How to Blow It with a Billionaire

by Alexis Hall

  And finally I was there.

  Standing in the doorway of a room.

  It was a nice room. It was. If you could look past the tangle of screens and equipment and mad scientist tubing. The white walls. The white sheets.

  And Nik was—oh God.

  The last time I’d seen him…so banal, really. A stilted airport parting that we’d both believed and not believed was a proper goodbye. Shit, I’d better go, he’d said. Travel safely, I’d answered. And that was it. I could vaguely remember him walking away, laptop bag swung across one shoulder, lacrosse stick over the other, his shadow cast long against the epoxy-shining floor like a sundial marking the hour.

  Now he was just a flop of blondish hair, cocooned in a hospital gown.

  I put a hand over my mouth because I wasn’t sure I could even be trusted to breathe properly right then.

  After a moment or two, the doctor came. Introduced herself—Dr. Sharma, she said—and talked to me softly. There was good news. He was breathing by himself. No traumatic brain injuries. But there was other stuff. Broken legs. Broken sternum. Multiple rib and spine fractures. Bone shards embedded in the spinal cord—

  “Is he going to die?” I asked.

  “He’s stable for now.”

  She said it so warily I realized I was asking the wrong thing. “Will he…he’s going to get better, right?”

  Except that just made her repeat everything she’d previously said. With some extra stuff about titanium plates and potential compromise to the spinal cord.

  And that was when I knew I had to stop with the questions. It was too early for them. And the answers wouldn’t tell me anything I didn’t already guess. What mattered was the fact Nik was alive. “Can I go in?”

  She nodded and stepped away.

  And I…I hesitated. Like a fucking worthless coward, I stood there. Because crossing that threshold would mean this was really happening. And I didn’t know how to bear it. I didn’t want the future of that golden, laughing, ridiculously talented boy to be a shattered body in a hospital bed.

  Except it was. And that was that.

  And it didn’t make him any less Nik.

  Step by step, then. Step by fucking step. A far longer journey than the one across the ocean. From the door to Nik.

  I slumped into the nearest chair. His hand was lying on top of the covers, looking so neat that it could only have been placed there. People were naturally messy. His symmetry was as terrifying as his stillness. I didn’t dare actually move the hand. There were so many tubes sticking out of it I’d probably have ended up killing him. But I covered it gently with my own. He felt strange. Not warm or cold. And very smooth. Like plastic.

  “Jesus, Nik.” My voice came out way too loud for where I was and I had to try again. “What the fuck? I told you to travel safely. This doesn’t look anything like travelling safely. In fact, some people might call getting smashed up by a car the exact opposite of travelling safely.”

  I don’t know. It had to be wishful thinking but I was sure I felt the slightest change in the pattern of his breathing. Like maybe whatever he was dreaming had made him smile.

  It was, as nights went, shitty. Though obviously worse for Nik. Or maybe not, since he was unconscious, and I was sitting there, painfully awake. He did stir sometimes, and talk to me, but he was living in fragments. The first time, he asked where he was, which scared the shit out of me, especially because when I told him—as gently as I could—that he was in the hospital, he wanted to know why. And I didn’t know how to explain to someone who’d been in a car crash about the car crash they didn’t remember being in. Thankfully, he drifted off again almost immediately and I ran in a panic for the doctor in case it was a traumatic brain injury thing after all. But apparently it was pretty normal.

  Next time his eyes opened, he seemed a touch more lucid. “Arden?” He blinked, the motion jerky and slow, as if it wasn’t a reflex for him anymore. “Dude, you look like shit.”

  “Dude, you’re pissing into a bag.”

  He made a barely there noise of amusement. And then seemed exhausted by it.

  “Am I on a lot of drugs?” he whispered, just when I thought he’d slipped away again. “I can’t really feel anything.”

  “Um. Yeah. That’s…that’s the drugs.” Oh wow. And the Award for Least Convincing Bedside Consolation Lie goes to Arden St. Ives.

  Nik’s throat worked laboriously. “Are you…really here? Not dreaming?”

  “I’m here. Promise.” I tightened my fingers over his. They twitched in response. “Can you feel that?”

  “Yeah…”

  “That’s me.”

  “You…you…won’t leave?”

  “Only occasionally to wee and I’ll have to check in to my hotel. But I’ll be super quick.”

  He mumbled something I didn’t catch and closed his eyes. But he slept more easily. And that was good, right? He needed to rest and stuff.

  More than he needed the truth right then.

  Chapter 15

  By the time dawn filled the room with fresh gray, Nik was still sleeping and I was beyond exhausted. Sodden with it like heavy rain. I dozed off and on through the morning, but by early afternoon one of the nurses had pretty much ordered me out of the hospital, telling me I’d be useless if I didn’t get some proper rest.

  Not sure where the hotel was, or even if I was capable of walking, I got the limo back. And discovered the place was literally just up the road. Except I was too knackered to be embarrassed. I crawled out of the car and wove my way to the front desk. Signed things and received my keycard and some other shit in a blur of words I barely understood.

  Lift.

  Corridor.

  Room.

  Bed. Face.

  I groped for my second phone. Hit the shortcut for Caspian with a barely functional finger.

  He picked up immediately. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m sorry,” I slurred, “I dunno wha time it is.”

  I heard him murmuring, “I’m sorry, I have to take this,” and then, to me, “It doesn’t matter. How’s your friend?”

  “Kind of fucked, but alive and breathing. That’s…that’s good, right?”

  “Very promising.”

  I wasn’t capable of much movement, but I managed to fold part of the duvet over me with some determined feet flapping. “I’m really glad I’m here. Thank you for helping me.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “I’m too tired to argue, but it’s not nothing. It only seems that way to you because you’re used to being able to do stuff like this.”

  “Being able to do something is simply a question of resources. Being willing to do it is a matter of heart.” His voice softened. “You chose to be with your friend when he needed you. I simply made it easier for you to get there.”

  Warmth crept into the corners of my tiredness. “I guess. It’s overwhelming, though. And I’m not sure what use I am to him right now.”

  “Caring for others is not my field of expertise, but in Nik’s place I wouldn’t need you to be useful. I’d need you to be there.”

  He’d done it again: said the exact thing I didn’t know I was desperate to hear. “You’re so wrong, Caspian. You make me feel very cared for.”

  “I…” I heard him swallow. Caught the uncertain tapping of his fingers against his desk. “You’ll call as often as you can, won’t you?”

  “I promise.”

  “You should rest now, though.”

  I rolled onto my back. Let my sleep-hazy eyes take in the blandness of a hotel ceiling. “I know. But…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want you to go.”

  The words had escaped before I could stop them, and I cringed at how childish they sounded, but all Caspian said was, “Then I won’t.”

  “You can’t just sit around on the phone with me.”

  “I think you’ll find I can do whatever I like. And besides”—I somehow knew he was smiling—“you’re pract
ically unconscious. It’ll probably only take five minutes.”

  I laughed, or whatever passed for a laugh when you were half drunk with sleepiness, and rolled myself up in the duvet. Caspian’s breath was an intimate metronome against my ear. “Tell me something?”

  “What sort of thing?”

  “Anything.”

  “That’s very helpful. Thank you, Arden.”

  There was that self-conscious note in his voice. And, as ever, I found it a little bit adorable. “What are you wearing?”

  “I’m not sure this is really the time—”

  “Not in a sex way. I just want to know.”

  “Oh. Well…” A pause. Maybe he was checking. “A dark blue suit by Kathryn Sargent, with a white shirt, a navy tie, and a pink, polka-dotted pocket square.”

  “Pink, you say?”

  “Dark pink. I think they call the shade French rose. Are you giggling?”

  “Only a little bit. Mainly, I’m imagining how hot you look.”

  His tone grew stern. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

  “I know. But please don’t stop talking to me.” Through some complicated maneuvers with my toes I managed to kick off my shoes and wriggle my feet out of my socks. “I’ve never actually stayed in a hotel by myself before. It feels…weird.”

  “You get used to it.”

  It suddenly occurred to me that this was Caspian’s life: a string of strange rooms. “Here’s hoping I don’t have to.”

  He was quiet for a moment. Then, “You know, you’re not alone. I’m only a phone call away. And, now I think about it, I could be there in a few hours. Do you want me to—”

  “No,” I said quickly. “I mean, thank you. But no.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. You generous madman.” I put a hand to my mouth to stifle a slightly hysterical sound. “I can’t believe you were going to come out here because I implied a mild state of disorientation.”

  “You sounded lonely.”

  “I’m all right. And I’ve got you, haven’t I?”

  “Always, my Arden.”

  He’d made me smile. When ten minutes ago I wouldn’t have imagined it was even possible. Of course, it was immediately followed by a shard of guilt that I was smiling and flirting and being comforted while Nik was alone in a hospital bed. Although I also knew that was just my brain being mean to me. Nik wasn’t going to get better or worse depending on how miserable I was. But, then, thoughts were thoughts and feels were feels, and, if you were me, their power to influence each other was less than zero.

  “How’s London?” I asked.

  “Much as you left it, I suspect it. Warmish, with some scattered showers.”

  “How’s the humidity?”

  He thought about it. “About sixty percent—now why are you laughing?”

  “Because you are legit terrible at small talk.”

  “And you,” he said crisply, “are legit terrible at going to sleep.”

  “You’d better get on with lulling me, then.”

  He gave an un-lullful snort. “Is that what I’m doing?”

  “Not right now, no.”

  Another pause.

  He cleared his throat. “Lulling is quite difficult.”

  “Tell me what you’re looking at. What you’re thinking.” I closed my eyes. And let the last twenty-four hours thunder through me, and over me, until I was dust. “I just…I just want to hear you.”

  “Anything you need.” He sounded almost as raw as I did. But his words, coming to me down a phone, took me to familiar places. To Oxford in spring when Caspian had been a stranger. And the summer night he’d first made me feel safe. “I’m in my office. Standing by the window. It’s my favorite spot.”

  “Good view?”

  “I’ve never noticed.”

  “So…you really like the frame? The floor is especially nice there?”

  “No.” Caspian’s voice had dropped into its lowest register: the secret one, full of sex and teasing. “I kissed someone here once. Right against the glass.”

  “Did you now?”

  “I did. And perhaps somewhat ill-advisedly. You see, I’d made the young man in question very angry—fairly, as it happens—and he burst into my place of work to confront me over it.”

  I squirmed. “That seems a pretty embarrassing thing for him to do.”

  “He has nothing to be embarrassed about. He was magnificent and fearless and, even in the midst of his own hurt, kind. I was a fool to think I could ever possess power enough to resist him.”

  “Why would you want to? He sounds like a peach.”

  “He has no idea. Sending him home was probably one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. Watching the car vanish into traffic, carrying my Arden away from me, when all I wanted to do was force you down across my desk and make you mine forever.”

  It was, without a shadow of a doubt, the best bedtime story anyone had ever told me. I mean, it had everything. An unlikely protagonist. A dashing—if slightly tormented—hero. And all the exciting feelings.

  Unfortunately, I was knackered and wrung out, and Caspian’s words had wrapped me up, as warm as the coat he’d bought me, as strong as his arms around me, and so I fell asleep before I heard the end.

  * * *

  For the rest of the week, I spent most of my time in the hospital, popping back to the hotel to shower and sleep in rare horizontal luxury. Mostly I was floaty and dislocated, drifting through an eerie non-space where time had lost its meaning. My entire world: two rooms with beds in them. Though one of them, at least, was filling up with flowers from well-wishers. As for Nik, he was in a lot of pain and on a lot of drugs, and we had good days and bad days, just like the doctor said we would. The bad days, when I couldn’t make him laugh or speak to me sometimes, were rough. But, somehow, the good days were even worse because I saw how much they took out of him, and I knew he was doing it for me, and that was…kind of heartbreaking. And made me feel more helpless than ever. Even if Caspian had said being here was enough.

  And then we got the talk. The real talk.

  The one about rest and rehabilitation and prognosis. And Nik said nothing the whole time, leaving me to try and ask Dr. Sharma all the useful and intelligent questions you were supposed to ask in these situations. Of course, I’d been to google, but I was rapidly coming to the conclusion there was no right way to do handle this.

  To think, all that time at Oxford looking at Elizabethan politics in Sidney’s Arcadia when they should have been teaching me what to do when your best friend was severely injured and only had a seventy percent chance of ever walking again.

  Eventually the doctor left, promising to check back soon, the silence getting heavier and heavier and spikier and spikier until it was like being crushed in an iron maiden.

  Nik was staring at the ceiling.

  “Um,” I asked helplessly, “are you all right?”

  He still wouldn’t turn his head. “No, I’m not fucking all right. You heard what she said.”

  “Yeah but…but…I mean, we sort of knew—um. We did sort of know, didn’t we?”

  “Of course I knew. I’m not an idiot.”

  Except he didn’t have to tell me: this had made it real.

  “It’s not all bad stuff,” I tried. “And it could be a lot worse.”

  His hand flailed around weakly. Rumpling the covers and dragging the IV line back and forth.

  “Nik, don’t do that. You might pull something out or hurt yourself or—”

  “Shut up. Just…shut up. Shut the fuck up.”

  I froze. Too shocked, at first, even to be upset. He’d never spoken to me like that. But then I noticed the tears slipping from beneath his lashes. And since he couldn’t very easily dash them aside or turn away, it was the most defenseless thing I’d ever seen.

  “Oh Nik.” My own voice broke. “Please don’t cry. It’ll be okay.”

  “Stop telling me it’s going to be okay. It’s not okay. It’s not go
ing to be okay. And I’m not going to pretend otherwise to make you feel better.”

  I knew Nik wasn’t actually trying to hurt me. Or, if he was, it was more of a load-sharing exercise than anything. But the sandstorm of his anger and fear and grief still flayed me raw. Made me shed a few tears of my own.

  “What the fuck do you have to cry about?” he snarled.

  “Nothing. I don’t know. I’m sorry.” I let out a shaky breath. “It’s all really scary. I mean, I could have you lost you. You could have died. That’s such a terrible thing to have come so close to happening that I can’t even bear to think about it.”

  There was a long silence.

  “I’d rather be dead.” He eased his head round, so that he was looking out of the window, away from me. “Just leave me alone.”

  I almost kicked up a fuss, wanting to stay and fix it. But even I had enough self-awareness to recognize it would be for me, not Nik—who was telling me pretty clearly he needed something else right then.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll go get a drink. And if you still want to be by yourself when I’m done, I’ll head back to the hotel.”

  Nik didn’t reply.

  So I slipped out, closed the door as quietly as I could, and made my way through corridors grown as familiar as unspooled thread until I came to the coffee place near the lobby. I ordered a smoothie and cream cheese bagel, and crept into a corner with them.

  Silence enfolded me, soft and stifling. Hospitals were kind of like airports—sad airports—full of distilled time and echoes.

  Picking at my bagel, I discovered I had no appetite whatsoever.

  Welp. This sucked.

  I nearly rang Caspian. Sitting there with my phone in my hand, knowing he’d pick up, and certain that he would probably make me feel better. Though, in the end, I didn’t.

  Not because I didn’t want to. But because I didn’t need to.

  His strength was a powerful gift, and one he gave to me generously, without hesitation. Except, in borrowing Caspian’s sometimes, I’d remembered I had strength of my own. That my sense of myself could hold steady without the flattering mirror of his affection. And that sometimes life was shitty, and the people you loved were hurting, and sad and scared and lonely were what you had to feel.