Page 36 of Broken Heart Syndrome
Crack. Tom punched him in the face. He teetered, and then fell to the ground, taking a couple of people in the crowd down with him. Tom stood over him in what looked like frozen horror. On the floor Mr Fletcher shook his head as if to clear it, and his eyes seemed to lose their drunken haze. He took Tom’s extended hand and got to his feet, rubbing his jaw. They considered each other for a moment, and then, weirdly, Mr Fletcher grinned.
‘One of you cardiology pussies finally punched me,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘About fucking time. I’ve been yanking your chain for years. Glad to see one of you has some balls.’ He slapped Tom on the shoulder, ‘Good for you, lad.’ Then he jerked his chin at me.
‘Later, princess,’ he muttered jovially, and melted back into the crowd.
Tom turned to me, and before I could read the expression on his face someone grabbed my hand. Feeling a bit skittish after the Mr Fletcher incident, I prepared to jerk it away, but stopped when Lou slurred in my ear.
‘Wassgoinon?’ She was leaning heavily against me and I teetered on my heels. She looked up at Tom and smiled her drunken wonky smile. ‘Thomas Gankface Longley!’ she shouted at him, then collapsed into a fit of giggles. This unfortunately unbalanced me even further, but before I could go crashing down to the floor one of Tom’s strong hands grabbed my elbow. As he was attempting to lead us both through the crowd, Dylan drew up next to us. Things were starting to seem a little fuzzy round the edges, and my feet were suddenly killing me.
‘I’m tired,’ I announced, leaning heavily into the mountain of warmth conveniently holding me up. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Dylan had led Lou away. She was making wild hand gestures and poking him in the chest but he kept his grip on her, wearing an expression of extreme patience.
‘Ferrets, I think, not sperm,’ I decided as things started to feel more and more hazy.
‘Ferrets?’ I heard my warm mountain ask.
‘They kill rabbits,’ I explained. ‘And you don’t have to go to Norway to get ’em.’
‘Norway?’ I thought my warm mountain was shaking slightly with laughter at this point. Strange.
‘Yes, Norwegian sperm,’ I explained. ‘They send you pictures.’
‘Of sperm?’
I snorted, ‘Course not.’ Jeepers, this mountain was odd – who wanted pictures of sperm? Suddenly cold hit my face and I realized that the warm mountain had brought me outside. There was an arm around my waist semi-supporting and semi-carrying me.
I turned my head and looked up. My vision was filled with Tom’s gorgeous face. I’d completely forgotten that he was the one who had extricated me from the crowd in the bar. Luckily I was in the glorious land of warm fuzziness, so instead of being mortified I burst out laughing.
‘Thomas G. Longley!’ I declared through my laughter.
‘Um … okay,’ he replied slowly as we came to a stop by his van.
Everything felt unreal and blurry. I leaned heavily against the side of the van as he got the passenger door open.
‘I can’t feel my feet,’ I told him as he turned to me. I started to feel a bit panicky. ‘Oh crumbs, why can’t I feel my feet?’ I lifted one, then the other, and tried to reach them, but this only resulted in me staggering to the side. I heard Tom chuckle again and narrowed my eyes at him. ‘This is serious. I need my feet. Everyone needs feet.’ I screwed up my face. ‘No, no, that’s not true. Some people don’t have feet and they manage. That blade-runner guy doesn’t have feet, but then hedidkill his girlfriend. Although that probably didn’t have anything to do with his lack of feet.’
Chapter 14
Viking marauder
Tom looked over at his passenger seat. Frankie had taken approximately two seconds to pass out once he got the van going, but not before she had postulated wildly about Oscar Pistorius’s footless state and homicidal tendencies. He’d thought the ferrets and sperm conversation was bizarre, but it had nothing on her feet theories.
Her head was turned towards him and her dark hair was partially covering her face. Thick lashes cast shadows over her cheeks, and she was so still that only the slight movement of her chest gave any indication that she was still alive. She looked peaceful. Perfect. So beautiful it almost hurt to look at her and not be able to touch her.
He was shocked when he first saw her tonight. He’d never seen her wear anything close to as revealing as that scrap of silver masquerading as a top. No doubt Lou had been at work again. Seeing Frankie with smoky eyes and her back almost completely exposed was startling.
One of the registrars had muttered, ‘There’s one for the wank bank, boys,’ as she’d weaved through the tables in the restaurant, giggling with Rosie, her eyes over-bright. He’d glared at the guy, silencing him, but the ridiculous thing was, that although he wanted to rip that guy’s head off, he knew he was being a hypocrite.
Mental pictures of Frankie in various states of undress and positions had been floating through his mind, torturing him for years now. After working with her, this had intensified, and he had discovered that he had a wildly active imagination.
Even though he barely knew her at uni, what he did see of her he had liked.A lot. So much that her face and body had been stored in his memory banks, festering, and gradually taking over his subconscious fantasy life. This had the unfortunate effect of causing him to compare every woman he was with to her impossible ideal.
Cassie was just one in a long line of women he had used to try and erase her image. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Cassie: he did. She was gorgeous in a tall, blond and curvy kind of way. Not to mention fun to be with. But she didn’t have deep brown, soulful eyes. She wasn’t petite with only subtle curves. Her hair didn’t fall down her back in glorious, shining, dark sheets. She didn’t have a soft musical laugh, a dry wit, or the ability to light up a room when she smiled. In short, she wasn’t Frankie.
Tom huffed out a frustrated sigh. It was unlikely that he’d have to go through the bother of actually ending things with Cassie anyway. After he’d stared openly at Frankie at the bar slamming back shots (her technique, although ridiculous, was sexy as hell) Cassie had seemed to get the picture. If that wasn’t enough he had continued to stare at Frankie for the next hour, growing concerned as she got more and more drunk.
He had no doubt that in order for her friends to get her into that outfit she would have to have started the night out pretty steaming; and after those shots she was visibly swaying.
Frankie dancing was a new torture, and he knew that he wasn’t the only one feeling that particular burn. He’d noticed numerous male eyes locked on her. Unfortunately, Adrian making his approach had snapped his already frayed control. As soon as he noticed him pushing towards Frankie, he’d leapt up off his bar stool. Cassie had followed the direction of his gaze and sighed.
