Page 11 of Reckless

“It’s because I’m a doctor that I’m exactly the right amount of squeamish,” I said. “You have horse germs all over your face now.”

“Ah, it’s nothing.” He darted past me as I held the door open, and said, over his shoulder, “Not the worst germs I’ve got lately, is it?”

“The bathroom is on your right, past the waiting room,” I said, trying to sound unamused, and probably failing. “There’s antibacterial soap. Please use it.”

I opened the door to my private rooms, the half of the old mill that now contained my living room, kitchen, and a narrow set of steps that led upstairs to two bedrooms and my private bathroom. I went into the kitchen and filled the kettle. Everything here was an odd marriage of old and new, and not in the charming way you saw so often on renovation shows. My refrigerator stood against the wall like an awkward kid at a school dance, trying its best to look like it belonged there, and my newly installed benchtops, which would have looked just fine in a modern build, clashed hard with the stone walls. The power points had shiny plastic covers, and the wiring itself had been run through white plastic casing that managed to look nothing like skirting boards. It reminded me a lot of the older parts of the Alfred, where departments had been refurbished, justifiably, with a budget in mind and not an aesthetic. If it had any aesthetic at all, it was “cheapest government contractor.” It had made me feel oddly at home from the start.

“Do you want tea or coffee?” I yelled, my voice bouncing off the walls and reminding me to order a few rugs for the place.

“What?” Robbie’s voice came back to me, a few moments before he did. His face was damp, and his wet hair was slicked back. He looked around the kitchen curiously.

“Tea or coffee?” I asked, taking out two mugs.

“Um. Tea is good.”

“So,” I said, grabbing the box of tea bags, “what is it that you get in Newcastle that you can’t get here on Dauntless?”

He froze in my periphery. I pretended not to notice as I tipped boiling water into the mugs. I just kept doing what I was doing, and waited to see if he’d bolt, or if he’d answer me.

“Is that a medical question?” he asked finally.

“Partly. But I can be concerned for you as both your doctor, and as someone who hopes to be your friend.”

“You always make friends by asking people how they fuck?”

I couldn’t help the snort of amusement that escaped me. “You’d be surprised.”

“I don’t know if anything would surprise me about you, doc.”

I turned my head to look at him and found him gazing back at me steadily. Always the contradiction, Robbie. He’d stare at his feet if I commented about the weather—ask him about his sexual habits and he could suddenly meet my gaze. He might think nothing about me would surprise him, but I had the feeling the opposite was true when it came to him. That Robbie Finch would never fail to surprise me.

I leaned back against the edge of the bench. “Try me and see.”

His eyes narrowed, but he held his ground. He lifted his chin, and a trickle of water from his wet hair slid from his temple, all the way past the curve of his jaw, and down the side of his throat. “I go to Newcastle because I like to get fucked. Hard. And I like it when I get thrown around and roughed up too.”

His words were a jolt to my gut that diffused into a heavy warmth that spread through my blood. “Is it the pain you like, or the power dynamic, or both?”

Colour rose in his tanned cheeks. “I... don’t know.”

“Seems like that’s something you ought to have a think about, then,” I said. “Do you take milk and sugar?”

His brows tugged together, the skin above the bridge of his nose pinching.

“That wasn’t a question about your sexual practices,” I said. “That was about the tea.”

“No milk,” he said. “One sugar.”

At least he was certain about something. I turned back to the mugs and reached for the sugar canister.

“This place looks pretty decent now,” he said, awkwardly. “I don’t rate those benchtops though.”

“What, this particular shade that falls somewhere between faded blue and dishwater grey isn’t pleasing to the eye?”

“You didn’t pick them out, then?”

“No.” I stirred sugar into his tea. “It’s a government-built clinic. If it was mine, I would have gone for a less utilitarian feel in the residence. I don’t own the practice even though I run it; I’m on contract. Which is why it’s been particularly interesting that nobody has a Medicare card, and someone tried to pay me with a crab. I’m sure the poor woman I deal with at the health department has developed a twitch in her eye every time she sees my number come up on her phone.”

He let out a small huff of breath that might have been a nascent laugh.