Page 52 of The Evening Wolves

“Tean?” Jem called quietly toward the stairs.

Emery shook his head, held up a hand, and headed for Colt’s room. He passed Tean on the stairs. The vet was running both hands through his dark storm of hair, and he pressed himself up against the wall to let Emery pass, soft eyes following him.

When he reached the door, Emery rapped lightly.

Silence. If Colt was still crying, he’d passed the sobbing stage.

“Colt,” Emery said. “I need to—” He stopped. His throat was tight, and he found himself struggling to master the wave of emotion threatening to swamp him. “Could we talk? Please?”

Ten seconds. Fifteen. And then shuffling steps came on the other side of the door. The lock turned, and then the shuffling steps moved away. Emery gave him the grace of a handful of seconds before stepping into the room.

Colt’s room looked the way it always did: joggers and sweatshirts carpeting the floor, shoes—many of them once belonging to John—everywhere, water bottles abandoned on every available surface. A faint funk hung in the air—laundry that needed washing, and a teenage boy who had come straight from basketball practice. Colt lay facedown on the bed, a pillow pulled halfway over his head. His breathing sounded thick. One sock, improbably, had come halfway off.

Emery shut the door. He sat on the bed. He tried to float above his thoughts. Ground effect, was that what it was? When the plane flew close to a flat surface and the wings generated more lift and less drag. Like gravity didn’t exist and you could just rush along forever, inches above reality. He reached over and pulled Colt’s sock into place.

Colt made an unfamiliar noise and then spoke into the mattress. “You are so weird.”

Emery saw John’s face again. He felt the old helplessness, not knowing what to say when it would have been obvious to anyone else.

Colt saved him by rolling onto his back and pulling the pillow to his chest. He didn’t meet Emery’s eyes when he said, “Are you and J-H fighting?”

“I don’t know.”

Somehow, even snotty and red eyed, Colt managed to snort.

Emery let out a tiny, broken laugh. “I suppose we are.”

“About me?”

“No.”

Disbelief painted Colt’s face.

“No, Colt. Not about you. This is about a lot of things, I think. Things I didn’t know John felt. Or still felt. We both said things we probably shouldn’t have.”

“So, you should apologize.”

Emery nodded.

“J-H too.”

“He will. He’s much better at it than I am.”

Colt tightened his arms around the pillow. “I’m not going to talk about it.” And then, like a challenge, “If that’s why you came up here.”

Emery nodded again. “Let me see your hand.”

It took a lot of squirming and wriggling, and, in Emery’s mind, it would have taken a lot less effort for Colt just to sit up, but eventually the boy wormed his way across the bed and held out his hand. The knuckles were swollen, and when Emery took his hand, Colt let out a harsh breath.

“How much does it hurt?”

The boy shrugged.

Emery palpated the hand.

“Stop.”

“Is that a ‘stop’ because you’re being a baby or because there’s a sharp pain?”

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