Chapter 2
Chapter Two
J ack sat in the waiting room of the Royal Prince Albert Hospital, Harry’s backpack wedged between his feet. He’d run all the way here after the ambulance had taken Harry, which sounded a lot more gruelling than it had actually been, since the university was literally right behind the hospital, and it had taken him all of seven minutes. He felt awful . From what Mia had managed to yell at him while they were waiting for the ambulance—the empty EpiPen still held in his shaky hand—he’d picked up that she and Harry hadn’t actually been dating, and that he’d very nearly killed a guy who’d been doing his sister a favour.
Well. Paid favour. But still. That wasn’t the point. The point was that he wasn’t the arsehole Jack had thought he was, and now he was in hospital. Jack wondered briefly if anyone had ever been charged with manslaughter by smoothie. Probably not, but there was a first time for everything. It would be yet another thing for his parents to be disappointed in him about—though their reaction to inadvertent murder would probably be a hell of a lot stronger than disappointment, to be honest .
He shook himself mentally. Harry would be fine. It’d be fine. Nobody was dying or getting arrested.
The kid sitting in the seat next to him sneezed into his already-snotty tissue.
He wasn’t going to get arrested, but he was probably going to catch something.
He looked up as Mia walked through the doors. She stomped over to him, looked at the kid, and took a step back. “I have a tutorial I can’t miss. Have you heard anything yet?”
“No.” He’d told the nurse he had Harry’s bag, but she hadn’t been inclined to tell him anything since he definitely wasn’t a relative—he couldn’t even tell her Harry’s last name, and a search of the bag had only revealed a few textbooks, a coffee scroll, some flyers and a really ugly shirt.
Mia sighed and rubbed her forehead. It was a nervous gesture that she’d inherited from their dad, and it made his gut lurch anxiously. Not that he didn’t get on with his dad… he’d just seen that same gesture an awful lot recently, whenever they’d caught up. It usually came right before the ‘You’ve thrown away your entire future’ speech. “Well, let me know, okay? Like I said, I can’t miss this tutorial. And it’s not like you have classes.”
Ouch . He decided to let the barb go unanswered and chalk it up to stress. He knew Mia supported his decision to quit uni and become an apprentice mechanic, even if it did mean defending him to his parents, who were more baffled by his choice than anything.
“So you hired this guy?” he asked. “You actually hired someone to pretend to be a horrible boyfriend? That’s insane.”
She snorted. “Please. If there was someone you could have hired to make Mum and Dad fall over themselves to support you, you’d have done it too. ”
Yeah, probably. And Mum and Dad did love Mia’s boyfriend Tate, even though they hadn’t been sold on him at all the first time she’d mentioned the guy. They’d got stuck on the fact he worked as a tattoo artist. But once they’d met Harry, suddenly the sun shone out of Tate’s ink-embossed arse, didn’t it? It was kind of genius, actually.
“Right,” he said. “I should hire someone to pretend to be a bad university professor, and then they’ll love the idea that I want to be a mechanic.”
Mia rolled her eyes and shoved his shoulder. “Idiot. But my point stands. Harry’s a decent guy, and you nearly killed him. And now he’ll have an ambulance bill as well.”
Great. Something else to feel guilty about. “Maybe he has private cover?” Jack said, but even as the words left his mouth, he knew how unlikely that was. Things like private health and ambulance cover weren’t necessarily something that existed in the budget of a uni student. Mia arched an eyebrow at him in a way that indicated she wasn’t any more convinced than he was. “Shit.” Jack sighed. “Maybe I can offer to help pay?”
“On that generous apprentice wage you’re pulling in?” Mia asked, but she sounded sympathetic.
“I have savings.” Not a lot, but enough to ease his conscience at least.
“Is Dad still holding out on you?”
“I’m twenty-four. He’s supposed to be holding out on me. The deal was we got an allowance while we were at uni. And I’m not at uni.”
“Listen, you know I support you, right?” She waited until he nodded. “But, Jack, you only had half a semester to go until you graduated. Why’d you drop out then? It’s not like you were even failing or anything.”
“I just…” He shook his head. “The closer I got to fi nishing, the more I realised that accounting wasn’t for me. What was the point of staying there and qualifying if I knew it wasn’t where I wanted to be, and getting stuck in a job I hated for the rest of my life? Better to cut my losses. And then the apprenticeship came up, and…it would have been nearly impossible to get another one at my age. I had to go for it.”
The kid beside him sneezed again. Jack leant away instinctively.
Mia nodded. “I guess. Listen, I have to go. Let me know how Harry is, yeah? And his last name’s Townsend, by the way. So you know what name to put on the apology gift you’re going to send him.”
“Oh. Yeah, I should probably do that. Maybe a fruit basket?”
Mia gave him a flat look. “Yes, because Harry does so well with fruit.”
Jack grimaced. “You may have a point.” He prodded the backpack. “I'll try to get in and give him this, at least. See you at home later?”
Home . Jack was aware that he was using the term extremely loosely, because home was, for now, Mia’s fold-out futon. Fun fact—when he’d dropped out of uni, he’d also dropped out of the right to stay in university-provided accommodation, and he hadn’t had any luck finding his own place yet. He’d couch surfed for a while, but now he was at Mia’s. The last flat he’d applied for, the potential landlady had hinted heavily that he could get a rent reduction in exchange for certain services, and Jack had backed out of there with all the speed he could muster. Still, he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t at least thought about it for a second—the rental market was brutal—right before he remembered that even if he’d wanted to take her up on her offer, he wasn’t sure he physically could. He was, to quote his dad, “as gay as a maypole.”
There was a reason nobody ever quoted his dad.
“See you,” Mia said, and cast another long look at him before she walked away.
The snotty kid stared at her arse all the way to the door.
“Hey,” Jack said. “That’s my sister .”
The kid shrugged and sneezed into his tissue again.
Oh God .
When Harry finally shuffled out into the waiting room, he looked like shit. He was shirtless, and his hair was sticking up all over the place. His face still contained the last traces of swelling, and even his glasses were askew. He was clutching a piece of paper. Also, he was pink . It was an improvement on the lobster red he’d been when Jack had seen him getting loaded into the back of the ambulance, but he looked sunburned, as though he’d spent a day at the beach and forgotten to reapply his sunscreen.
Guilt bit at Jack as he stood up. He held the backpack out in front of him like a peace offering as he approached. “Harry?”
Harry turned to look at him. The bags under his eyes were as dark as bruises, but his haggard expression lit up a fraction when he saw his backpack. Then he narrowed his eyes when he saw who was holding it.
“I’m really sorry,” Jack said, and handed it over. “Are you, um, are you supposed to leave? You still look sort of…”
Harry raised his eyebrows.
“Pink,” Jack said softly. And sort of lumpy , he didn’t add, because there was such a thing as kicking a man when he was down.
“The doctor said I could go as long as someone’s at home to watch me.” Harry’s voice was quiet. He sounded as tired as he looked. “I need the…” He waved his piece of paper around. “The pharmacy.”
Jack pointed to the sign that pointed to the pharmacy. “It’s that way. Look, if you need anything, I could get it for you?”
Harry dumped the backpack on a chair and unzipped it. He drew out a truly ugly Hawaiian shirt and pulled it on. Jack winced, first at the fact it took Harry three tries to get his left arm in the sleeve, then at the shirt itself. A man with a combover grinned out at him from a hideously bright background of palm trees, boats and what Jack hoped were badly drawn coconuts and not badly drawn hairy balls.
A piece of paper, dislodged by the shirt, fluttered to the floor. Harry blinked down at it, and Jack could almost see the moment his brain went “fuck it.” Jack picked it up for him, glancing at it as he handed it over. Housemate wanted. Newtown .
Harry glared at him and took it, then shoved it back inside his backpack.
“I’m really sorry,” Jack said again.
Harry looked too tired to murder him, but Jack was sure he was thinking about it. He shoved his prescription at Jack instead. “Can you get that for me?”
“Yes.” Jack was pretty sure he owed him whatever the doctors said he needed. God. He hoped it wasn’t highly experimental with a price tag to match.
Harry sagged down into a seat, and Jack went to the pharmacy.
The wait wasn’t long, and the prescription wasn’t for anything Jack had never heard of before. Fresh guilt twisted in his stomach as the pharmacist handed over a twin pack of EpiPens. It was so fucking stupid . He’d only wanted to humiliate Harry the same way he’d humiliated Dad. He hadn’t wanted to hurt him. And he certainly hadn’t wanted to almost kill the guy.
His hands shook when he thought of how close he’d actually come to making the sort of irrevocable mistake that would have changed the entire course of his life, and snuffed Harry’s out right there. It had been a long time since Jack had prayed—hell, it had been a long time since he’d actually believed—but he sent a quick prayer of thanks up God’s way now.
He returned to Harry in the waiting room and held out the pack of EpiPens.
Harry stood slowly and tugged his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans then opened it.
“No. It’s…paying for these is the least I can do.” Jack saw the edge of a red twenty dollar note tucked into Harry’s wallet, and nothing else. He wouldn’t have accepted Harry’s money anyway, even if he’d glimpsed a wad of fifties. “Harry, I’m so sorry.”
Harry turned his red-rimmed gaze to him.
“Whatever,” he said, and shuffled towards the exit.
Jack spotted Harry again at the bus stop on Parramatta Road. He was sitting there, hunched over a bit, like he was trying to disappear. Good luck with a shirt like that. Jack pulled over, the brakes on his rattly old ute squealing a bit, and leaned on the horn.
Harry’s head jerked up.
He was actually really cute when he wasn’t at death’s door. He had tousled dark hair, a wide, expressive mouth and wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses that were, frankly, fucking adorable. Okay, so he also gave off some aggressive ‘I’m not into you’ vibes, but maybe that was just because Jack had almost killed him earlier on. Besides, he was still allowed to look, right?
“Need a lift?” he called as Harry squinted at the ute.
For a moment he thought Harry would refuse, but he stood and walked cautiously over. He opened the door and climbed in. “I live in Newtown,” he said. “Dickson Street. It runs off King.”
Jack only had a vague idea whereabouts that was. “You might have to be my GPS,” he said. Harry shrugged, and Jack noted that he still looked like shit underneath the cute and the eye-searing shirt. “I’m so, so sorry,” he said, yet again. “Are you really sure you’re fit to leave the hospital?”
“I told you they said I can leave if I have someone to supervise me at home,” Harry said, mouth set in a grim line that suggested he really didn’t want to talk right now. The attempted murder was going to take some getting past, wasn’t it?
Jack took the hint and pulled out into the traffic, pretending not to notice the way Harry was hugging his backpack like it could protect him from an attack.
They didn’t speak all the way to Newtown, except when Harry told him where to turn and where to stop. Jack pulled up in front of a rundown terrace house that looked like the only thing holding it up was its neighbours. It stood out like a blackened tooth in an otherwise bright smile when compared to the houses on either side. It was also the only house in the row that didn’t have any lights on yet as the afternoon darkened into dusk.
“Thanks, I guess,” Harry said, and got out. Jack didn’t miss the way he swayed on the spot for a moment, like a stiff breeze might knock him over.
“Do you actually have someone here to keep an eye on you?” he asked, his concern growing as Harry grew steadily paler.
Harry let out a shaky breath. “Yes. No. Maybe. I’ll be fine. I just need to sleep.”
Jack got out of the ute. “Maybe I should come in. Make sure you’re okay.”
Harry’s mouth tightened, and he looked like he wanted to object, but then he went as white as a sheet, and Jack had to wrap an arm around his waist to stop him sagging like the porch of the house. Jack let him catch his breath for a second, then carefully guided him up the cracked concrete path, past the weeds in what passed for a front yard. When they reached the door Harry tried to open it. It was locked. He let out a groan. “Tris must be out.”
Jack wasn’t sure if Harry wanted him here or not—probably not—but he’d been raised on an ethos of helping out where he could and being a good Samaritan, plus he’d spent some time in the waiting room googling the after-effects of anaphylaxis. He sure as shit wasn’t leaving Harry home alone. Quite apart from anything else, Mia would kill him.
“Come on,” he said. “Find your key, and let’s get you inside.”
Harry scowled, but he dug in the pocket of his jeans and produced his key. Jack took it from him and slid it into the lock. They made it inside, and Jack deposited Harry on a particularly ugly overstuffed armchair.
“I’m fine,” Harry said, obviously lying.
“Do you need anything?” Jack asked, ignoring Harry’s assertion. Harry didn’t look like he was fine. “A glass of water maybe?”
Harry smacked his lips together. “Yeah, maybe.”
Jack found the kitchen, grabbed a glass from the stack of dirty dishes and washed it. By the time he got back to the living room, Harry’s head was lolling to the side, mouth drooping open. Jack panicked for a split second, heart racing as he worried that Harry had left the hospital too soon and passed out, but then he let out a gentle snore, and Jack heaved a sigh of relief. Harry was asleep, that was all. Still, he looked pretty pathetic, sprawled in the chair like that, and Jack could hardly leave him alone.
It looked like he was staying after all.