by C F White
But right then, he had to focus his care on someone else. Someone who needed him more. And the last time that had been the case, Kez had let him down. Eve’s voice still echoed in his mind. He shook it off to bundle through the reception area, tripping over the kids playing at the reflective rock pool and projected fish. He waved at the purple-T-shirt-wearing volunteers he’d come to know by name, and slipped out of the sliding doors to wait at the curb entrance.
As he stood, his mind wandered, and he shivered against the warm breeze. Can the old ever really mix with the new? This was Kez’s new life. The one he’d built for himself. It had taken all his effort to move away from what he’d known, to leave the Marlyte and all that it stood for and had done for him behind. It had hurt to leave Eve, his one stability, but all young must fly the nest at some point and it had been long overdue. This job had allowed for him to privately rent his own flat and he wasn’t living hand-to-mouth anymore. He was comfortable. He could afford things. And there was the potential to climb that corporate ladder to management level.
Callum’s return had caused his two worlds to collide and it was tearing Kez in half. He was a different man to the one who had grown up on the estate and he’d left that life behind, only taking cherished memories with him, whilst burying the ones that were too painful. The ones of Callum.
Callum’s face peeped around the far corner where Holborn station resided and Kez couldn’t quash the unexpected stomach flip. Damn. That soon meshed uneasily with the curdled, heavy sludge stuck in his chest as he slid his gaze to the man walking beside Callum. Rafferty caught Kez’s eye and offered a bright smile, one that a mere twenty-four hours ago would have ignited Kez’s dreary afternoon. It wasn’t the perfect that had produced Kez’s excitable butterflies, it was the imperfect. The flawed. The damaged. Callum. How can this still feel exactly the same?
Kez hadn’t ever been able to shake the man from his mind and wondered now why he’d even bothered trying. It was futile. He was destined for a life tarred with the unrequited.
Fixing his gaze on Kez, Callum didn’t let it falter the closer he strode toward him, even with Rafferty’s no-doubt incessant chatter beside him. Maybe it was a silent plea for help, which did tickle Kez a little, but maybe—and this was where Kez knew he was in for a world of pain—maybe Callum had been thinking along the same lines as Kez. That their friendship wasn’t in tatters. That they could restore it somehow. Now that Callum was on the straight and narrow, with no skeletons in either closet, maybe they could just pick up where they had left off? Well, not exactly where they had left off, because Kez had vowed never to set himself up for that sort of heartache again. And, well, now there was Rafferty. And the fact that Callum wasn’t gay. Wasn’t even really bi.
“Package delivered.” Rafferty saluted and clicked his heels together on approach.
Eyes that weren’t quite brown, weren’t quite green and weren’t quite blue stared at Kez unflinching. Docile, lifeless. The way Kez remembered Callum had been when he’d stood in the dock. Kez had known back then that Callum had been hiding something behind the mask of indifference he so often wore. What is he hiding now?
“Thank you, Raff. I appreciate it.” Kez fished his wallet from his pocket and slipped out a tenner, holding it out to Rafferty.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
“For the cost of the Tube ride.”
Rafferty smiled, wrapping his hand around Kez’s fingers and gently pushing it away. “I don’t want your money, honey. I just want your time.”
Kez had wanted to feel that. He’d wanted the rush of adrenaline to surge through him the way it had when Callum’s fingers had brushed his yesterday. He’d beg for that feeling back. He wanted it so badly.
Smiling, he flicked his gaze to Callum. He had his jaw clenched tight. Uncomfortable. Was it because of Rafferty flirting? Or was he mad that he was here at all? Did he want to bolt? Whatever it was, he kept his gaze fixed on Kez and didn’t flicker it away. Kez found himself staring back, silently conveying everything he’d never said.
“How about rescheduling that date?” Rafferty interrupted the moment with a hopeful lilt in his voice.
Kez couldn’t tear himself away from the hazel eyes that held him captive. They always had. Whether in person, or through the photograph that was stuck to his school yearbook and gazed at him with every year that had passed. Callum hadn’t smiled in that picture, either. He’d been far too street for that. But when he did smile, his entire face lit up to spark the fire in Kez’s gut.
I’m so fucking screwed.
“Kez?”
Kez remained fixated on Callum’s soft breaths, along with the rise and fall of his chest, and the way some of the strands of his hair loosened from the knot to ruffle in the breeze. Trailing his gaze southwards, he widened his eyes. Callum was wearing Drake’s clothes. An odd sight of the two people who had messed with his head most in his life were now meshed as one. Trouble was, Callum looked good. Real good. Better than Drake had when he’d tried to pull off that double denim look.
Stepping back, Rafferty tapped Kez on the top of his arm. “I’ll catch up with you some other time.”
Ripping his gaze from Callum, Kez refocused on Rafferty and guilt sliced through him as if it was Rawlings’ scalpel.
“Raff, thank you. Sorry. Yes, let’s do lunch. Tomorrow?” It was all Kez could think of to say.
Rafferty beamed. “Absolutely.”
“What am I here for, Kez?” Folding his arms, Callum nodded at the entrance of the hospital.
Families wheeled children out in buggies and wheelchairs, or held the delicate hands of their frail offspring. Some overzealous outpatients skipped with glee at having been let out, or not having to stay longer than necessary, or having avoided the dreaded blood tests. Such was life at St. Cross Children’s Hospital.
“I’ll leave you both to it.” Rafferty held out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Callum.”
Callum glared down at the hand as if he could drill a hole right through the flesh. After a dreadful long, lingering moment, he took it and shook. Rafferty smiled, at Kez, then headed on into the hospital. Kez exhaled a lungful of relief that he hadn’t realised he’d been holding in.
“How you feeling?” Kez ducked to get back into Callum’s line of sight. Now that the man wasn’t looking at him, Kez was desperate to get the warmth back into his veins.
“Fine.”
“You all right if we get that confirmed?”
Hazel eyes narrowed in on him. “By who?”
“My doc says he’ll take a look at you.”
“Like, official?”
“Like, for a favour. Just to be safe.” Kez prevented himself from squeezing Callum’s hand. “Please?”
Callum sighed, long and deep. Then after a harrowing moment where Kez thought Callum might make a run for it, Callum finally nodded. “Let’s go see what the bossman says, then.”
“After you.” Kez gestured Callum through the sliding entrance doors that whooshed open into the bustle of the reception area.
Digging his hands deep into his pockets—Drake’s pockets—Callum meandered through the entrance and noticeably clammed up. Kez watched from behind as Callum’s shoulders tensed and he flinched at every wail. Valerie, one of the purple-T-shirt-wearing volunteers, homed in on her meal ticket—a scared-shitless bloke not knowing where to go.
“Can I help you?” She repeated the lines etched across her chest.
Kez rushed up behind. “It’s okay, Val. He’s with me.” He tapped Callum’s back and pushed him toward the elevators.
“How do you do this every day?” Callum asked as he focused on the lit-up numbers detailing the lift’s descent.
“What? Work?” He probably shouldn’t have said that as Callum’s glare gave him the shivers.
“At a hospital.” Callum gritted his teeth. “With sick children.”
“Most aren’t infectious. Not the ones running down here, anyway.”
“I didn
’t mean that.”
The elevator doors dinged open and Callum stepped in. Kez followed and hit the required button for the Cardiology wing.
“I meant…like, don’t it get to you? Seeing the suffering?” Callum’s face grew paler by the second.
“They’re not all suffering. Mostly, they’re here to get better. And they do. It’s amazing what happens here. Yeah, okay, not all of it is happy endings. But everyone here is doing their best to make it that way. From the volunteers who play with the kids, to those who show scared parents where to go, to the nurses who work twelve-hour shifts and the doctors who perform lifesaving surgery. Everyone here has a common goal. I’m part of that in my own little way.”
Callum’s lips curved into a brief, but noticeable, smile. “So you.”
Kez cocked his head. “How so?”
“You always wanted to be part of something. You always wanted to feel important, useful. It’s why you did all that extra shit at school. All that volunteering, fundraising and whatever else it was that took up all your spare time.”
Kez bit his lip, bowing his head to hide the fact he wanted to grin. Callum remembered. He hadn’t forgotten about him. And if he didn’t know better, he’d have said there was a hint of jealousy in the way Callum had recited that last line. He’d always moaned that Kez’d had to do this, that or the other instead of hanging out with him down the playground, on the street corner…or in his room.
“I volunteered here, too, before landing the job. Probably what got me it.” Kez stumbled as the lift jolted upward, making him bash his shoulder against Callum’s.
Callum trailed his gaze to where their shoulders had touched. He sniffed and edged away. “You can volunteer here?”
“Yeah. Val does. She’s a guide. That’s what I did. But we have all sorts of volunteer opportunities—playroom workers, fundraisers, shake-a-tin stuff, staffing the gift shop.” Kez tilted his head, catching the look of interest flickering across Callum’s softening features. “Why? You want to volunteer?”
“Got told to, din’t I? Best way for an ex-con to get on the job market. Signed up to the Prince’s Trust but nothing came of it. That’s how I ended up labouring for a poxy no-payer and had to find other means of making dough.”
“Like how?” Kez’s gut knotted.
“Cash-in-hand shit.”
“Cal, you’re not—” Kez didn’t get a chance to ask the question that had been burning his bones since their reunion as the elevator doors whooshed open and Callum lunged toward them.
“We gettin’ out here?” Callum walked out through the waiting incoming of scrubs and mothers-with-children and hurried off up the corridor, without even knowing which way to go. What’s he running from?
Kez snaked through, saying ‘hi’ to those he knew and those he didn’t, catching up with Callum waiting by the entrance doors to the wing. He wanted to ask again. To make the man tell him the truth, even if he wouldn’t believe it. But Callum softened before him, into how Kez remembered him when it had just been the two of them. Alone. Together. Growing up.
“The Prince’s Trust find volunteer placements for ex-crims,” Callum said. “You can claim benefits while gaining experience somewhere.” He shrugged. “I applied to all the places I could think of. Turns out, I ain’t such a catch. Maybe it was my form-filling. You know I ain’t good with writing and questions and shit.”
Kez lightened. “I could help?”
Callum smiled. “Like the old days.”
Kez dropped his head, staring at the gleaming cream linoleum floor. Those old days had been good. Locked in his bedroom, writing his own essays whilst aiding Callum to understand the simplest of text. Callum wasn’t thick. Far from it. He just needed teaching in a different way. But a state school in Branton had never had the funds to help him. He’d been ignored, usually in a corner of the classroom where his disruptive nature had caused the teachers to just leave him to it. So Kez had taken it upon himself to help Callum achieve what Kez knew he could. And he’d loved every second of it. Especially that one night when they’d fallen asleep surrounded by books, only for Kez to wake wrapped up in a warm embrace with soft breath trickling along his neck and lips that coated his shivering skin—
“Kez?”
“Yeah?” Startled, Kez shook himself and nodded down the corridor. “The doc’s office is up here. He should be there.” Marching off, he told himself to get a goddamn grip.
The doctor’s door was open when he arrived. Rawlings sat hunched over his desk, glasses fixed to his nose and reading through a mound of files with his computer switched on. The white coat had gone and he was back in civilian clothes, with an uneaten sandwich wrapped in the St. Cross canteen paper by his side. Kez knocked on the frame to alert him to their arrival. The doctor was so immersed in his paperwork he didn’t even look up, and only hummed in response.
“Doctor, this is Callum, the one I told you about.” Kez held up his prosthetic to both usher in and point Callum out to the doctor.
Ripping his attention from his books, Rawlings stared across the threshold. His gaze landed on Callum and the doctor flinched. Kez wouldn’t have even noticed it if he hadn’t been subjected to the doctor’s vulnerability earlier. Perhaps he’s forgotten? Callum shifted on his feet, as though he was about ready to make a bolt for it. Glancing from one to the other sent a prickling feeling grating along the nape of Kez’s neck. But he didn’t have time to acknowledge it as Rawlings scraped off his glasses, threw them to the desk and stood.
“Yes.” He nodded. “Of course. Come in.” Rawlings tucked his shirt back into his chinos, moved the piles of paperwork on his desk and flung his stethoscope around his neck.
Something he couldn’t define skittered over Kez’s skin. But he brushed it off and angled his head for Callum to step in. He did after a moment’s hesitation that Kez couldn’t blame him for. He burned his gaze into Kez, as if he were pleading with him. For what? Kez wasn’t sure. Perhaps this isn’t the best idea. Kez knew how much Callum hated authority figures. But Kez’s research about smoke inhalation after his meet with the doctor earlier had told him that leaving it undetected and untreated could be fatal, so Kez would rather go through this than have a dead Callum on his hand.
“Close the door, Kwesi.” The doctor waved and removed a mound of manila files from the plastic seat adjacent to his cluttered desk. He looked around, then obviously decided that the only place worthy to dump important documentation was on top of the ones already piled high from floor to desk surface.
Callum chuckled under his breath as Kez closed the door.
“What?” he asked, trotting back beside him.
“The way he says Kwesi sounds like when Mr. Gaffney used to call you.”
“Yeah. I know. I’ve tried to get him to use Kez, but he seems to like being formal.”
“Does he now?” Callum chewed on his bottom lip with something that Kez couldn’t place flickering across his features.
Finishing his clearing up, Dr. Rawlings faced them both, hands on his hips. Kez smiled awkwardly and Callum shifted his gaze to the floor. Kez felt like he was missing out on something. He had no idea what, so he waited for instructions from his boss. The doctor inhaled, his solid chest rising to stretch the buttons on his tight-fitting shirt.
“Right. Well, Callum, is it?” Rawlings sliced his palm though the air to offer Callum the seat.
“Yeah.” Callum sat, his exterior returning to its pent-up tautness. Kez wished he could massage that tension in Callum’s shoulders away, but they hadn’t reclaimed that part of their weird friendship. Yet. And certainly not in front of other people. Sigh.
“I’m Dr. Rawlings. Kwesi told me you were caught in the fire yesterday and that you weren’t looked over by any medical professionals.”
“They were busy with others. I feel fine.”
“How about I be the judge of that?” Rawlings raised his eyebrows with a small smile curving his lips. Typical Rawlings. Stern, firm, with a hint of affability
to not come across as pompous. At least to his patients. Colleagues might be a different story. Lovers? Kez would kill to know how the dynamics of a relationship between the sheets with Rawlings might go…
Rawlings looked up at the wall cluttered with the same policies that Kez’s desk was and avoided looking directly at Callum. Was Rawlings checking if this came under the ‘special favours’ policy? The doctor’s face contorted and grew paler than Kez had ever seen it before. Dropping his gaze to his dusky boots, Callum wrung his hands in his lap and Kez watched from the sidelines with a spark of irritation. Why doesn’t he just get on with it? Rawlings blew out a breath then stepped in closer to Callum, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.
Then he cupped Callum’s jaw and stared into the hazel eyes that Kez dreamed of far more frequently than he liked to admit. Stepping away from the wall, Kez was transfixed at the sight of both of them gazing at each other as if they were searching for something they’d both lost. Kez’s nostrils flared at the force of the breath he exhaled. He’d just been transported back to a time when this overwhelming burning in his chest had been the norm. Whenever Callum had wrapped his arm around anyone else, Kez had been riddled with crushing envy. Of which one this time? He didn’t need to admit that.
“Kwesi?”
“Yes, Doctor?” Kez’s heart jolted.
Rawlings didn’t look at him. “Perhaps you ought to wait outside? As much as Callum isn’t my patient, there is still a duty of confidentiality.”
“Doctor?” Kez was confused. He’d brought Callum here. He was, for all intents and purposes, Callum’s chaperone. Callum would want him here. Doesn’t he? “Cal?”