Joshua dragged Van to the bathroom door and braced him there while he worked Van’s clothes off. His pants were frozen, and so were his shoes and socks. Skin bright red from the cold. By contrast, his chest and back were ghostly pale. With Melody’s help, he got Van into the tub and the hot, running water. Van settled as before, knees drawn up, eyes forward and unseeing. Joshua draped a towel across his shoulders to try and lock in some residual heat from the steam coming up off the water.
“Should we call an ambulance?” Melody asked.
“I don’t think so. He doesn’t look like he’s physically hurt.” Joshua thought back to the beach. “When I asked Van to come home with me, he said something about leaving home and leavinghimbehind.”
“Him who?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“Listen, I’ll call Beatrice and let her know you found him,” she said. “Maybe she’ll have some idea about this he.”
“Okay.” It took all of Joshua’s self-control not to climb into the tub with Van, just to hold him. Joshua had finally stopped shivering, but he was cold inside. Cold with fear and concern and a dozen other things, and mostly he wanted to fix this. To makeit better for Van, and to chase away whatever ghosts had him this deep inside of his own head.
Except he didn’t know how to.
So, Joshua called Benji. “Are you someplace private?” he asked, before taking in the pale, bare wall behind Benji’s head.
“Yeah, back in our room at the motel,” Benji replied. “Are you in the bathroom? Did you find Van?”
Joshua quickly recapped his discovery and subsequent delivery of Van into a hot bath. “Try talking to him, okay?” He shifted around and put the phone in front of Van’s empty stare.
“Van? It’s Benji. Can you hear me? I miss you, and I can’t wait to see you again. I love being on the road, but it’s hard not having you two around.” Benji’s voice got choked up. “Please, say something. Josh?”
“I know.” He leaned in and kissed Van’s cool temple. On his phone, Benji looked close to tears. “Something’s got him and won’t let go, and it’s gotta be huge. Van’s a rock. He doesn’t break like this.”
“I’m coming home.”
“What?” Joshua pulled the phone closer to himself. “You have a gig in less than an hour.”
“Fuck the gig, Josh, you and Van are family. I need to be there for this.”
“We don’t even know what this is.”
“Then I guess you have a couple of hours to figure it out. I’m getting the first flight I can find out of Charlotte, and I will be there.”
“Ben—”
“Take care of Van until I get home.” The connection ended.
I’ll take care of him if he lets me, Ben. That’s a promise.
TWENTY-FIVE
“What in theblue hell do you mean you’re leaving?” Eddie snarled. The tiny back room of the club was packed with not only their equipment cases and five people, but a plethora of extra supplies that cramped the space and made it hard to breathe.
But Benji wasn’t backing down from Eddie’s temper, or from the shock oozing off his band mates. “I have a family emergency, and I have to go home.”
“It is your parents?” Danielle asked.
“No, it’s Van.” Benji didn’t even know how to describe it when he had no idea what was happening. All he did know was even if he stayed put, he’d never make it through a full set without breaking down. His chest ached with uncertainty and fear, and he needed to be with his boyfriends.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know, but it’s bad.”
“How bad?”
“Joshua pulled him out of the ocean in fucking December bad.” Benji was getting tired of the questions. He didn’t have to explain himself, not with this.
