Page 90 of Before the Bond
I sniffled. Jake said nothing, but I knew he noticed.
“Coffee sounds great,” I said hoarsely.
I sat on the bed while Jake made himself at home in the monoblock chair next to the plastic table. We didn’t immediately speak, choosing to drink in silence. We both needed a second. Especially since I had no idea what to say to him, or what he was going to say to me.
He spoke first. “How are you doing?”
I almost laughed in irony.
“I’ve been better,” I settled on. “And you? Pains getting any better?”
“Actually, yeah,” he said. “I might get used to this whole wolf thing. Being able to sprint at superhuman speed on all fours after you’ve been bedridden forever is very cathartic.”
I managed a smile.
A notification lit up on my phone screen. Daisy from the agency, asking how the contract was going. I turned it face-down.
Jake glanced outside to where my car was, then at the bags by the door. “So,” he said. “Where were you thinking of going? After, I mean.”
“I haven’t gotten that far.”
“Right.”
The conversation lapsed. Outside, a truck hissed and honked as it pulled into one of the empty gas station pumps. Jake turned his cup in a slow circle on his knee, watching his own hands. He didn’t have the blanket to fiddle with anymore, and it showed. He exhaled.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Jake, you don’t have to?—”
“I do!”
I didn’t think I’d ever seen him that adamant.
“I should’ve told you,” he murmured. “I knew and I…”
“Jake.” I kept my voice even. “That wasn’t your call. It was Caleb’s.”
Saying Caleb’s name out loud came with no anger this time. I didn’t know if it was because I’d already turned it over all day, or if Jake’s company had just softened the edges of it again.
Jake finished his coffee and set the styrofoam cup on the table. It tipped. He steadied it.
“I know,” he said. “That doesn’t change how bad I feel about it.”
“It’s okay, Jake.” I breathed out. “What’s done is done.”
The quiet between us shifted. This one stayed.
“I missed you,” I said. “For whatever that’s worth.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Me, too.”
Jake began tapping the table slowly, looking out. The sky outside had gone darker. Then he straightened, and the lightness dropped out of his voice the way it did when he meant business.
“Okay,” he said. “I also came here to say something else. I’m not here to beg, and I’m not here to guilt you into going back. Whatever you decide after this is yours. I just want you making it with the full picture.”
“People keep saying that to me.”
“I know.” He slid his chair a little closer to the bed, the way he used to close the distance when we were going over his charts and he wanted to see. “You know me. You can trust me. I have nothing to gain from hiding anything from you.”
