by David Horne
“Your apartment,” Graham said. “It’s upstairs.”
He took one long golden key off of his keychain and handed it to him, the tips of his fingers grazing Lawrence’s when they touched. Lawrence wasn’t sure, but he thought that he saw a little smile crossing Graham’s beautiful face.
“Your bags will be brought to you soon, but in the meantime, clothes have already been provided. I don’t know if they will fit you,” he said, looking at Lawrence up and down. “They might be a little short, but they should be fine. You are, what, six one?”
“Yes,” Lawrence replied.
“Oh, nice,” Graham said, looking him up and down. If Lawrence didn’t know better, he would have thought that Graham was checking him out. “Well, the last doctor was a little smaller than you, and he moved back to Toronto, so he doesn’t need any of the Caribbean clothes that he left behind.”
“Why didn’t you keep them?”
“What makes you think I didn’t keep any?” Graham said. That time, Lawrence was absolutely sure that he saw him wink.
Lawrence watched him.
“Anyway,” Graham said, pointing at a house across the street and about two houses away from Lawrence’s. “I live over there.”
“Where?”
“The green one,” he said.
Lawrence blinked. “Why are there so many flowers around it?”
“People give me flowers,” Graham replied as he shrugged.
“Did something happen?”
Graham looked at him, his eyes narrow, then he shook his head. “Not… recently.”
Lawrence knew better than to push it, though he wanted to know what Graham was talking about. He supposed that he would find out soon enough.
“There’s a big dinner tonight to celebrate your arrival,” Graham said. “You can’t get out of it, so don’t try. Don’t worry, I made sure to keep it relatively intimate, at least as much as I could.”
Lawrence swallowed. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Just show up, eat, have one drink, then excuse yourself because you’re tired,” Graham said. “That always works for me and you’re going to be even busier than I am. I’ll escort you home.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Lawrence replied.
Graham shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll come get you at around seven o’clock.”
“What should I wear?”
“Whatever you want,” Graham said. “I’m sure you look great in anything.”
Lawrence smiled at him and Graham cleared his throat, looking away from him. Maybe he was flirting after all. Maybe coming to this island wouldn’t be so bad, Lawrence thought.
“I’ll come get you about seven thirty,” Graham said. “We’re on island time, though, so don’t worry too much about being on time.”
Lawrence watched him.
“Don’t worry,” Graham said. “You’ll get used to it. Your bags will be here shortly. You have cable and internet set-up already, your wi-fi password is on the desk in the living room. I’m sorry there’s no more space in your apartment.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Lawrence replied.
“In any case, if you need anything, let me know.”
“Absolutely,” Lawrence said.
“And Doctor?”
“At least call me Jones, please.”
“Okay, Jones,” Graham replied, his voice barely above a whisper. He clasped his hand over Lawrence’s shoulder, his skin soft and warm over the thin fabric of his guayabera. “It’s really nice to have you here.”
“It’s nice to finally be here,” Lawrence replied.
Graham nodded, smiling at him. Then he turned away and walked toward his house. Lawrence was glad that he was wearing sunglasses, because his eyes wandered down to his ass and they stayed there until Graham turned around, waved at him, and then disappeared into his hallway, turning around and standing in the doorway for what seemed like Lawrence like an excessive amount of time. There was no way that he was putting on a show for Lawrence, at least Lawrence didn’t think so. Still, he couldn’t help but think that he was flirting as Graham looked back over his shoulder and smiled.
Chapter Two
The restaurant Graham had chosen for Lawrence's welcoming dinner was nice. As colorful inside as it was outside, the place smelled divine, like fried food and salted cocktails.
It was on the water, but not exactly on the beach—the water was simply visible from where they were sitting, on the deck of the beautiful restaurant that looked so much like a house from the outside. Not counting Lawrence, there were six people around him.
Father Meneses was an older man who sat down next to the pastor of the protestant church and his wife, the two of them clearly friends. Father Meneses looked like he could be the pastor’s father, and from the way that the two men interacted with each other, Lawrence didn’t think that assessment was too far off. His wife was a perfectly polite woman, who spent most of her time talking to Karen, the nurse. Graham was sitting between Lawrence and the mayor, a corpulent woman with beautiful black hair that went all the way down her back and an easy smile. According to Graham, she was extremely competent, partly because she wasn’t distracted by a family to tear her away from her never-ending workload, but that was all that he had managed to say before she came up to them.
Now that they were all sitting around and finally settling into a more normal pace of conversation, with heaping plates of coconut rice with fried fish in front of them—the choice was that or soup and Lawrence couldn’t think of anything that he wanted less in the heat than soup—they finally started with the proper introductions. Nurse Karen Lloyd had been born and raised on the skerry, leaving to pursue her education in Europe. She had come back home to get married. Her husband had been a well-to-do businessman and she hadn’t needed to work, but when her husband died and she was left with two young children, Karen decided to start working again. She had contemplated the possibility of moving abroad once more, but she realized that her people needed her. Her children were now studying at boarding schools abroad.
He instantly liked her. He knew that working with her would be paramount to his own practice and his stay there would rely a lot on her help. He smiled warmly at her and she smiled back at him after she had finished telling her story, quietly, with some people chiming in only to make her seem even more admirable than she already appeared to be.
“Don’t let them fill your head with lies about me,” Karen said. The English of the island was interesting and Lawrence’s ear wasn’t quite used to it, so he had to strain to understand everything she was saying. “They’re just buttering you up so that what happened with the last doctor won’t happen with you.”
Everyone at the table laughed, but it was uncomfortable, and the mood seemed to shift almost instantly.
Lawrence cleared his throat. He wondered if he should ask what had happened with the last one, but Graham seemed to read his mind. “Our last doctor was very good. He was this Canadian man and he was every Canadian stereotype.”
Lawrence raised his eyebrows.
“You know, super nice, extremely polite,” Graham said with a smile, but it quickly faded when he saw the people sitting around him. He looked down at his food, which remained almost completely untouched, as he continued talking. “Anyway, his name was Thomas Vieux, and he was this young, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed doctor who really wanted to make a difference in the world.”
“I’ve heard of them,” Lawrence replied with a thin smile. Graham returned it, and for a second, Lawrence thought that he might reach out and touch him. But he didn’t, his hand rested on the space between their two plates, and Lawrence wondered if it was too bold a move to put his hand right next to Graham’s. He opted for resting his arm next to Graham’s instead, so that their skin was almost touching. He wanted to see if his theory was right. Maybe Graham was flirting with him after all. Most men would move their arms away, make sure that they weren’t touching even if they were sitting right ne
xt to each other. At least, American men. Lawrence recognized that he had no experience flirting with men who weren’t American and he knew that culturally it might be different. Graham’s arm remained still, his skin grazing against Lawrence’s. Lawrence looked up at his face, trying to ignore his heart, which was beating hard in his chest. Maybe he just hadn’t noticed, Lawrence thought. Graham looked down at his arm and his gaze lingered on it for just a second too long, then he bit down on his lower lip and looked back up at Lawrence.
“Anyway,” Graham said. “Dr. Vieux was excited to start working for an international aid organization. The idea that he would be helping people was something that made him happy, and we were excited to have him here.”
“He was excited to be here too,” Donny, the pastor, said. His wife, Laura, the one with the perfectly straight blonde bob, nodded along. “It was good for a few months.”
Graham nodded along with them. “Yes, it was good,” he started. “For a while. When he got to see people for colds and inoculations. But…”
His voice wavered, but Lawrence nodded. He wanted him to keep going. He wanted to hear what he had to say. If this was where he was going to spend the next few years, then Lawrence knew that he had to be prepared.
“What happened?” he asked after a little while, when none of the people he was dining with offered anything.
“Well,” Graham answered, his gaze darting away from Lawrence’s face. “It's hard. Being here, being the skerry’s doctor. Emotionally it's very hard because there are only so many patients you can save, and there are very limited resources.”
Lawrence swallowed. He was prepared for that, at least in theory, but hearing the way that the last doctor had left upset him. He was already worried enough. Still, he knew that he needed to know, so he kept watching Graham as Graham continued talking.
“He had a very hard case. He lost the patient and it… y’know, it hit him hard.”
Lawrence nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Losing a patient is always hard.”
“It always happens, we have a doctor, he gets attached to the people who live on the island, and then something happens to one of them.”
Lawrence licked his lips. Graham rubbed the bridge of his nose, still looking resolutely away from Lawrence’s eyes. “The issue is that the islanders, well, they forgive the doctor. They know there’s so much a doctor can do. But the doctor, well, they never forgive themselves.”
“That sounds…” Lawrence wanted to say that he was sure he would never have that problem, but he wasn’t sure of it any more. “Difficult.”
“It’s because of the population here,” Father Meneses offered, his voice as deep as it was quiet. “They are a big family, all of them. The doctor feels like part of it and if he loses a patient…”
“It’s different from a practice back at home, I’m sure,” Lawrence replied when it felt like everyone was staring at him. “But my area of work is very specialized, so I’m sure that will come in handy when it comes to bedside manner.”
“What is your specialization, Doctor?”
“I’m a plastic surgeon,” Lawrence said.
They all gave each other looks and Lawrence had to stop himself from sighing before he launched into an explanation.
“I am a reconstructive plastic surgeon,” he clarified. “I help people with hereditary diseases or people who’ve had severe wounds on their faces.”
Graham watched him curiously, saying nothing. Lawrence knew that it was very likely that he had seen his application, and he knew that at the time, Lawrence wasn’t practicing reconstructive surgery.
“My father is a plastic surgeon, too,” Lawrence said, more to Graham than to anyone else. “He paid for the majority of my schooling and I needed to pay him back, which I could do by working for him. Surgeons are in demand, but there’s a lot of competition to get into reconstructive surgery in particular, because it’s well paid and rewarding. I worked for my father for two years. I paid him back, passed my board exams, then came here.”
“Why didn’t you stay?” Karen asked, flipping her long curly hair behind her shoulder. “Surely, if you’re good, someone must have offered you a job.”
“They did, but… I don’t know. This wasn’t about money for me. I honestly just wanted to help. I know that people here need my help, and I don’t mind doing plastic surgery for patients who want it. But before I do that for the rest of my life, I wanted to try my hand at this.”
“Because it makes you feel good about yourself?”
“Yeah,” Lawrence said, shrugging. He didn’t think that there was a point in hiding that this was something that he was also doing for himself. “And because the people who I help, while I definitely can help them, are people with resources. I figured I would do this while I was young, so that later on, when I’m further along my career path, I won’t get derailed by... I don’t know.”
“Whimsy?” Graham offered, a little smile on his lips.
“Yeah,” Lawrence said. “Yeah, I guess by whimsy.”
Graham’s smile turned into a grin, then he sighed. “Look, it’s hard,” he said. “I get it. But that’s what we’re here for, okay? You can rely on us when you need to.”
The people around the table assented and nodded. Lawrence tried his best to smile at them, but all that he could think about was Graham. They spent a little more time getting to know each other, drinking cold beers, and by the time Lawrence was supposed to go home, he was already a little bit drunk.
Luckily, the walk wasn’t too far away, and though he wobbled as he tried to get down the street and up to his house, and Graham technically didn’t touch him to keep him upright. Lawrence still leaned on him because his body felt too heavy and clumsy for him to navigate among the narrow street, especially when he wasn’t that familiar with the terrain. He supposed these streets would have been easier to navigate if he was sober and if there were more street lights, but the only thing that illuminated the narrow road were the lights coming from inside the houses.
“This is it,” Graham said as Lawrence stepped past the house. Lawrence walked back to him and gave him a goofy grin as he tried his best not to burst into laughter.
“Thank you for walking me.”
“It’s okay,” Graham replied, biting his lower lip so he wouldn’t giggle himself. “You’re not far from me.”
Lawrence chuckled as he tried to dig the key out of his pocket. It felt like when his hand was in there, the key kept going farther and farther down his pocket, and though it could have only taken him a couple of minutes to dig it out, it felt like it was forever. Lawrence didn’t mind it. Even though it was dark, he liked that Graham was staring at him. He excused himself, opening the door, and disappearing as he closed it behind him. It took him a little while to go up the stairs, even though there weren’t too many of them. At least it hadn’t felt that way when he had first gotten there. He was drunker than he had expected to be, even though he had paced himself relatively well, but he had only realized just how much the drinking had affected him when he was trying to go up the stairs and to his new apartment.
After what felt like a long time, he finally got to his bed. He liked his bedroom, though he hadn’t spent much time on it. It was small with only a double-bed, a nightstand and a little chest of drawers that lived at the bottom of the bed, but cute. On the nightstand, there was a white vase that he hadn't noticed when he had walked into his bedroom before. He had been exhausted and his mind had been entirely on Graham, so when he had walked into his bedroom, after opening the window ever-so-slightly just to let a bit of air in, and then he had taken off his linen pants. He had told himself that it had everything to do with how warm he was and nothing to do with Graham, but his hard cock had told a different story.
He was trying not to think about Graham like that—he wanted to keep it professional, he wanted to make sure that a crush wouldn’t get in the way of his mission there. He really did want to help people, he didn’t want to focus on a man i
nstead. Still, as his grip tightened on his cock and he started to jack himself off at the thought of that beautiful English man at his feet, with his tongue swirling around his shaft and his hands behind his back, Lawrence on his feet as he came all over those beautiful parted lips. God, he was so gorgeous, even just thinking about it made him queasy. He thought that he might feel better after he took care of himself, that it was just a physical attraction, and that he would feel better about Graham and the entire thing once it wasn’t weighing so heavily on his mind. That hadn’t happened, though. Instead, if anything, it had drawn him even more to Graham. He wasn’t sure if Graham was gay, if he was straight, or what he was, and part of him didn’t want to ask. If he was straight—and he probably was, regardless of what Lawrence wanted—then that meant that nothing could happen between them and maybe that was a good thing. Relationships tended to distract Lawrence from what he really needed to do. That had been proven over and over again. Lawrence didn’t like thinking about it. He didn’t like thinking about what had happened when he had first gotten to his new bed, either. He wiped the sweat off his brow, because even though it was dark, it was somehow still inexplicably hot, and leaned over to look at the tall white vase.
There was a note on it. He hadn’t noticed the vase before and he certainly hadn’t seen the note. On the bed, he grabbed the vase, brought it to his face and strained to read the tiny note, which he only realized he could have picked up by itself when the vase was already right in front of his face.
Welcome to the skerry! I hope we have you around for a while. Let me know if you need anything. – Graham
Under the note, Graham had written his phone number and a little smiley face. A friendly note shouldn’t have made Lawrence feel like a teenage boy, but he carefully tore it off the tape that was used on the vase and put it on the nightstand. The vase was carelessly placed on the floor, though Lawrence made a mental note not to step on it. The last thing he wanted to do was treat himself as one of his first few patients. Before he could put the note away, though, he fell asleep. When he woke up, the note was still clutched in his hand and Lawrence couldn’t help but smile when he looked at it.