He blinked for real then, white light flashing briefly, and grimaced.
“Luca?”
“S’bright…”
The world beyond his eyelids dimmed slightly, and the murmuring got a little louder. “It’s alright, lad,” that voice said, deep and rumbling. It was familiar, and Luca instinctively relaxed. Dad. Dad was here. “They’re just taking out some of the kit you don’t need anymore.”
Luca frowned. He felt clearer, but also more numb than before. His fingers felt a little weird. “What’s going on?” he mumbled, hearing the slur in his own voice.
Dad’s hand was suddenly warm over his good one, and Luca squeezed it experimentally. “It’s alright,” Dad rumbled. “You were in surgery again this morning, just to tidy up your shoulder. It’s just after two now.”
Luca screwed up his face and cracked open his eyes. There were a couple of orderlies packing up the trolley with his heart monitor. Huh. So there’d be no more beeping at all. Dad’s thumb was rubbing lightly over the back of Luca’s hand, so he rolled his head to peer at him instead.
“You look shit.”
Dad guffawed, which only added to how shit he looked. Like Luca would ever get away with saying that any other time.
“S’true.”
“Better’n you do, kiddo.”
Luca doubted that. Dad clearly hadn’t shaved in a week. Even his head hair was growing out, little curls starting to form. He was wearing a crumpled T-shirt—and Luca didn’t even remember Dad owning T-shirts. He hated them, called them sloppy. He always wore shirts, even if he left the collar open.
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, then, I’ll tell your mother to bring you a mirror when she comes to see you,” Dad said. His tone was light, and his hand still warm over Luca’s. Luca blinked, and frowned. This wasn’t right. Dad hadn’t held his hand since he was about four years old and still needing guiding across roads. This was…weird.
“Am I dying or something?”
Dad blinked, and his face seemed to harden. “Don’t you ever say that again,” he said sharply, and Luca scowled.
“You’re holding my hand! That’s weird!”
Dad snorted, and squeezed Luca’s hand hard. Way hard. Unnecessarily hard, actually. “If you ever have kids, Luca, you’ll get it. Nothing scarier than having to see one of your kids in hospital. So I suggest you put up and shut up, because right now, I am just holding your hand. When your mother realises you’re not loopy on morphine anymore, she’s going to baby you harder than she did when you really were a baby.”
Luca might be numb and floaty—and the curtains probably weren’t shimmering behind Dad like his eyes were insisting they were—but he wasn’t stupid either, you know? It was weird, parents being all mushy, but they weren’t robots. So instead of pulling away—because the Jensens did not hold hands, fuck you—he huffed.
“Can’t you make her not?”
“Nope.”
“But Dad―”
“I’ve been married to your mother for seventeen years, Luca. I know better than to get between her and one of you lot when she’s decided to fuss.”
Luca pulled a face. To his surprise, Dad smiled and let go of his hand to ruffle his hair. Then his hand just lingered, and that thumb began to rub at Luca’s hairline.
“You look a bit better this afternoon,” he said quietly. “Any pain?”
“No,” Luca mumbled, closing his eyes. The sensation was kind of nice, actually. “Feel all floaty.”
“Well, you seem a bit better. You’ve been out of it for days. Do you remember much?”
“Of what?”
“Here. Hospital.”
“No,” Luca admitted. He was beginning to feel sleepy again. “Paolo was reading to me…did he finish? It was that book about Arthur Dent and the mice.”
“Er, I’ll ask him.”
“And Tomas was telling me the football scores…”
“You were calmer when we talked to you,” Dad said quietly, still stroking Luca’s curls back. It was slow and rhythmic, more like Mamma than Dad. “You’ve been climbing the walls, absolutely howling the place down if you thought you were on your own. Mamma and I have been taking turns staying the night with you.”
Luca scrunched up his face. “Fuck.”
“Language.”
“S’embarrassing, though.”
“Well, if you need ammo against the lads, Angelo was in floods of tears when the dentist had to take his molar out last year and held my hand all the way through.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Dental assistant was doing a fine job of not giggling, poor lass.”
Luca smiled broadly. There wasn’t any pain—although he knew, from the wispy sensation to his own thoughts and the way Dad’s hand was both right there and a million miles away—that that was just drugs. Angelo was still a bigger pussy than he was. Dad was here. It was okay.
“Where’s Tav?”
“He’ll be at school.”
“But he’s coming later, right?”
“Aye. Every afternoon. Driving his mother up the wall, apparently refusing to go to school every morning and she’s having to bully him into it.”
Luca laughed feebly. His chest wouldn’t open up for it, so it was more of a cough, but it didn’t hurt, and Dad sniggered quietly, like those times he’d let them have beer at Christmas when Mamma’s back was turned. Wine was okay. Beer wasn’t.
“Can I have a lager when we go home?”
Dad’s snort was very low. “Go to sleep, you little berk. And no, you can’t. You’ll be on more drugs when you go home.”
“What about wine?”
“No. Jesus, you’re definitely coming out of it…”
Luca tuned him out, and let himself drift. The curtains were humming, low and menacing, like a hive of angry wasps, but it was okay.
Dad was here.
* * * *
It was like that for a couple more days. Not the crying, thank God, but the general…confusion. Luca didn’t seem to even know which way was up, and in some ways it was easy because Tav could just hold his hand and tell him it was fine, and Luca would believe him…but it made leaving him harder, when Tav was afraid he’d wake up later and think Tav had dumped him again.
Tav was falling into a routine of school, hospital, home, repeat. He knew the exact buses he needed to jump on to be there by quarter past four. He knew if he could get Ian to come and drop him off, he’d be there at four itself, but never earlier because of the traffic. The walk to the ward was getting familiar, and he was on nodding-in-the-hall terms with the redheaded nurse at the entrance to the ward. How depressing was that?
The curtains were open today, though, and Tav’s despondency at the routine was eased by the sight of the marginally-raised bed and Luca’s sleep shirt from home. There were magazines scattered on the sheets, and Antonio was on guard duty, elbows on the mattress and reading aloud—in Italian—from what looked like a comic book.
Tav stopped where the curtain had been yesterday, and Luca’s head turned on the pillow again, just like it had for the last few weeks since he’d woken up a bit. Only instead of wide, confused eyes and half-mumbled, bleary questions, he was greeted by a wider, beautiful smile, and an expression that said Luca knew exactly who he was this time.
“Hello,” Tav said uselessly, and the smile widened impossibly further.
“Been waiting for you,” Luca said. His voice was slurred, but his eyes were clearer, and a lump formed in Tav’s throat. “C’mere.”
Tav was on the wrong side of the bed for the hand Luca stretched out to him, so he decided to sod decorum and being manly and all that shit. He bent over the bed and kissed him. Hard. And Luca tasted of morning breath and stale apple juice and seriously needed a mint or something, but it was the best kiss of Tav’s life.
Because Luca smiled against his mouth and kissed back.
“Hey,” Luca whispered.
“Hey,” Tav replied, and cupped that fa
ce in both hands to hold him still and press his nose into Luca’s hair. “Oh my God, I want to hug you so hard.”
“Can’t quite sit up yet,” Luca said.
“Please try, Angelo and I made a bet about whether Mamma or that nurse on the breakfast round is gonna kill you for being a difficult twat first,” Antonio said idly.
“Naff off,” Luca said mildly, and when Tav pulled back, that beautiful face was open and relaxed. A little bit too relaxed, actually.
“You still doped up?”
“Oooh, yeah,” Antonio said.
“Tonio, fuck off,” Luca retorted, then grimaced. “I’m having nightmares and hallucinations.”
“You’re hallucinating?”
“Yeah, Dad said he started screaming about locusts on the curtains at about nine o’clock this morning.”
“Tav. Hit Antonio for me?”
Antonio looked up from the magazine with a glare that could have singed paper at three hundred feet, and Tav winced. “Um. No. I like having arms that are attached to my body, Luca.” And then it bubbled over, too crazy and surreal, and Tav covered his mouth with one hand and choked.
“Oh, Tav.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled as the first tears came, and buried his face in Luca’s hair again. Suddenly, it was all too much. It was like the room had crystallised around him, and all the panic from when Mam had told him what had happened had just…reappeared. Like it had all been on hold. “God. Oh God, you’re okay. You’re really gonna be okay.”
“Uh-huh,” Luca said, and he really was dopey that he only hooked his good arm around Tav’s neck and mumbled. “Ssh. Ssh, Tav, I can’t cuddle you. It’s not fair. Ssh.”
“You’re okay,” Tav repeated. He felt like a song on loop. A bad one.
“Antonio, go away.”
Boots clunked and the curtain rattled; Tav kissed an ear hidden in that hair, and choked back another sob. “I’m sorry. But—fuck, I’m not either, ‘cause you were so messed up yesterday and now you’re…you know me and you’re okay and…”
“I didn’t know you?”
“You don’t remember?”
Luca hummed. “I dunno. I can’t tell if I was dreaming or not. You…we argued and you dumped me and then you weren’t dumping me and Paolo was reading from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy because he’s a massive nerd and you were hugging me.”
Tav untangled himself and settled on the very edge of the mattress, absently carding his fingers through Luca’s hair. “And you know I’m not, right?”
“Huh?”
“Dumping you.”
“Uh-huh,” Luca said. The affirmation sent a rush of hot relief through Tav’s chest, and Luca squeezed Tav’s elbow with his good hand. “I’m still a bit…I can’t remember things right. The doctor said it’s just the drugs, says it’s normal…”
“Yeah,” Tav said, and ran his fingers down Luca’s face lightly, trying not to press on the light remains of bruising. Luca turned his cheek into it, like he always did. Like a cat wanting stroking. “Love you, Luca.”
Luca smiled and squeezed his elbow.
“What doesn’t hurt?” Tav asked on a whim.
“Huh?”
“I want to just touch you for a bit, but―”
“I wouldn’t, everything from my hips down is numb.”
“I meant a hug,” Tav sniped, and bit back another sob at the word. How stupid was he being? Since when was a hug worth crying over?
Luca patted his stomach with his good hand and smiled. “Put your head there.”
“You sure?”
“Uh-huh. Then I can mess up your hair and you can tell me what’s happening and what I’ve missed.”
“Like what?”
“Like…like last I remember, David and Vicky were a-thing-but-not-a-thing. Where’s that at?”
Tav laughed, pulling up a chair and very carefully settling to sit as close to the bed as possible, and lay his head on Luca’s stomach. Instantly, it was an awesome idea. Luca breathed very deep, and Tav’s head immediately began to rise and fall in time with him. He was warm, too, through the thin sheets and his sleep shirt, and Tav smiled and closed his eyes as Luca’s hand began to tug and sift through his hair.
“You okay?” Luca whispered.
“I am now,” Tav said. “You?”
“Um…”
“Luca?”
“No, stay there,” Luca said, pressing down with his hand when Tav tried to move. “It’s just…there’s not really a bug on the ceiling, right?”
“What kind of bug?”
“It’s about a foot long, Tav, you can’t miss it.”
Tav glanced up at the perfectly clear ceiling tiles. “No, Luca. No bug.”
“Okay,” Luca said. For a minute, he said nothing else and continued to fluff Tav’s hair, then eventually—”So. David and Vicky? Where’s it at?”
“Facebook official,” Tav said, and felt things beginning to slot back into their proper places. “And Aaron is, like, homicidal about what happened to you, him and David are gonna come and see you soon now you’re awake proper.”
“Were they there?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I remember…bits. Like…I remember arguing with Jack. And I remember he shoved me, and then I remember this paramedic with lots of red hair, she was dead pretty. But I don’t remember where I was or supposed to be or any of that.”
“You were going to swimming. With David and Aaron.”
“Okay,” Luca said placidly, still fluffing Tav’s hair. His eyes were beginning to drift again, that sleepy expression creeping back in, but his voice was calm and clear, and Tav wanted to stay right there forever. “And…Jack?”
“I dunno,” Tav said, a little sharply. “He’s not been at school.” Viciously, he hoped Jack was in prison. “Samantha Marks has been asking about you, too. I thought she was going to cry when she was nagging Aaron the other day, silly cow…”
“Aw, she’s not, Sam’s nice…”
Tav snorted, and Luca tugged tightly on his hair.
“She is. What about swimming? Has the coach said anything?”
“I dunno, Luca. Ask Aaron when he comes.” Tav brought up a hand to tuck between his face and Luca’s stomach, and blinked up at that tired, sharp face. The bruises and the drug-induced tiredness made the angles softer, and Tav swallowed against the raw sensation in his throat. “You’re a shit,” he grumbled, to cover it up. “Could’ve died, and all you wanna know about is swimming…”
Luca’s smile was wide, beautiful, and so fucking alive that it hurt.
Chapter 27: “Luca’s my priority. Always was.”
Thu-duh, thu-duh, thu-duh―
Tav had never wanted to not be on the athletics field so badly, but…
Mam had insisted. After Luca coming round and being, well, Luca and not a vegetable. she’d insisted Tav go to athletics club after school.
“You don’t get to put your life on hold for this,” she’d said briskly. “Luca will be fine.”
“Eventually, maybe,” Tav had tried, but it hadn’t passed muster, and Mam had shoved his PE kit at him before telling him she’d check he’d been to school.
Thu-duh, thu-duh, thu-duh―
Frankly, school was a waste of time already. And being here, being on the track when Luca was in hospital…
But for the first time in days, Tav’s hammering heart wasn’t fear. It wasn’t rage at Jack Collins, or nauseating terror at what he was going to find at the hospital. It was just the rhythm, the track, the pounding of his shoes off the grass, the burn in his muscles. It was something a little bit like…normal.
Luca—Luca was going to be fine. He was. Tav knew that, but it still felt unnatural to not be at the hospital. He hadn’t been lucid the last few times Tav had been, and before that he’d just been out for the count. It felt weird to be here. Weird to be running when Luca…
Thu-duh, thu-duh, thu-duh―
They didn’t know if Luca was going t
o be able to run again yet. Or swim. Or even walk; pretty much everything was busted, right, from the waist down? Nobody would say anything to Tav, in front of Luca or otherwise, and all Tav knew was the heavy casts, the wires, the way Luca wasn’t seemingly able to turn on his side. Maybe swimming club was over. Maybe football in the street in the summer was over. Running in the mornings, when they were lonely and frosty and nobody could see—over.
And if it was?
A whistle blew; for a moment, Tav simply kept going, then Coach Evans was shouting his name.
“Hey! Hey, hey! Tav! Come on, cool down. Cool down.”
Tav slowed and stopped. After a moment, his brain kicked in over his heartbeat, and he shifted off the painted lines of the track and into his cool-down stretches.
“New personal best for you, Tav,” Coach Evans said cheerily, and bent to squint at his face. Her round face softened. “You doing okay?”
Tav grunted.
“I’m guessing someone told you to come out here today, given I have to persuade you on a good day,” Coach Evans continued, still in that gentle tone.
Tav shrugged. “Mam.”
“Well, I’m grateful to her. You’re one of my best runners, Tav, and I know there’s places you’d rather be right now than here―”
“Like the hospital,” Tav said.
“Like the hospital,” she agreed. “And I don’t blame you. But there’s nothing to be gained in abandoning everything about your normal life in favour of―”
“In favour of the one fucking person who means shit to me!” Tav exploded.
“In favour of,” Coach Evans raised her voice, not so much as flinching back from him, “haunting hospital corridors waiting for someone who is going to be fine, Tav.”
Tav bit his tongue, and straightened out of his quad stretch.
“We hear things, too, you know,” Coach Evans said. “In the staff room. Including how Luca is going to recover―”
“Eventually.”
“Yes, eventually, but―”
The Italian Word for Kisses Page 24