Page 16 of The Question of Us
Madigan
When he foundme on the floor by the front door, Gazza was surprisingly matter-of-fact. Well, other than letting loose a string of eye-opening curses aimed at various parts of Nick’s anatomy, some of which I happened to agree with. He didn’t press me for details, and I didn’t offer any, not that he really needed them, having been party to our earlierdiscussion.
“So, he’s run off in a hissy fit, I take it?” Gazza helped me onto the couch and grabbed me a glass of water. When I didn’t answer, he nodded anyway. “Yeah, I thought so. But you’re still going to Melbourne, right?”
The minute he asked, the answer was right there on the tip of my tongue. “Yes,” I managed. “Fuck him.”
Gazza snorted and sank into the chair opposite. “Good for you. So, what’s the plan?”
I had zero idea, but we talked about our options and then I followed Gazza back into the studio where we worked until after lunch. He tried to distract me with upbeat conversation while I tried not to think about Nick as I made mistake after mistake on the spine of my current book project.
After watching me fuck up for a couple of hours, Gazza eventually made his way over to my table and gently removed the book from my hands. “Stop before you need to reimburse the collector and ruin your stellar reputation.” He held the book’s spine up for me to see and I winced at the poor stitching. “Leave it with me. I’ll fix it.”
I glared at him for a few seconds, then grunted, “Fine,” and stormed out of the studio.
Taking myself into the lounge, I sulked on the couch in front of some dreary nameless movie for a couple of hours before pulling one of my favourite reds from my wine collection, not giving a shit that it was only mid-afternoon. “Fuck you, Nick Fisher. See, I can do reckless too.”
I then drained the entire bottle of wine and most of a second, which had earned me the ire of Gazza, who found me legless on the couch and giggling at a rerun of some David Attenborough series about dung beetles that wasn’t funny at all.
After shaking his head at the state I was in, Gazza somehow got some toast down my throat, along with a couple of glasses of water, and then helped me into bed while muttering a lot of unnecessarily judgy things about old men and their capacity for stupidity.
I couldn’t blame him. Alcohol and self-pity were hardly an imaginative response to being walked out on, but imagination wasn’t called for in matters of the heart. Tried and true stereotypical clichés did the job just nicely, thank you.
You’d think that much alcohol would’ve put me into a coma, but you’d be wrong. Possibly because its running mate was a blood caffeine level that would likely fell Thor, meaning I slept for all of two hours, then spent the rest of the night tossing and turning while constantly reaching across the cold bed for Nick, who wasn’t there.
I second-guessed every word I’d said before he left, running the conversation back and forth through my hamster-wheel brain and coming to the conclusion we were both idiots. So much for being grown-ups.
I finally fell asleep around three and woke tired and grumpy, not helped by checking my phone and still finding nothing from Nick. We hadn’t broken up, after all. Nick was just...taking some time. I ground my teeth at the phrase. But it meant there was no reason he couldn’t check in. See if I was okay. Much like I could do for him, I supposed, a realisation I found particularly unhelpful.
I grumbled at the grey light of dawn bleeding into the room, keeping me from falling back asleep. Gazza hadn’t closed the curtains when he’d put me to bed, which, knowing how the man’s brain worked, was likely deliberate.
As if on cue, the alarm pipped with a code and the front door opened and closed, Gazza arriving for work like the past few weeks had never happened. I tracked his footsteps down the hall and held my breath as they paused outside my door. When I didn’t answer the soft rap of knuckles on wood, Gazza headed for the studio. The previous twenty-four hours had been embarrassing enough without having to face him first thing in the morning still looking like shit.
When I did finally manage to drag my sorry hungover arse out of bed, showered, and pulled on a pair of grey sweats and a clean white tee, I found my apprentice sitting at the dining table with a coffee in his hands, looking for all the world like he’d just stepped off the runway.
A billowy, almost neon-chartreuse shirt glowed against his beautiful olive skin, popping those dark, tawny leonine eyes and working surprisingly well with the pink streak in his carefully coiffed hair. He’d paired the shirt with a pair of black cargopants that had about fifty million pockets, none of which seemed functional, and a pair of well-worn Doc Martens.
“Feeling better, I take it?” I waved a hand over his bright ensemble. “Remind me to cancel the flower arrangement I ordered to brighten up the space.”
He rolled his eyes. “I decided to make an effort and it worked.” He looked me over with some concern and added, “Unlike some people, I see. How’s the head?”
“Just dandy, fuck you very much,” I grumbled, heading for the butler’s pantry to top up my caffeine levels.
He grinned. “You’re low on milk and a few other things, unless you fancy another of those bottles of Pinot Noir with your cereal, of course.”
Bile surged up my throat and I threw a roll of paper towels his way.
He caught it on the fly. “There’s two ibuprofen by the coffee maker. Take them, eat some toast, drink some coffee, then get yourself to the supermarket.”
“I don’t want?—”
“I wasn’t asking.” He eyed me sternly.
“Have I told you what a pain in my arse you are?” I growled, grabbing the ibuprofen and filling a glass a water.
He raised his coffee in salute. “On numerous occasions, although I have to say this new friendship vibe we’ve had going the last couple of months has opened up a whole new set of opportunities to piss you off.”
I side-eyed him. “It’s not too late to rescind that error of judgement on my part, you know.”
