen table with his head on his arms—but that night, curled on his side in Max’s bed, he’d seemed different. The weathered lines had fallen away and revealed his boyish face, for once untouched by fatigue and pain.

  Entranced, it was all Max could do not to trace a path along his stubble-dusted jaw. In an effort to control himself, he’d retracted his already reaching hand and rolled over, and when he woke next, Jed was gone, leaving Max to wonder if he’d imagined his presence altogether.

  A little while later, Max considered the contents of the kitchen cupboards. He hadn’t been grocery shopping for more than a week, and combined with the bare fridge, there wasn’t much inspiration to be found. Frowning, he reached for some rice noodles and opened another cabinet. Peanut butter, sesame seeds, and a tired bunch of scallions followed, but he was unimpressed by the wok of spicy noodles they turned into ten minutes later.

  He carried a plate into the living room for Jed, though he knew he was probably wasting his time. Jed had been off his food ever since Tess had walloped him at softball practice. Max wasn’t sure if the two things were connected, but the unhealthy gray tinge to his face had remained in place for days. Out of desperation, Max had attempted to pick Carla’s brain, but his efforts at subtlety went down like a lead balloon.

  “Honey, you probably know better than me, shacked up in that cozy cabin.”

  Her knowing smirk had gotten under Max’s skin, but she had nothing on the grin Jed shot his way when he finally looked up from his work and took the plate from his outstretched hand. “Smells good. What is it?”

  “Um, noodles? There wasn’t much to work with.”

  “Do we need to go shopping?” Jed took a cautious bite. “Hey, this is good.”

  Max rolled his eyes. “That’s the peanut butter talking, but yeah, we could do with a grocery run. It can wait, though. There’s no point now until after Christmas.”

  Jed ignored the barb. “Whatever. Just no fucking Walmart, okay?”

  “Okay, okay.” Max held up his hands in surrender. Jed’s discomfort in the supersized store hadn’t gone unnoticed. He was a cool dude—smooth and inscrutable—but he’d been unnerved in the superstore, like he’d never seen anything like it. Perhaps he hadn’t. A few days back, he’d told Max that before he was injured, he hadn’t set foot on American soil in years. Did they have Walmarts in the Middle East? Max honestly had no idea. “What are you doing? Is this your translating stuff?”

  “Yeah.” Jed put his half-finished plate to one side. “It’s pretty dull, and I’m a little rusty with Sudanese dialects, but it’ll keep me out of trouble for a while.”

  Max nodded. Jed had explained the many variants of Arabic spoken around the world before. Most of it went over Max’s head, but he remembered that the Congolese French Makemba spoke had been heavily influenced by local, tribal languages. Fascinated, he pointed to one of the books open on the coffee table. “Can you actually read that?”

  “Most of it. It’s an Arabic textbook on childbirth.”

  “What?”

  Amused, Jed pulled the book closer. “I’m translating a prenatal care document. Did you know only 10 percent of Sudanese women have access to medical facilities when they’re pregnant?”

  “Um, no?”

  “Well, it’s true.” Jed pointed to a small pile of American healthcare leaflets. “So the aid agencies have to educate local people like this.”

  Max felt his eyebrow rise as the subtle fervency lacing Jed’s words struck home. “You really care about this, huh?”

  Jed’s grunt was noncommittal, but Max caught the faint spark in his eyes. He let it drop, reaching for Jed’s half-full tea mug and unfinished plate. “Are you done?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Your dinner.” Max rolled his eyes. So much for his ninja senses… “Are you finished?”

  Distracted, Jed shook his head. “I’ll have some more in a bit.”

  Max took that as his dismissal and retreated to the kitchen to clean up.

  Later, he ventured back into the living room and flipped the TV on. Jed didn’t even look up, but he did adjust his position on the floor to lean against the couch while Max stretched out behind him. Combined with the heat of the fire, the warmth of Jed’s body was nice, too nice. When the urge to lean forward and press his lips to the back of Jed’s neck became too much, he gave up and went to bed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  CHRISTMAS DAY dawned cold and crisp. Jed watched the sunrise down by the water, with Flo by his side. It was the first time Max had entrusted her into his care overnight, though part of him suspected it was the other way around. She hadn’t left him since Max had departed for the Cooper house the night before. Even a tentative three-mile run around the lake hadn’t put her off.

  Jed sat back on the frosted wooden jetty and tilted his face to the sky. His body was sore from his first cautious solo run outside, and he needed to get inside and warm before he seized up, but for a moment, he allowed himself to indulge in the exercise-induced endorphins. He’d missed them. It had been far too long.

  His mind wandered to Max. Jed let it happen willingly. Though he found comfort in his newfound solitude, the cabin was lonely without Max—without his incessant fidgeting, clutter and awful punk music. Jed hated the Clash—a British SAS crew he’d once shared a hangar with had played London Calling all day every day for a month—but he got a kick out of watching Max dance around his workshop. It seemed to fit with his soft London accent, the accent that sent shivers down Jed’s spine. In moments like those, it was all too easy to forget the instinct he had that something wasn’t right.

  Jed shivered now at the thought of it. He’d put the mysterious passport to the back of his mind, and he was determined for it to stay there. His gut, albeit faulty, told him Max was good to the bone, and that was enough for him. It had to be. There could be nothing else.

  Beside him, Flo cocked her head to one side and whined. She’d had enough and wanted to go inside. Jed did as he was told and drifted back to the cabin.

  His cell phone rang as he was dressing after his shower. He picked it up, surprised to see Max’s name flash on the screen. Max had never called him before. “Hello?”

  “Merry Christmas. Haven’t starved to death without me, have you?”

  “Very funny,” Jed said dryly. Max had left the fridge stocked with enough food for a week, rather than the twelve hours he’d left Jed alone for. He seemed to have forgotten Jed was perfectly capable of cooking for himself. “Me and Flo had a pasta party last night, if you must know.”

  “A party, eh? I should leave you unsupervised more often, bring out your wild side.” There was a beat of silence, an inscrutable pause that stretched a touch too long and reminded Jed of the sadness in Max’s eyes when he’d told him he couldn’t sleep over at the Cooper house on Christmas Eve without killing his brother.

  “No killing at Christmas, Jed,” Max had said. “Stay home with Flo. I’ll tell the kids you’re helping Santa.”

  “Uh, anyway,” Max went on. “I need you to do me a favor. In my room, I left Tess’s presents in the box under the bed. Can you bring them for me?”

  Jed agreed, but Max’s thanks were drowned out by the squeals of two excited children who were bound to have been awake almost as early as Jed and Flo. Jed bade him good-bye, dropped his phone on the bed, and ventured into Max’s room to search out the forgotten gifts.

  He found them easily enough. Carla had helpfully supplied Jed with gift-wrapped presents, but Max had insisted on wrapping all his gifts in newspaper and string. At first there seemed to be no rhyme or reason, but it didn’t take long to spot that he’d saved the appropriate newspaper for each recipient’s birthday and searched out a pleasant page of news. The arts pages for Kim, the sport supplement for
Nick. In Tess’s case, he’d found a story about a giant blueberry pie.

  See? Good to the bone….

  Later that day, Jed found himself resorting to an old habit of hiding out in the den of the Cooper house. Though Kim called it the family room, he’d figured long ago it was the best place to catch some much needed peace and quiet.

  He sank down on the couch and put his head in his hands. For once, he didn’t feel sick and nauseated. He wasn’t even that tired. Instead, he was freaking the fuck out. Gifts and their resulting mess and noise, piles of food, the constant stream of neighborhood visitors…. Jed couldn’t keep up. Even the kids and their fiddly new toys grated on his stretched nerves.

  A dry, ironic chuckle escaped him. Last year, he’d spent Christmas in Mosul, guarding the small Christian population of the city while they celebrated behind closed doors. A truck bomb had exploded just meters away from his patrol post and he hadn’t broken a sweat. Now? Now the tinny chattering noise of Tess’s new computer game set his teeth on edge.

  The door to the den opened. Jed glanced up, expecting to see Max or Tess looking for him, or maybe Belle, or even Kim. The last face he expected to see was Nick’s. They’d hardly spoken since the chaos of Thanksgiving.

  Nick stepped further into the room, proffering a plate. “I, uh, brought you some food.”

  Startled, Jed took the plate. He set it on the coffee table, eying it warily. It was piled high with all sorts of crap he couldn’t eat, and he considered ignoring it, but then reached absently for one of Max’s stuffin’ muffins. Sometimes the homemade cornbread was the only thing he could stomach.

  Nick hovered by the arm of the couch. “Are you okay?”

  Jed sighed. Were they really going to play that game? “Yeah, man. Just tired.”

  “Holidays not your thing?”

  “They don’t seem to be yours either.”

  Jed swallowed the last of the muffin. The sensation of food in his stomach felt good, like it would probably stay there. He leaned forward and inspected the rest of the plate, drawn to the foods he knew Max had cooked and pushing all the meat aside.