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The ambulance was still turning corners and wailing, so they weren’t there yet. Hayden wondered dimly where they were going, hoped it wasn’t his dad’s hospital, and decided he didn’t care. He just wanted to lie down on a bed that didn’t move.
It was the hospital, then. Yes, his dad’s, Hayden saw as he was wheeled into it with Luke following behind, but orthopedic surgeons didn’t tend to work all hours, so his dad was likely to be at home and to stay there, nursing his grievances at the sad preponderance of rugby players in his kids’ lives and possibly wondering where he’d gone wrong. Or, more likely, wondering where Hayden’s mum had gone wrong.
After that, there was a CT scan, a bit more retching, some more cold, prickly, clammy skin and the feeling of the ground dropping away from under your stomach, and Luke sitting by the narrow bed in the ED, wiping Hayden’s forehead and mouth one more time with a facecloth, then handing him a plastic cup with ice chips.
Hayden said, “You can go home. Honestly. This is too dull for words. Also, I wasted all that fabulous dinner.”
Luke said, “Shut up. And give me your hand.”
“What?” Hayden would have sat up and stared at him, but he didn’t feel like it.
“Your hand,” Luke repeated. “Give it to me.”
Hayden did it, possibly because Luke was one of those commanding fellas. Which, all right, was possibly attractive. Luke took it, laid his fingers and then his thumb across the inside of his wrist, then began to rub the thumb in a circle.
“Uh …” Hayden said, “I’m not feeling all that sexy at the moment. Can’t believe you’re finding me attractive, either, no matter how much rugby you’ve played.”
Luke smiled a little. “Acupressure. For the nausea.”
“Oh.” Maybe it was helping, or maybe it just felt nice. Soothing, possibly. “I’m trying to remember the last time anybody held my hand.”
“Hasn’t happened much to me, either,” Luke said. “Never in public.”
“Other than your mum,” Hayden said. “Which was a long time ago, in my case. I’m over thirty, despite my youthful physique. Don’t look too closely around the eyes.”
“Not my mum,” Luke said. “Not that I recall.”
“Oh.” Hayden considered that. “Pretty bleak, then, your childhood.”
“Yeh. Pretty much. So who was that? Both of them.”
“The tall one was my ex. Who was cheating on me with the other one.”
“Ah. The reason you’re a bit touchy on the subject.”
“And it’s even worse than that,” Hayden said, because why not? “I wasn’t even the main attraction. I was the side piece, as it turned out. What’s that thing they say? Everybody should get to be the star in their own life? Not so much that time.”
“Never mind,” Luke said. “You can be the star in my show. I’m not much for shining.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Hayden said. “I thought you did pretty well back there. Holding up both of them at once … that was good. I’d have swooned, except, you know, I was already swooning.”
“Fella’s a wanker,” Luke said, and Hayden had to laugh.
“The other one’s on TV,” Hayden said. “The one who hit me. Soap star.”
“Ah,” Luke said. “Fancies himself.”
Which was when the two police came in, which meant Hayden had to make his statement. Which was fine, until they got to the part about why.
“The tall one was a partner,” he said reluctantly. “An ex.”
The cop stayed stoical and wrote it down. Well, he’d probably figured it out. Hayden wasn’t exactly butch, and Julian had practically written the book on “effete.” The cop said, “You may want to apply for a protection order, then.”
“He wasn’t the one who hit me,” Hayden said. “That was the new partner. Anyway, I’m a man. As you see.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the female cop said. “It’s called intimate partner violence, not violence against women. Hurts just as much for a man to be bashed. No sex-linked gene for pain.”
“Oh,” Hayden said. “Well, no, thanks. I doubt they’ll bother me again.”
