It wasn’t, and then I remembered he didn’t have one. I checked the emergency phone Flo and Desta were trained to use, but the only numbers there were the hospital’s and Max’s sister, who I’d gone to bed toavoid.
Chewing my lip, I drifted back to the living room. One of my sketchbooks was on the table from yesterday. I picked it up as I sat on the floor by the fire and flipped through it to a blank page, but my heart wasn’t in the lazy sketches I made of Zola and Desta. The storm raged outside and seemed to get worse with every rumble of thunder. I couldn’t believe Jed was sleeping through it until I realized a little while later that he wasn’t asleep at all—he was propped up on one elbow, watching, though the lines of pain on his face told me I wasn’t the only thing on his mind. “Can I get youanything?”
He shook his head. “Nah. Just too decrepit to moverightnow.”
That explained why Desta hadn’t looked my way. “Sure you don’t want some tea orsomething?”
“I’m good, Ash. Can I see whatyoudrew?”
I knew a deflection when I heard one, and so I passed the sketchbook over. “Do you know wherePeteis?”
Jed’s gaze flickered to the rain-lashed windows. “Last I knew, he and Max were heading out to the fixer-upper cabin on the other side of the lake. They probably stayed there when the storm picked up. Flo doesn’t like getting wet in heroldage.”
“Pete’s not a big fan of it either. Is the other cabindry,then?”
“Some of it. Rest of it is as fucked upasme.”
“Bullshit. Max told me you lap the lake in good weather, and I know you ran the Boston Marathon with Glenn lastsummer.”
“Ain’t summer now,isit?”
There was no bitterness in Jed’s tone, but his reality hit home as I stared at him. He was so reticent about his disabilities that I sometimes forgot they were there.Lucky me.“I’msorry.”
“Whatfor?”
“Idon’tknow?”
Jed chuckled. “Then don’t worry about— Jesus, was I drooling?” He held up my sketch of him sleeping on the couch, though my focus had been Desta and his unwavering watch over his master. “My niece draws me sometimes when I’m sick. I don’t get thefascination.”
“If you’re anything like Pete, when you’re sick or sleeping is the only time you’ll let anyone stare at you forthatlong.”
Jed’s grunt was noncommittal. He put the sketch down and sat up as the room flashed with the lightning outside. His gaze drifted to the window again, but he was, as ever, hard to read. “I’m going to chuck the kettle on the stove. You wantsometea?”
“Um…” I hadn’t gotten the taste for the weird tea Jed and Max drank yet. Pete seemed to like it, but it tasted like grass to me. “Can I get somewater?”
“Sure.”
Jed rose from the couch and limped from the room. I didn’t offer to help him because I knew he’d refuse, but I listened as he moved around the kitchen—both for him and for Desta’salertbark.
Zola jumped daintily from the couch and ventured closer to the fire. I put a hand out to pet her, but she evaded me, and I grinned to myself. The tiny dog was more than a little attached to Pete, and I didn’t blame her, even though my heart ached for her as the rumbling thunder made hertremble.
It made me tremble too as I thought of Pete holed up in a derelict cabin with Max and Flo. At home we sometimes watched storms together from our big bay windows, but I remembered sleepless nights when Pete had been a city paramedic, watching the weather roll in with no idea wherehewas.
“Don’t fret.” Jed appeared in the doorway with tea and water. “It rains a lot here. Max knows all the best placestohide.”
I got up and took both drinks from him and set them on the coffee table. “You’re not worriedatall?”
Jed shrugged. “I’d rather Max was out there with Pete thananyoneelse.”
He didn’t say why, but he didn’t have to. Max’s epilepsy was far more noticeable than Jed’s disabilities. He hadn’t had a grand mal seizure while we’d been here, but glitches in his consciousness happened all the time, like a devil knocking at the door, and Jed’s apparent calmness didn’t quiteringtrue.
But I left it alone. What went on in Jed’s brain was none of my business, and as the hours ticked by and the clouds darkened, his state of mind was the least of my concerns. The storm raged, relentless and fierce, and the possibility that Pete and Max wouldn’t make it back before nightfall made my teeth itch. What about food? And how cold would it get? Chicago winters were fucking brutal. How many news reports had I seen about homeless people who’d frozen to death— “Jesus!”
Desta flew past my head, kicking Jed square in the chest as he leaped from the couch and shot out of the room. I scrambled to my feet and followed him as he hurtled to the front door, little Zola hot on his heels, her bark echoing in thehallway.
The dogs stopped at the door. Desta whined and scratchedthewood.
“Open it,” Jed said from somewhere behind me. “They can hear something wecan’t.”
