Chapter Sixteen
Cillian leaned closer to the screen with his eyes narrowed. “Are you drunk?”
“No,” I lied. “Well… maybe a bit.” I explained about the evening’s events, Cillian proving himself a good listener without the distraction of phone calls.
“I know you don’t like Laurent,” I finished by saying, “but…”
Cillian snorted. “You don’t have to like someone to feel empathy for them being dealt a shit lot in life. I wouldn’t wish that sort of situation on my worst enemy. Besides, it was more that your friend obviously didn’t like me. It made me wonder what you’d told him.”
I grimaced. “Nothing that wasn’t true. I didn’t make you out to be the devil incarnate, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Glad to hear it.” Cillian grinned. “Anyway… that’s in the past, and hopefully he’s warming to me now that he can see I’m not going anywhere.”
“Erm…”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
I wouldn’t get a better opening. “He’s just concerned we’re not addressing a few things we should be.”
Cillian frowned. “Like what?”
“Like the future.”
“I see.”
“I mean, what is the plan?” I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans, my heart rate increasing. “Are you expecting me to move back to London? Or…?” I finished with a shrug.
Cillian blinked a few times. “I…” He trailed off as my phone rang.
“I’ll ignore it,” I said.
“It might be important.”
I checked my watch. It was late for anyone to be calling, even considering the fact that France was an hour ahead of the UK. A quick glance at the screen showed it to be a local call rather than an international one. It wasn’t a number I recognized.
“Answer it,” Cillian said.
“I’m not you. I can ignore calls.”
“If you don’t answer it, you’ll spend the rest of the night wondering who it was.”
“It’s probably a wrong number.”
“Answer it and find out.”
Curiosity warred with the need to prove something to Cillian. As that wouldn’t achieve a damn thing in the end, I snatched it up before it went to voicemail. “Hello?”
“Monsieur Prescott?”
“Oui.”
A torrent of French followed from the woman on the other end. “Wait, wait,” I interrupted before she could really get into the flow and there was no stopping her. “I don’t understand. Do you speak English?”
“Oui, désolée. You are friend of Laurent Dupont, yes? You are the last number he called on his phone.”
“We met for dinner tonight. Is he there? Did he lose his phone? If so, I can get it back to him.”
“I am…” A long pause followed. “I do not know English word, sorry. I am une infirmière.”
“Infirmière?” I looked to Cillian, his French far stronger than mine.
“Nurse,” he supplied.
“Nurse,” I echoed, cold fear seeping into my chest.
“Ah, yes. Thank you. We wish to contact his family.”
“Why?”
“Are you a friend?”
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid Monsieur Dupont was involved in an accident?”
“What sort of accident?” My palms were clammy, and I was finding it difficult to breathe. I’d known it wasn’t a good idea for him to go home on his own after everything that had happened, especially given the amount of alcohol he’d imbibed, but I’d let him do it, anyway. I’d let him convince me he’d be fine, and obviously he hadn’t been.
“He was hit by a bus.”
“A bus! Jesus!” Cillian might only be getting one side of the conversation, but the look on his face said it was enough for him to add two and two together and come up with the right number.
“Is he…?” The words dried up in my throat and I didn’t want to give the thought hammering away at my brain, life, in case it somehow made it true. Laurent had been my rock since I’d moved to Paris. His presence had made everything easier than it might otherwise have been.
“His condition is serious,” the nurse said. I forced myself to take a deep breath. ‘Serious’ wasn’t dead, and that was important. “We found a number for his father, but there was no answer. We will keep trying.”
“Right,” I said. He was probably somewhere sleeping off the worst effects of the alcohol binge. Either that or he’d started on his next one.
The rest of the conversation passed in something of a blur as I extracted the name of the hospital and attempted to gain more information on Laurent’s condition. The latter proved impossible, the language barrier too great for the nurse to describe his physical state in English. The thought kept niggling that Laurent could translate, but of course he couldn’t, because he was lying unconscious in a hospital bed—I’d been able to glean that much—and if he could translate, then the conversation wouldn’t be necessary. When the call ended, I stared into space, trying to sift through my thoughts.
“Finn,” Cillian said softly.
I jumped at his voice breaking into my thoughts. “It’s my fault.”
Cillian frowned. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is,” I insisted. “I knew he was upset after the run-in with his father, and I knew he’d had too much to drink… More than I had. Yet, I still let him go home on his own. What kind of friend does that make me?”
“There was no way you could have known what would happen.”
Despite recognizing the truth in his words, they did nothing to stop the guilt from gnawing away at me, the list of what-ifs growing ever longer in my head. What if I’d told him not to drink so much? What if I hadn’t joined in so enthusiastically? What if I’d stood up and left when Laurent had wanted to? Then there would have been no conversation with his father, and ergo, no major upset, and he wouldn’t have needed to drown his sorrows.
Even before the point where I’d let him talk me out of escorting him home, there were so many other ways the evening could have gone that would have had him safe at home rather than lying in a hospital bed. Why hadn’t I brought him back here with me? That was a simple enough question to answer, though. Because two’s company and three’s a crowd when you’re planning an intimate tête-à-tête with your boyfriend, even if it was only over video.
While putting your boyfriend first wasn’t a crime, it spoke more to the nagging insecurities I still had about how invested Cillian was in our relationship than anything else. It wouldn’t have killed me to take a rain check for one evening and put Laurent first. But, oh no, I’d been too worried about Cillian taking that as permission that he too could start being more relaxed about our meetings.
“Finn?”
“I have to go to the hospital. Once I’m there, I can find someone who speaks English to tell me how he’s doing. I need to be there when he wakes up.” If he wakes up.
“Of course.”
I stood and spun away from the computer without bothering to end the call.
“Finn?”
I whirled back round to find Cillian regarding me with obvious concern. “Remember, I’m on the other end of the phone. Call me if you need me.”
“It’s late,” I said with a shake of my head. “You need to work tomorrow.”
“Screw work!”
Despite the tumult going on in my head, I laughed. “You have no idea how many times I’ve dreamed of hearing you say that.”
“Yeah, well… Now I have. And I mean it. If you need me, call. It doesn’t matter what time it is.”
“I will,” I assured him. “Thanks.”
Like most hospitals, the H?pital Bichat at Porte de Saint Ouen was busy, even at this late hour. Finding out which ward they’d taken Laurent to, tested my fledgling French to its limits. Finally, though, I found the right place, an orderly ushering me into a small waiting room of people who looked exactly how I felt.
I took the plastic chair closest to the door, hoping to waylay any obvious member of the medical team that came in and question them about Laurent’s condition. I’d grown used to most of my requests of “parles-vous anglais?” being met with a shake of the head, because they honestly didn’t, or because they were too busy to communicate medical information in a non-native language.
For the first time since being here, I questioned my decision to move to Paris when there were other countries much farther if I’d really wanted to escape from Cillian, with much less of a language barrier. Canada or USA, to name a couple of options. Or Australia. If I’d moved to Australia, I could have had a decent tan by now.
More to fill time than for any other reason, I typed out a text to Cillian. If I’d moved to Australia, would you still have turned up on my doorstep? I had no expectation of him answering. He might have said I could call him, but the persistent ringing of a phone was far more likely to rouse him than a message coming through. I presumed in the time it had taken me to get here and locate the correct ward, he would have gone to bed.
I was wrong, the answer coming back in less than a minute. Wherever you went, I would have found you. I’d barely read to the end before another message came through. That sounded less stalkery in my head. And then, How are you? Has anyone told you anything yet?
Not yet , I replied.
As if on cue, a doctor chose that moment to enter the room. Shoving my phone in my pocket, I jumped up. “Laurent Dupont?” I questioned. When he turned in my direction, I pressed on. “Parles-vous anglais?” The shake of his head was predictable, but no less frustrating for it. What was the point of being here if nobody could tell me anything?
I was halfway to sinking back into my chair and resigning myself to not finding out what had happened to Laurent until he could either tell me himself or the unthinkable happened, when a dark-haired petite woman who’d been sitting quietly at the other side of the room rose to her feet.
“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” she offered in a French accent. “My name is Elyna and I am an English teacher. I could translate for you.”
It was all I could do not to grab her and kiss her, the relief of finding someone who could help almost making my legs give way. Over the next few minutes, with Elyna’s help, I discovered doctors had admitted Laurent with a broken leg, a head injury not deemed too serious but largely responsible for his unconscious state, and a punctured spleen requiring immediate emergency surgery. Laurent was on his way to the operating theater for a procedure to either repair his spleen, or, if that wasn’t possible, to remove it. They expected it to take at least a couple of hours. While the news wasn’t great, it could have been worse. And at least now I knew.
I thanked Elyna profusely once the doctor had left with assurances that he would let me know when Laurent was out of surgery. She smiled and insisted I come and sit with her, taking my hands in hers and saying it was nice to use her English for something other than teaching children. We also swapped numbers in case she was no longer here when the doctor returned, or in case I had any other language-related problems during my time in Paris.
By the end of the conversation, I felt like she was my guardian angel. Made new friend , I texted to Cillian. She translated for me. I followed that up by detailing all the information I’d found out from the doctor.
Is he going to be alright? Cillian texted back.
I think so was my response. As long as the surgery goes okay.
Are you staying at the hospital?
Yeah , I replied. I’m going to try to work out a way that they’ll let me see him once he’s out of surgery. Someone should be here to hold his hand.
If I were Cillian, I doubt I could have resisted a cutting remark to his announcement of holding another man’s hand, but he was made of stronger and more decent stuff than me and only said, You’re a good friend.
Go to sleep , I finally said.
I’m fine.
GO. TO. SLEEP.
Yes, sir!
My phone fell silent after that and I resolved to let Cillian get at least a few hours before he was up with the larks to do whatever it was an advertising mogul did all day.
Two hours passed extremely slowly, even with Elyna going out of her way to chat with me. She introduced me to her friend, Andre, his brother also in surgery for a perforated ulcer. She told me about her family, pulling out her phone to show me pictures of her husband, two children, and their black labrador Beaumont.
The plastic chair became increasingly uncomfortable as more time passed, pacing within the confines of the small room not helping once I had to sit again, and copious amounts of the awful vending machine coffee doing nothing to stop the yawns from escaping once the clock passed three in the morning.
Despite my discomfort, I was almost nodding off when Elyna nudged me. “A handsome man is staring at you.”
I sat up with a jerk, considering for a moment as I followed the direction of her gaze that perhaps I’d fallen asleep after all. Because I couldn’t think of a better explanation for Cillian being here, when only a few short hours ago he’d been in London in front of the familiar backdrop of his living room. But here he was, as large as life and twice as handsome, his slightly rumpled appearance doing nothing to detract from his good looks.
“Do you know him?” Elyna whispered.
“Yeah,” I said as I stood, Cillian coming my way. “He’s my boyfriend. He’s supposed to be in London, though.”
“Lucky you,” Elyna said with a smile. “Men who will rush to your side in times of need are in short supply. You should hang onto him.”
Perhaps not moving as far as Australia had been a brilliant decision, after all.