“That’s awesome. My brother’s been sober for sixyears.”
“Is that why you don’tdrink?”
Jed shrugged. He looked better already. “His daddy was a drunk too. I lived with it my whole life, and even when I was finally free of them, it never seemed worth the hassle. Not that I could drink now, even if Iwantedto.”
“Becauseyou’resick?”
“Gastroparesis,”Jedsaid.
The word meant nothing to me. I memorized it to pick Pete’s brain, and on cue, the front door opened. Pete appeared with Liam in tow and Glenn right behind them. Glenn’s gaze zeroed in on Jed’s plastic box before Pete even noticed Jed’spresence.
“Allright?”
Jednodded. “Yep.”
“Sure?”
Jed growled something that was either secret army code or another language altogether. Glenn glared and flipped him the bird. Pete glanced between them before he spotted the box, but with Jed’s Vicodin hidden away, his expression remainedneutral.
Liam peered around Pete’s legs and eyed Desta. Jed caught him looking and nudged Desta forward. “You can scratch his ears, buddy. He’sfriendly.”
Liam took a tentative step forward. He was a bright kid but possessed none of Cosmo’s confidence. Perhaps he was just wired differently, but he’d spent his whole life on the road, running from one disaster into another. It was hardly surprising that he looked at everything like it might evaporate at anymoment.
Desta met Liam halfway, tail wagging. For a moment he looked like he might jump at Liam and bowl him over, but a low noise from Jedstayedhim.
Pete watched the scene play out. “Shame you can’t train my neighbor’s cat to behave like that. Damned thing is amenace.”
Jed snorted. “He wasn’t always like this. Chewed our place to bits when he wasapup.”
“And don’t let Jed claim credit for training him either,” Glenn said. “My girl Flo trainedthatboy.”
Jed rolled his eyes. “It’s true, but Flo ain’t yours, dude. She’sMax’sgirl.”
A phone rang—Jed’s. He retrieved it from his pocket and studied the screen. “Speak of thedevil.”
He grabbed his box and stepped outside. After a moment’s deliberation, Desta followed. Glenn watched them go and then punched my arm. “Whathappened?”
I shrugged. “He said his blood sugar dropped. I got his stuff from downstairs and he was fine a few minutes later. It didn’t seem that big ofadeal.”
Glenn studied me like he was trying to gauge my honesty, then he grunted and went back to the beer Pete had passed him. I glanced at the clock. It was getting late, for Liam, at least. I scooped him up and took him to Pete to say goodnight. Bedtime was usually Pete’s thing, with Cosmo too, but he seemed distracted tonight, so I cut him abreak.
In Liam’s room, I tucked him into bed beneath the baseball mural I’d painted with him a few months ago. “How were the battingcages?”
“I liked them,” Liam said. “I like Lincoln Park too. Pete said we could go to the zoo next week.Canwe?”
“Sure.” I wondered when I’d become someone who got asked questions like that. It happened at work too, now that I co-owned the studio, and I still hadn’t gotten usedtoit.
I left Liam with his nightlight. Unlike Cosmo, he’d never been read to at bedtime, so the concept meant little to him. Besides, with his nose buried in a book, he could probably read better than meanyway.
A strange scene greeted me when I emerged from Liam’s room and found the others in the living room. Jed had returned from his phone call, and Glenn appeared to be goading him into taking his shirt off or at least trying to. Jed didn’t seem the type to be goaded into anything, a theory well founded when Glenn nudged Peteinstead.
“Show himyours.”
Pete rolled his eyes and lifted his shirt. It took me a moment to realize he was showing Jed the zipper I’d tattooed around the surgical scar on hisabdomen.
I turned away. I’d inked the scar because Pete had asked me to, and there were still some days I couldn’t look at it. Couldn’t face how close I’d come to losing him. The tattoo continued to be a source of fascination for anyone who saw it, but it burnedmysoul.
“Whoa. That’s something else.” Jed leaned forward to get a closer look. “If you put a zipper around every scar on my body, I’d look like an industrialized quiltcover.”
