“Too soon,” Zoe said, sighing heavily. “I just wanna sleep.”
“I can make you tea?” Max suggested.
There was just enough light spilling into the room from the hallfor him to see the face she made at that. She hated the teas mom made her drinkto help her sleep.
Max understood, since they smelled like fresh-mown grass. Fine ona nice summer’s day, not something he’d want to put in his mouth on purpose.
“Hot chocolate?” he offered instead.
That earned him a smile. Pained, and tiny, butthere. If hecould make Zoe smile, at least that was something.
“I’ll be back in a second,” he promised, closing the door overagain and heading downstairs. He covered his mouth as he yawned widely, hiseyelids heavy.
This was more important than sleep. He could sleep when he wasdead.
His heart and stomach ached as he poured milk into a saucepan onthe stove to heat it up. The instructions on the hot chocolate said to add hotwater, but milk was good for Zoe, especially now that she didn’t get outsidemuch. He and his mom had taken to sneaking it into everything.
He stirred the powder in a little at a time, making sure to breakup any lumps. Zoe hated lumps in her hot chocolate, and right now, it was theonly thing Max could think of to soothe her.
A brief search of the cupboards for marshmallows yielded nothing,so Max improvised by sprinkling a little extra chocolate powder over the top,and hoped that’d be good enough.
He wanted to make Zoe a hot chocolate in the bookstore one day,with foamed milk and the huge marshmallows Declan kept ordering.
He just wanted to see her out and about. She would have loved whatAsh and Declan had done with the place. Max brought her books all the time, buthe knew Zoe would have loved to search the shelves for herself.
Blowing on both mugs to cool them off a little, Max headed up thestairs and nudged the door to his sister’s room open, finding her propped up onhalf a dozen pillows with her bedside lamp on.
“One hot chocolate,” Max said, setting it down on her nightstandand sitting down carefully on the end of the bed, where she’d clearly left aspace for him. “Do you need more pillows?” he asked belatedly, steeling himselfto get up again.
“This is fine,” she said, hugging her unicorn-covered hot waterbottle tight. Max wasn’t sure how much good it did, but she seemed to like it.
“Need me to reheat that?” Max asked, nodding to the water bottle.
Zoe shook her head. “It’s still really warm. I’m okay.”
Max could still see tear tracks glistening on her face, so he knewthat was a lie, but if Zoe wanted him to think she was okay, then he’d go alongwith it. There was no point in making her even more miserable by arguing withher.
“You learn anything cool today?” he asked instead, figuring thattaking her mind off how much pain she was in would help at least a little.
“There are these tiny animals called tardigrades that live inwater, and they’re basically indestructible,” Zoe said. “They can survive beingboiled, frozen, and in space. Cool, huh?”
Max smiled at that. “Extremely cool. How tiny are we talking?”
“Like a fifth of the size of a grain of salt,” Zoe said. “They’reeverywhere, too. This whole world of basically immortal creatures just… livingall around us. And they’ve got six legs and little claws,” she added.“Definitely going on the favorite animals list.”
“Long list,” Max said, sipping his hot chocolate. He made a soft,happy sound as the taste hit the back of his tongue, not having realized howbadly he needed the pick-me-up until he’d taken his first sip.
Chocolate really did make everything better.
“Animals are cool,” Zoe defended.
“Can’t argue with that. How’s algebra going?”
Zoe snorted. “Do I have to learn math? Isn’t knowing how to addand subtract enough?”
Max chuckled. “You gotta know math.Especiallyif you wannabe a vet. How’re you gonna calculate how much medicine to give to a cat if youcan’t do algebra?”
“It’s hard,” she complained.
