Page 21 of Resisting You

Renato looked murderous. “Of course I didn’t call the police! Porca miseria!” He threw his hand into the air and muttered a long string of Italian under his breath. “Why would I do that?”

Frey would feel like an asshole later for the false accusation. In the moment, he looked around, and eventually, his gaze settled on a pair of nurses whispering at the far end of the nurses’ station. The look on their faces told Frey everything he needed to know.

They would pay for this.

He took a calming breath and fought the urge to run to his son, but he had to get the cops off Oz first. “There was no child abuse. My son got dizzy and fell off the wall he was playing on.”

“You do realize we hear that a lot, don’t you?” the cop asked.

Frey rolled his eyes. “Yep. Except my son is Deaf, and he has an inner-ear condition that literally causes him to fall. It’s in his goddamn chart.”

The officer holding Oz let him go, and Oz sagged against the wall, but he seemed too afraid to move. Frey wanted to punch someone.

“Can someone corroborate that?” the taller officer asked.

“It is in his chart,” one of the nurses said as she walked forward. She had blonde hair tied in a messy bun, and her eyes were narrow and accusatory. “But in my experience, most people with Ménière’s disease aren’t fully deaf, and this boy is.”

Frey rolled his eyes. “Uh-huh. Because he’s not fully deaf from Ménière’s, you—” He stopped himself and took another breath because the last thing he needed was to get fired. He turned and tried for a smile at the officer. “My son was born with an infection in his heart. The medication they gave him caused profound hearing loss. He developed Ménière’s disease a few years later, which affects his balance and causes him to fall. They’re unrelated. And Oz”—he gestured at the man still resting against the wall—“is his Deaf mentor. They were at the park, my son climbed on a wall, then he fell.”

The officer’s face changed, and he looked immediately apologetic. “I see.”

“I’d also like to point out that pinning a Deaf man to a wall and not providing him means of communication—” He paused to sign everything so Oz would have some idea about what was going on. “—is cruel and hopefully against the fucking law.”

The officers seemed unfazed, but it was as much as Frey was expecting. They backed off, and he turned to Renato, who hadn’t said another word during the whole exchange. “How much of this did Rex see?”

Renato let out a slow breath. “Enough of it.”

Fantastic. Frey rubbed both hands down his face. There was every chance Rex was freaking the fuck out. The only reason he probably wasn’t screaming his head off was the amount of painkillers he was on. “Can you go check on my son so I can make sure that my friend isn’t going to pass out? Tell him I’m with Oz and I’ll be in there in a second.”

Renato nodded wordlessly and walked off, and Frey quickly took Oz by the shoulders. He was pale and shaking, clearly in shock. He glanced at the nurses, who looked like they wanted to melt into the floor. “How about grab us some water?”

They scampered off, and he had a feeling he wasn’t going to see them again. Walking Oz to a chair behind the station desk, he sat him down, then knelt between his legs. Oz’s eyes were still a little wide, but his breathing had started to calm down, and his chest was no longer shuddering.

‘Water?’ he asked Oz. The nurses wouldn’t get it, but he knew where they kept a stash of chilled bottles.

Oz shook his head, looking a little green. Frey didn’t think refusing it was the best idea, but he also wasn’t in the mood to clean up shock vomit when he wasn’t on the clock. So instead, he cupped Oz’s cheeks and waited for him to make eye contact.

‘Do you know what the cops were asking you?’

‘I caught some of it,’ Oz managed to sign between them, his hands shaking. ‘They thought I hurt Rex. I didn’t.’

He started to look panicked again, and Frey quickly took his wrists and squeezed before letting go. ‘I know. I’m going to raise hell after Rex gets out of surgery. They will not get away with this. And I want you to contact a lawyer.’

‘No point,’ Oz told him. ‘They didn’t do anything wrong.’

Like hell, Frey thought, but he also didn’t want to push Oz right then. He took a breath, then asked, ‘Are you able to drive yourself home?’

Oz looked devastated. ‘You don’t want me to stay?’

Frey shook his head. ‘No. I want you to go home and have a stiff drink and take care of yourself. Rex is going to be fine. He just needs a couple pins put in, then they’ll send him home. He’s not in any danger.’

Frey hadn’t thought he’d be comforting someone else during this moment, but all of his worries seemed to melt away at Oz’s sheer terror and the trauma he’d just suffered.

Oz let out a puff of air. ‘Hug him for me. Tell him I’ll see him tomorrow.’

‘He’ll be furious if you don’t visit,’ Frey assured him. He hesitated, then held up his hand. ‘I love you. And I’m so sorry.’

Oz shook his head as he pushed himself to his feet, and he let Frey pull him into a fierce hug. Over his shoulder, Frey caught a glimpse of one of the nurses peering around the corner, and rage boiled up in him, all fresh and white-hot. But he wasn’t going to make a scene. Not yet.

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