Chapter 16
Jameson cries and cries and cries, one hand in Mason’s shirt and the other hanging at his side, and Mason just stands there with him. My heart beats so hard that it feels like I’m about to walk onstage, only there’s no stage, and there’s no plan.
I want there to be more I can do. I want to have the key to this, like I used to figure out all the answers to the finals well in advance so I could double- and triple-check them.
I don’t know why my mind goes back to those old strategies when talking about law school has resulted in this heartbreak.
It’s not really law school. I know that. But while Jameson cries—his voice ragged and worn out, about to break completely—the old habits kick in. I look for an answer, then look again, and eventually realize that the only answer is to be here.
I feel…very foolish. For not understanding. I kept thinking that the way Jameson’s brothers and his sister and Charlotte approached things was too passive. That there had to be something better.
Maybe it’s less waiting around and more…being there?
What had Charlotte said next?
That probably doesn’t sound like what you want.
No. I’d wanted to find a way to hunt down the kidnapper and capture him. That would have kept us moving.
But it would never have prevented this. Because this has been coming since Jameson’s parents died.
It’s hard to stand still, waiting, but I pretend it’s an exceptionally slow dance.
I’m concentrating so intently that it startles me when Jameson picks up his head, swipes his arm over his eyes, and says a rough okay.
Mason lets go of him.
He and Gabriel and Remy don’t reach for Jameson when he steps around them and leave the kitchen. A minute later, the elevator slides open, then closes.
I’m about to say what the hell? when Mason drops his face into his hands and breathes. Gabriel slings an arm around his shoulders. Remy puts her arms around his waist.
“I’m going to call,” Mason says. “Pack what you need.”
Gabriel and Remy head out, talking to each other in low voices.
“Pack?” I ask. “For what?”
Mason puts a hand on my shoulder and turns me.
The pile of broken dishware on the floor is massive. All the cupboards hang open. Every one of them is empty. The only piece left is Jameson’s Mickey Mouse mug, perched on the counter.
“This isn’t where we want to be for this.”
I turn back around and look up at Mason. “For what? Isn’t he—don’t you think?—”
“I think this is going to get better.” Mason takes a long, slow breath and lets it out. “But first, it’s going to get worse.”
Nobody goes after Jameson.I stand next to Mason in the kitchen while he takes out his phone and taps at the screen.
“Yes and no,” he says. “I don’t have any dishes left. I’m going to have to have someone come in to clear out the debris. And I don’t trust—” When Mason sighs, it sounds punched out of him. “Okay. Yes. I’m sorry there’s so many of us.” There’s a short pause, and then Mason lets out a tired laugh. “Within the hour. Jameson left. I don’t know if any of us?—”
I come to my senses. This isn’t packing. This is eavesdropping.
Twenty minutes later, the elevator doors open on the floor with the guest apartment, and Gabriel, Elise, Nate, and Lydia join Charlotte, Mason, Remy, Robin and I in the elevator. It’s a tight squeeze.
In the parking garage, three SUVs are waiting for us. Mason’s driver, Scott, stands by the door of the first one, calling out instructions to the other drivers. We split up into the two vehicles. Our bags go in the third.
“Is it a long drive?” I ask, once I’ve fastened my seatbelt. Gabriel’s in the front with the driver. Nate and Lydia have taken the back. Elise shakes her head from the seat across from me.
“It’s a hilariously short drive. Not that I think this is funny.”
“No. Not funny.”
It’s still dark out. This is the same night that Jameson came home, fucked me desperately, and left again. The heat in the SUV is a serious threat to my status as a non-sleeping person.
We head south and east through Manhattan.
Along the way, a pair of headlights shines in the window. I look up just in time to see a man I’ve never met climb out of a car and put his hands to his mouth, calling to someone.
The someone he’s calling to is Jameson, who raises his hand in greeting.
“Who’s that? Someone on the security team?”
“Poseidon’s first mate,” Gabriel answers from the front. “His name is Nicholas.”
“His first mate? Like, on a ship?”
“He’s in shipping.” Gabriel’s straight-faced. I thought the shipping thing was a joke. Apparently not. “And Nicholas is used to dealing with the various needs of crew members. He’ll walk with Jameson the rest of the way.”
“I could walk with him,” I offer.
Elise pats my hand. “No, Lily. No. You will ride in the SUV with us, and we’ll meet Jameson at Zeus’s house.”
Zeus’s housemakes no sense.
It makes sense as a mansion, of course, which is what it is. What doesn’t make sense is that there’s no space like this on the island of Manhattan. Space enough for three houses, side by side, only there’s just the massive one in the center, with a circle drive. Lantern lights glow by the big front door.
It’s so late that by brain immediately discards thoughts like why? and how? and isn’t this house impossible? The only thing to do is accept when Gabriel helps me out of the SUV, Snowball’s cage carefully balance, and go in. Zeus is already standing in the open door when we get there, somehow managing to look like he just stepped out of the sun despite his sweatpants and sweatshirts, both of which look soft enough to burrow into and expensive at the same time. He ushers us through the wide foyer and into a huge family room with sofas and overstuffed chairs and an unassuming bar end. Lights on a double fridge built into the wall wink softly. Hallways branch off either side of the family room, and an archway at the back leads to a dining room, I think—I can see a row of dining chairs and a slim section of a table—and beyond that, through another open archway, is the kitchen.
Zeus waves in each direction, giving what has to be an abbreviated rundown of the house’s layout. As he speaks, a tiny figure in shooting-star themed pajamas covered and a bouncy white-blonde ponytail on top of her head sprints in our direction, a tiny stuffed cat held tightly under her nose. She shout-whispers ZeeZeeZeeZeeZee as she makes a beeline for Zeus, and he sweeps her off the floor and into his arms without missing a beat.
“—upstairs, and I think you’ve all met Daisy, Hades’s daughter, but if you haven’t, this is Daisy. Daisy, these are our friends. They’re going to be staying with us for a little while.”
Daisy looks from one person to the next, her dark eyes solemn, then buries her head in Zeus’s shoulder as if none of us exists. Zeus pats at her back. Hades emerges from the kitchen and crosses the dining room with long strides, a shining can of Diet Coke in his hand. Conor pads behind him, then wanders over to the family room rug and lies down. Hades stops next to Zeus and nods like it’s perfectly normal for entire families sans their most upset member to show up at his brother’s mansion in the middle of the night.
“Some people,” Zeus says, pointing at Daisy, “don’t agree with being in the light and rely on their cousins to know when it’s daytime, so don’t be alarmed if you hear small footsteps at odd hours. Should we show them the bedrooms, Daze?”
A muffled yes.
“Good plan.”
We go upstairs.
Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon’s wives are sleeping in rooms on one side of the house along with Artemis, Zeus’s toddler. He sends Mason and Charlotte and Robin into one room. Gabriel and Elise take the next one. Nate sticks his head in one door, then motions for Lydia to follow him. She yawns, her shoulders drooping, and trails after him.
Hades opens a door to his right. “You’re welcome to this room, Lily. There are others if you’d like a different one.”
I want to know how there are so many rooms, especially since the one I step into is not small by any means and has its own en suite.
“It’s lovely.” Snowball tweets tiredly in his cage. Sounds like he agrees. Scott comes in with my bag, deposits it on the foot of the bed, and leaves with a murmured greeting for Snowball. “But I don’t know when?—”
Relatively hushed voices filter up from downstairs.
“That’s Nicholas and your husband,” says.
A relieved sigh whooshes out of me. I knew Jameson wouldn’t get lost on the way here. I knew he’d be fine.
I knew it the whole time.
I find a place for Snowball’s cage on a polished credenza and go back downstairs. Nicholas and Jameson are in the foyer, shoes kicked off, in mid-conversation.
“—reclamation?” Jameson asks, his voice rough but not nearly as rough as it could be. “The repairs for those kinds of systems would mean?—”
“Sure,” Nicholas answers, and answers Jameson’s question while I wrap my arms around his waist and press my face into his chest. Jameson smooths my hair, then my shoulders, then hugs me back. “A few things,” Nicholas finishes, then seems to wander away.
“Water reclamation?” I say into Jameson’s chest.
“Ships are so…” He lets out a breath. “Fascinating.”
“Did you want to come to bed?”
“In a while.”
“Okay.”
I’m getting belated jitters from the whole day. Or the whole night. Both, I guess.
“You’re cold,” says Jameson. “Let’s warm you up.”
The shower in my new en suite is large and luxurious—pretty, my brain supplies, over and over, because it doesn’t need much more than that in the middle of the night. Jameson kisses the side of my neck and the top of my shoulder and then just kisses me while he washes my hair.
“Oh, no.” Everything I say feels monumental by the time I gently insist on washing all the blood off him. “What happened?”
Of course I already know. Of course he already knows. But Jameson just closes his eyes and lets me run the washcloth over his face.
“A run-in,” he finally answers. “Won’t happen again.”
“Good.” I kiss his newly unbloodied cheek. “I don’t like when you come home hurt. I need you here in one piece.”
Jameson opens his eyes, his big hand sliding over my still-flat belly. “I’d understand if you didn’t.”
“Need you?”
“Yeah.”
I kiss the tip of his nose. “Too late.”
He helps me towel off, then dries my hair, then searches through my bag until he finds a nightshirt. When I’m dressed and ready, Jameson helps me into bed, tugs the covers over me, and sits on the edge of the mattress, stroking my hair, his eyes intent.
“What about now?” A yawn interrupts me mid-now. “Time for bed?”
“I’m not tired.” The corner of his mouth twitches. It’s obviously a lie. He has smudges under his red eyes, but tonight isn’t the night for fighting him on it.
I fall asleep with his hand in my hair.
I’m bracedfor things to get worse, but falling into the rhythm of someone else’s family is surprisingly easy. I expect it to be more awkward and tense, but instead it’s like being on vacation at a resort saturated with a steady, calm feeling that I’m pretty sure people would pay a lot to experience.
It doesn’t make me less worried about Jameson, who’s already awake—still awake?—when I wake up the first morning. My heart aches, but the calm makes me think we’ll be able to handle what’s coming.
What has to be coming, from the anxious expressions his brothers wear whenever they think Jameson can’t see. They have to be wondering the same thing I am: what happens when Jameson falls asleep?
Jameson is awakethe second morning, too. His eyes stay red. The smudges underneath them stay dark as new bruises. He’s subdued and oddly quiet, floating from room to room and having low-stakes conversations with his siblings and watching Daisy and Artemis toddle hand-in-hand through the house.
Nothing happens with Jameson. He’s just like he was the day before.
On the third day, when Jameson and Remy eat a plate of cinnamon sugar toast and watch an episode of Downton Abbey, I curl up in an overstuffed chair next to their couch and catch myself thinking this wasn’t so bad.
“Mr. Carson’s going to have a fit,” says Jameson, the uneaten corner of his toast halfway to his mouth.
“No, he’s settling down. He’s had a bunch of character growth. He’ll probably be super sage,” Remy counters.
Onscreen, Mr. Carson turns bright red. Inside fifteen seconds, he has raised his voice.
Remy laughs. “You win.”
“I know Carson better than you.”
Jameson finishes his piece of toast and winks at me. His eyes, usually so bright, are sad. Shadowed.
That’s when it occurs to me that I might have been wrong about Vesuvius.
Not wrong about the historical accounts. Wrong about the warning signs. I’ve been looking for earthquakes and clouds of ash. I’ve been looking for broken dishes and tears when the odd thing out—the quiet—has been in front of me the whole time.
It’s not like Jameson. It’s not like Jameson at all. Mason and Gabriel knew that all along. They come to stand in the family room archway, talking to each other in low voices.
Waiting.
I’m not holdingJameson’s hand when he moves to the next phase of what’s happening. I’m just standing next to him in the kitchen, absentmindedly marveling at how nice it feels to be centered in a patch of sun but perfectly surrounded by air conditioning. Zeus’s wife, Brigit, sits on the counter, eating frozen grapes. Zeus rummages in the fridge. Glass clinks together. Cook faces the two of us, a pen in one strong hand and a pad of paper in the other.
“Help me help you.” He looks Jameson up and down. “Strictly vegetarian?”
“Yeah.” Jameson runs a hand through his hair. It must feel wrong, because he puts the elastic out and redoes his bun. He lets the elastic snap back into place. “You don’t need to do anything special, though. I’ll just eat whatever’s around.”
Cook narrows his eyes, looking profoundly offended. “Exactly. You’ll eat whatever’s around. You think I’m going to fob off uncooked tofu? Hand you a bag of bagels? You think I’d hand my guys a bag of bagels and tell them to fuck off? Don’t insult me.”
He starts running down a list of entrees and appetizers, crossing off the ones Jameson doesn’t show any interest in and underlining the ones he does.
“No blueberries,” Cook says.
Jameson shrugs. “Okay.”
“How do you feel about ravioli?”
“In general, fine.”
Cook explains the varieties of ravioli he can make. Jameson admits butternut squash is his favorite. Brigit says that Cook makes the best butternut squash ravioli. Zeus agrees. Jameson says the best for a ship? and Cook scoffs loudly and says say that again in front of my face and Jameson says I did say it in front of your face and Cook says that includes dry land, and that calm feeling is just everywhere, and something catches my attention—the two little girls giggling in the family room, Hades standing by looking quietly amused, and in the very back of my mind the thought surfaces—maybe he’s going to stay awake forever, and it’s never going to get worse.
Zeus brushes by me, like he’s going out to the dining room—wait, no, he’s going the other direction. I have no idea why he’s moving that fast until I finish turning my head and he’s hugging Jameson.
Only he’s not hugging Jameson. He’s holding him upright, because Jameson’s out like a light.
There’s no panic. I don’t know why I thought there would be panic. Maybe I was panicked. But the moment has arrived. Jameson’s asleep.
Zeus walks him to one of the downstairs guest bedrooms like it’s nothing, puts Jameson in the bed, and straightens up.
“What now?” I ask, like a complete undergrad.
Zeus could be an asshole, but he’s not.
“Now we wait,” he says.
We wait for thirty-six hours.
It”s so late it”s early when Jameson screams.