Free Burn Down the Night by M. O'Keefe Page B

would.
    I didn’t say anything, because it didn’t matter. He knew. He was well aware of my fear. He could probably smell it.
    “Fuck your painkillers,” he said and lifted the wrist handcuffed to the bed so it rattled the chain.
    “Max—”
    “Go away, Joan,” he whispered. He was falling back asleep
    Another few hours passed. I did every crossword and Sudoku puzzle in the papers with one eye on Max. I got myself a few of those burritos from across the street, but they weren’t as good as I remembered. I had a sudden craving for macaroni and cheese. For Jell-O and forgiveness.
    Oh, to have a second chance at that meal. I would have done everything differently. I would have let Jennifer eat until she was full. Until she couldn’t move. Who knows how different things might have been if I’d done that.
    I napped and played Candy Crush on my phone until finally, a few hours later, Max sighed heavily. He’d been sleeping so deeply I jumped at the sound. I hopped up and checked his forehead. The fever was gone and the bed was nearly awash in sweat.
    Fern had been right. The fever had broken. The infection was under control.
    “You’re not going to die,” I said out loud. It had been so quiet since Fern left, so quiet that when the air conditioner thunked on I jumped practically out of my skin.
    “Let’s hope you not dying is a good thing, Max Daniels.”
    I undid the handcuff and tucked the key and the cuffs in the pocket of my cutoffs.
    The room smelled slightly of blood and sweat and I decided there was no time like the present to do the little bit of laundry we had. I stripped the sheets off my side of the bed and then put my hands under his shoulders to try and roll his dead weight over onto the bare mattress.
    His skin was pale and slick, and for some reason, this felt far too intimate. My hands felt full of him and I didn’t like it. He moaned and the vibrations in his chest rolled up from my hands to my arms. To my own chest. I felt his moan inside my body. And the reality of all of this was too much. He’d nearly died. I had only barely saved him.
    All I wanted was my sister back and somehow I’d adopted a biker.
    I felt too responsible. There were too many threads tying us together. And I still needed him. And he still needed me. And that sucked on a whole lot of levels—mostly because I wasn’t used to being needed. I wasn’t good at it. But I was worse at needing people.
    Finally he rolled, groaning as his legs were tangled in the blanket. I pulled the sheets free, leaving the quilt over his bare body. I made sure the catheter hadn’t gotten dislodged.
    Hello, Max’s penis.
    And then I gathered up the sheets and the rest of his dirty clothes—leaving the bloodstained leather cut on the dresser.
    The laundry was just on the other side of the hallway.
    After I put the laundry in I decided to head out to Winn-Dixie. Because tuna salad and gas station burritos wasn’t going to be much good for Max. When I came back an hour later, I was half prepared to find him up, standing and dressed, gun in hand ready to get back to his fucked-up life.
    But the condo was dark.
    He was still sleeping on the bare mattress. I touched his skin and found him cool to the touch.
    In the kitchen, I emptied the jar of chicken noodle soup into a pot on the stove—because soup was what you fed people in sick beds—I learned plenty from an addiction to historical romance novels, thank you very much.
    I also had the stuff to make grilled cheese sandwiches—white bread, cheese slices, and a tub of margarine.
    It was pretty much all I knew of comfort. And it was from another lifetime.

Chapter 9
    Max
    Cold and shaky, I woke up with a start.
    Naked. I was naked in a murky room that was vaguely familiar.
    Closed blinds, the sound of the ocean. The low dresser across from the bed.
    His and hers.
    I remembered thinking that. When was that? Yesterday? A week ago?
    My head fucking pounded. I lifted my wrist, and then remembered