The loud thump from Brad’s room jolted Ellis out of bed like a cattle prod. He’d awakened earlier to the sound of the shower running, but had drifted back to sleep when he realized he didn’t have to get up yet.
He burst out of his room and across the hall where he knocked. “Brad? You all right?” He waited two breaths for an answer before barging in.
He found Brad on the floor, a pair of shorts pulled halfway up, his body rigid and a glazed look on his face.
“Shit! Brad!” He got him rolled onto his side and held his hand, afraid to leave him and knowing exactly what was going on. Soon, Brad’s muscles relaxed and his eyes fell closed. “You’re okay, buddy. I’ll be right back. I have to get my phone.” Ellis started to get up to go call 911 when Brad’s hand closed on his.
“No,” he muttered.
“Dude, I need to call an ambulance. You had a seizure.”
The hand gripped him harder. “No. Give me a minute.”
Torn between what his friend wanted and what he knew he should do, he finally gave in. This one had only lasted maybe a minute or two from the time he’d heard the thud to when Brad had started coming out of it.
After a few minutes, Brad’s eyes opened again and he looked up at him. “I’m okay,” he muttered.
“You had a seizure,” he repeated, trying to stay calm. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
“No.” When Ellis realized Brad was trying to sit up, he helped him. “I was stupid. I forgot to take my meds last night.”
Somehow, he managed to hold back the flash of anger at his friend. “You can’t do that.”
“I know. I…I fell asleep on the couch up there. I’m sorry.”
Guilt immediately washed his anger away. “No, don’t apologize. I didn’t want to interrupt you last night. I should have checked on you and made sure before I went to bed.”
That dopey smile, the one that could always make Ellis laugh, curved Brad’s mouth. “We need a woman to ride both our asses,” he joked.
More relief poured in. If Brad could crack funnies, he was feeling better. “Yeah, well, not my priority right now.” He helped Brad stand and kept him steady while Brad pulled his shorts all the way up.
“Admit it,” Brad said. “You were staring at my dick.” He grinned.
Yep, he was back to normal. “Dude, I’ve got one of my own I can play with. I don’t need to stare at yours.” Ellis finally stepped away, now certain Brad was steady on his feet again.
But Ellis still followed him downstairs to the kitchen and watched while Brad took his meds. While Brad did that, Ellis started a pot of coffee. “Maybe I should cancel our dinner with Mandaline tonight,” Ellis suggested.
Brad turned to him, frowning. “How’d you know about dinner? I didn’t tell you last night.”
Crap. Busted. “I talked to her on the phone after you went upstairs.”
“Why?”
Now he felt even guiltier. “I wanted to find out what she thought about the house. In case there was anything she didn’t want to say in front of you. And I wanted to talk to her more about the EMF stuff. If she really thought that was what’s going on.”
Did Brad look…relieved? “Oh. Okay.”
“I can’t help it. I worry about you. It’s my job. I’m sorry.”
“We need to get you a hobby.”
He smiled. “You are my hobby.”
“You’re a martyr.” But the smile had returned to Brad’s face.
“Maybe I should stay home today.”
“Nope. I was an idiot, and that’s all. I’ll eat a good breakfast and be fine.”
Ellis studied his friend. He always fought the urge to baby him, knowing Brad might not push back against it if he did, but that he deserved better from him than that. “All right. If you say so. But you call me if you have another seizure. Deal?”
“Deal. I’ll be fine. And we’ll have dinner with Mandaline tonight.”
He glanced at the time and realized he needed to get moving or he’d be late to work. “Okay.” He grabbed a cup of coffee and headed upstairs to get his shower.
Alone in the kitchen, Brad heavily sat in one of the chairs and scrubbed his face with his hands. He wasn’t entirely sure the seizure was related to him forgetting his meds. He’d forgotten a dose of his meds before and hadn’t had a seizure.
His mind flashed to the demon drawing now hidden in the attic. Was there more going on? Was this a developing symptom of whatever was wrong with the house?
I’ll call Mandaline after Ellis leaves for the day and talk to her about it.
Mandaline gave up trying to sleep a little after six that morning. She’d dozed off and on, but every time sleep tried to take hold of her system, so did hot, sexy dreams about Brad…and Ellis.
It didn’t help that even though she knew it was silly, she felt a little guilty about the distraction the two hunks provided her. Julie had only been dead a week, and the tree planting would be held tomorrow. Not to mention there’d be an informal gathering at the store later Saturday night for the full moon.
Sachi had jokingly dubbed their gatherings the “coffeeshop coven” a couple of years earlier, a name that stuck even though they weren’t technically a coven. Some of the participants didn’t even consider themselves witches. They were just a bunch of friends from a variety of belief systems who enjoyed gathering for the sabbats and esbats.
It would be their first without Julie.
She took a long, hot shower. Then she poured herself a cup of coffee and called Pers before she headed downstairs. She grabbed his leash and took him on a long walk a few blocks down to the library. It wasn’t completely daylight yet, with purple shadows still tenaciously hugging the depths of trees and bushes. She let the dog sniff around the library grounds to his heart’s content while she sipped her coffee.
It’s not fair. She knew it was a pointless whine on her part, but never in her life had she imagined she’d ever not grow old with her soul sister. That they wouldn’t be together to share life’s ups and downs.
That Julie wouldn’t be there for her to cry on her shoulder, or there to make her laugh when Mandaline once again doubted her life choices.
Until last Thursday, she’d been relatively content with her life. No, not rich, but her bills were paid, she was out of debt, and so what if she was single? She was free.
Now she had a deep well of grief, people depending on her for their livelihoods, an extra furbaby to care for…and thoughts of two sexalicious guys that wouldn’t leave her head.
Not to mention she’d given one of them an accidental blow job.
She laughed aloud at that, making Pers turn to look at her. She never thought it possible to accidentally blow a guy, but damned if she hadn’t proven it possible.
Julie definitely would have laughed her ass off about that.
She looked up at the sky. “Why?” she whispered. “Why these two guys? Why couldn’t you have just pointed me toward a single guy? And why did you mark their case urgent?”
She heard a noise and looked to see Pers nosing around the base of a tree where a shred of paper lay. “Leave it, puppy.” She walked over to take the paper away from him. It looked ripped from a magazine advertisement. In large blue letters, the word BELIEVE was visible.
“Fuck. Me.”
She started giggling at first. That transformed into laughter, followed by the inevitable tears. She crumpled to the dewy grass as Pers climbed into her lap to console her.
She made it back to the shop twenty minutes later after tucking the piece of paper in her pocket. She’d also picked up after Pers, the little container of poop bags attached to his leash making it impossible to forget them.