Page 36 of Let Leaves Lay Where They Fall

He sways through the packed dining room. Checking on other tables, making his way to the kitchen.

Molly is leaning on the prep table, sipping a glass of water.

“They’re heading out.”

She wraps her arms around his shoulders. “Thank you.” Kissing his cheek.

Sebastian hustles through the doors carrying a tub of dirty glasses to the sinks. His pants are painted on and he’s obviously rolling commando today. The boy knows how to increase his personal gratuity stream by using the impressive goods nature blessed him with. We all thank him for his service.

Jamie can only imagine what it feels like to be so confident and gifted, with a properly functioning metabolism.

As he turns away from envying Seb’s bouncing butt cheeks, he swipes a pot off the edge of the stoves with his elbow. It spills boiling pasta water down his thigh. “Fuck!” He screams. The pain is explosive. It feels like his polyester blend pants are melting to his flesh. “Fuck! Fuck!”

“Holy shit!” Molly grabs fistfuls of kitchen towels from a baker’s rack along the wall. She starts patting his thigh.

“Fuck!” His leg is throbbing, and his head starts spinning.

Sebastian wraps around him from behind. Catching him from collapsing. Dragging him to the sink.

Molly scoots ahead of them and gets the cold water flowing.

“Get your pants off.” Sebastian commands.

“No!” Jamie panics. He’d rather the leg melt away than be exposed in front of everyone.

“Jamie!” Molly throws dripping wet, cold towels over his thigh.

The cold is soothing to the surface, but the pain is burning deep in his muscles, like a wildfire set loose in a dry forest.

“You need to go to the hospital babe.” Sebastian grabs more cold soaked towels and wraps them around his leg.

“Should we call 911?” Molly is nearly in tears over the commotion.

“No!” Jamie hollers. “I can’t afford an ambulance!” He feels faint again but leans on the prep table.

“I’ll take him!” Hugo is scurrying around the kitchen, coming out of the walk-in, arms flailing. He drops the box of tomatoes he was carrying on the terra-cotta tile floor. “My car is right out back in the alley.”

Jamie couldn’t be happier the sous chef has broken the rules, parking illegally, though Dennis has scolded him dozens of times for it.

The group all help Jamie to the car. Molly and Sebastian watch them pull away and tear down the street.

Jamie presses the dripping wet towels to his leg. The pain is stinging so bad it’s going numb. “I’m sorry your car is getting soaked.” He knows how precious Hugo’s little coupe is to him.

“You shush! It will dry.” His eyes are glued to the road, white knuckling the steering wheel. “Get out of the way you bitch!” He screams at the backside of an ugly electric hybrid, in his Puerto Rican accent.

Jamie giggles through flooded eyes at the sudden awareness of the comedy in the chaos.

“We’ll go to the city clinic. It’s closer and you need to see someone fast.”

“Okay.” Jamie is ready for relief from the agony. The heat in his leg is fighting back against the cool wet towels, turning lukewarm and useless. It doesn’t matter where they go.

Jamie is sure Hugo took that last turn on two wheels. Hauling ass right up to the clinic doors. Flinging an arm across Jamie’s chest to brace him against the seat when he halts the breaks. Inches from a concrete planter.

He flings the driver's door open and practically climbs over the hood trying to reach Jamie’s side. He throws the door open before Jamie can even pull the handle to unlatch it.

Hugo tucks his head under Jamie’s arm and lifts him out of the car. “Lean on me girl.”

He’s a sturdy little man. Stronger than Jamie had ever imagined. Is Hugo sexy? Maybe that’s the dizziness speaking?

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