Page 19 of The Rat

“Notstrictly speaking. I—I wanted to hearyour voice, that’s all.”

“Jesus, Rory, we only saw each other twoweeks ago, what’s happened, are you okay?”

He looked down at himself, thesheet covered him, but beneath it was the bandage, and beneath that, thestill weeping wound. It throbbed with the remnants of fire, and hewinced.

“Rory?”

The concern in hertone made himwant to cry, and he blinked back the sting in his eyes. “Me, I’mfine.”

“I’m not buyingit…”

He laughed lightly. “No, I meanit, I’m fine. How are you?”

“You sure?”

“Yep, what are you doinglater?”

“Danny’s taking me out, firsttime for months, he’s finally remembered I exist.”

“Well, he is a gear head.” Rorysnorted.

“Hey, I’ve accepted I’m secondbest to his car. No matter how much I hate it, itcame before me. It’shis first love.”

“When I’m done with this, I’llscratch it up for you, puncture the tires.”

“Don’t!”

“I’m joking, I’mjoking.”

“Don’t let him catch you sayingthat, he’ll go crazy. You should’ve seen him having a go atthepigeon.”

“Pigeon?”

“Makes art on the roof of his carnearly every morning—he loses sleep over it. One morning, he started yelling atthe trees like a madman, freaked out the neighbors.”

Rory pressed his lips togetherto stop his laugh. “Can you do something for me?”

“What?”

“Flick yogurt on his car, thenfilm his reactionon your phone.”

“Rory!”

“Come on, foryour littlebrother. The thought of it will keep me going.”

“No way, I’m hanging upnow…”

“It’ll befunny.”

“It bloody wouldn’t, I’ve got tolivewithhim.”

Hamish tapped on the window, thengestured to his watch.

“Hey Eric,I’ve—”

“Erica.”

Rory smiled.“Erica, I’vegot to go.”

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