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“Aye, but they’ve turned you into the Terminator.”
“Only from the knee d-down,” Edwin pointed out, evidently tickled by this nonsense. “What’s he going to terminate? Vicious squirrels?”
“Toes,” I suggested. “If I step on them. So don’t tempt me.”
The lumberjack patted Edwin’s leg and rose. “Shall we get out of here?”
“Why would we want to do that?” I widened my eyes in faux confusion. “Everyone loves hanging out in hospitals.”
Edwin rose too, slipping his hand into Alan’s, just as he had at my parents’—easily, thoughtlessly, in one of those couple’s gestures that would never be mine. “Ignore him.”
We made our way to the car park, the rocking motion of the boot turning my walk into a strange half-swing. I wouldn’t have wanted to go hiking, but at least I was stable—physically stable—and it didn’t hurt.
“Where to?” asked Ajax once we were underway.
I shrugged. “Oh, anywhere.”
“Can you be a bit more specific?”
“Just drop me in the centre.”
The side of the lumberjack’s mouth twitched. “Homeless shelter?”
“Take him to his parents’.” Clearly Edwin was still angry with me.
“Do not,” I said, “take me to my parents’.”
The lumberjack’s eyes flicked to Edwin’s in the rearview mirror. “I can’t just leave him in the middle of Oxford.”
“He’s not a stray kitten, Adam.”
“He kind of acts like one. Moody, mistrustful, needy look on his little face.”
Edwin actually giggled. Which was infuriating.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” I snapped, throwing a poisonous glare at the lumberjack.
He shrugged. “The bloke who drove you to hospital and didn’t even get a thank-you.”
“You didn’t do it for me,” I said. “You did it for him.”
“Yeah, and I’m taking the piss out of you for him too.”
I gave a sharp laugh. “No, that’s for you. Because you’re all loved up for Edwin and don’t like the fact he still cares about me.”
“I d-don’t care about you very much right now,” put in Edwin.
“You were together for…what was it again, petal”—the lumberjack cast another swift glance at Edwin—“ten years?”
Edwin nodded.
“You were together for ten years,” the lumberjack continued. “If that meant nothing to him, what kind of person would he be?” He paused. “The same kind of person you are?”
“Pull over,” I said. “You can drop me here.”
Edwin kicked the back of my chair, as if his irritation with me had reached such uncontrollable levels he had regressed to childhood. “He’s not dropping you here. Do you actually have somewhere to go?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
