Page 24 of Just for Me
“Armstrong. Captain for England,” the male cop said. “Plays in France as well, though he’s a Kiwi. Grant Armstrong’s son, but not quite a traitor, I guess.” Which was a joke, apparently. “There was only ever going to be one winner here.”
“Rugby?” she asked. “Or …” She looked at Luke speculatively. “Well, yeh. That’s got to be rugby.”
More two-toned wailing, and now, the ambulance was pulling up, two ambos jumping out.
“Over here,” Luke told them.
Hayden said, “Honestly, I don’t need the fuss. I just need to go home and lie down.”
Luke ignored him. “TBI, I think,” he told the ambos. “Got hit in the side of the head, right here.” He pointed to the spot. “Vomiting, dizziness, weakness.”
One of the ambos probed gently with his fingers, and Hayden let out a gasp. “Let’s get you to hospital, then, mate,” the other man said. “Looks like you’ve been hit here on the cheekbone as well.”
“Wait,” the female cop said. “We’ll need a statement.”
“Get it at the hospital,” Luke said. “From both of us. He’s not going anywhere for a while, and I’ll be with him.”
“You can’t just let him walk away!” Julian said, losing some of his aristocratic cool. “Heattackedus!”
“Which one did?” the female cop asked. “The one your friend hit? Or the one who was holding both of you up at once by the jumper while you hithim?”
“Yeah, nah,” the male cop said. “You’re not on the pavement, and you don’t need the ambulance. That’s not attacked. If Luke Armstrong attacks a man, reckon he stays attacked.”
10
NOT HOW WE DO A FIRST DATE
“This is possibly,”Hayden told Luke, “the most embarrassing episode of my life. It’s got competition, but still.”
Where was he while making this confession? On a gurney in a wailing ambulance, that was where, with an ambo beside him and Luke sitting on a bench opposite.
“Why?” Luke asked.
“Why?Why?Let’s see. Because I stink of vomit, just to get that one out of the way. Because I’ve just been bashed again, but this time with extra drama and humiliation. Because you ruined your evening coming to my rescue, and now you’re going to be spending it in hospital. Oh, and possibly because you got hit yourself, and it was my fault.”
“First,” Luke said, “I’ve stunk of vomit more times than I care to think about, and even when I didn’t, somebody else always did. Second, you didn’t ruin my evening, and I’ve spent heaps of time in hospital. Heaps of time visiting mates in hospital, for that matter. And hit? You call that hit?” He laughed. “Nah, mate, that wasn’t ‘hit.’ Who was that bloke?”
Hayden glanced at the ambos. “Tell you later.”
“What, because we’re gay?” Luke had a spot of color high up on each cheekbone, but he was sitting solid, hands on his knees. The way, Hayden imagined, he’d sit on the bench waiting to go into the game, if he ever did sit on the bench. Hayden was guessing it didn’t happen often. “I came out. People are going to know I’m gay.”
“That’s right. You … you did.” Hayden was getting another wave of prickly sweat, and with it, another wave of nausea. “Going to be … sick again,” he managed to get out, and the ambo held an expandable blue plastic tubular thing for him to retch into while Hayden thought,Good thing I don’t fancy you, mate, or I’d be even more humiliated than I already feel.
The ambulance was still turning corners and wailing, so they weren’t there yet. Hayden wondered dimly where they were going, hoped it wasn’t his dad’s hospital, and decided he didn’t care. He just wanted to lie down on a bed that didn’t move.
It was the hospital, then. Yes, his dad’s, Hayden saw as he was wheeled into it with Luke following behind, but orthopedic surgeons didn’t tend to work all hours, so his dad was likely to be at home and to stay there, nursing his grievances at the sad preponderance of rugby players in his kids’ lives and possibly wondering where he’d gone wrong. Or, more likely, wondering where Hayden’s mum had gone wrong.
After that, there was a CT scan, a bit more retching, some more cold, prickly, clammy skin and the feeling of the ground dropping away from under your stomach, and Luke sitting by the narrow bed in the ED, wiping Hayden’s forehead and mouth one more time with a facecloth, then handing him a plastic cup with ice chips.
Hayden said, “You can go home. Honestly. This is too dull for words. Also, I wasted all that fabulous dinner.”
Luke said, “Shut up. And give me your hand.”
“What?” Hayden would have sat up and stared at him, but he didn’t feel like it.
“Your hand,” Luke repeated. “Give it to me.”
Hayden did it, possibly because Luke was one of those commanding fellas. Which, all right, was possibly attractive. Luke took it, laid his fingers and then his thumb across the inside of his wrist, then began to rub the thumb in a circle.
