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“What is he saying?” Valor stared down at them, brows knitted.
“‘Loïc is a stupid boy.’ He says it a lot—mostly when he’s having a flashback about Martine. I think it was his way of appeasing her.”
My heart pulverized into little glass shards. I’d heard him mutter ‘stupid’ to himself so many times, but I’d never understood what was really happening.
The anger rolling off Jack mirrored Valor’s distress.
“He used to believe she was haunting him like a ghost, so I had to explain trauma to him. Even after the years that have passed, she’s in his head. All the books he bought me on therapy hasn’t helped us get her out of there.”
“You two have done so much work together. If it wasn’t for you, I think he’d still be wandering through the world alone.” I squeezed their hand.
They gave an awkward shrug. “We saved each other.”
Loïc started flinching, like something was hurting him repeatedly.
“Should we wake him up?” Valor asked.
“We can try. Hopefully, this doesn’t make things worse.” Hesitantly, Jack sat in the straw next to Loïc. “Loïc, you’re in your own house. Valor and Tarryn are here, and they’re worried about you.” They chewed ontheir lip, then turned to Valor. “Can you get some ice from the freezer and maybe a…lemon or a pickle? Tarryn, can you find some loud music on your phone? Preferably songs he likes to dance to.”
“What if that makes him think of the club?” I asked as Valor bolted up the stairs.
“Fair point, but he loves dancing so much that I think it’ll help him find his way out of this.”
I pulled up the playlist he’d put on my phone in Spain. It was all his favorite dance music.
“Louder,” they urged when the first song started.
I toggled the ‘up’ button on my phone until it was blaring. Loïc’s frantic movements were slowing as Valor returned with a plastic tumbler of ice and an ancient-looking jar of pickles.
Jack grabbed an ice cube and pressed it into Loïc’s palm, then wrapped Loïc’s fingers around it. They opened Loïc’s mouth and dripped some pickle juice on his tongue.
“Come on, you absolute menace. That’s too much weird stimuli for even you to ignore. Come back here and talk to us.”
The ice dropped from Loïc’s lax fingers, but Jack was undeterred. They picked it up and pressed the melting cube to the back of Loïc’s neck.
His eyes fluttered.
“We’re not letting you go,” Jack said with stubborn patience. “I’m going to keep irritating you until you come back here.”
“Please, Loïc,” I couldn’t help but add, not sure if I was an unwanted interruption.
“Yes, keep talking,” Jack encouraged. “Pick a subject he’d have an opinion about. Have you talked about baby names yet?”
I took his hand, and Valor threaded his fingers through Loïc’s tangled hair.
“There are somany good names, but Loïc and Valor are trying to come up with a theme to stick to since they’re planning on us having a billion kids. Most of the names we like don’t fit one theme, though.”
“Like what? Classic names?” Jack smiled. “Unisex names? Nature names?”
“I like nature names.”
“How about Moth?” Jack asked. At first, I thought they were joking. Then again, people must have thought Minnow was a weird name at first, too, but after getting used to it, I’d realized it was pretty, and it suited her.
Moth was an odd one, but also cool. “I’m adding that one to our list.”
“I’m still fond of Ichabod,” Valor said sweetly. It had become an ongoing joke-argument between him and Loïc.
“That fucking name,” Loïc mumbled groggily.
