Chapter Thirty - Nine
Chapter
Thirty-Nine
“You fixed his car.” Alex’s words were almost
accusing. It was a new twist on an old topic, one that Lucas was
getting pretty tired of.
“Yeah, I did,” Lucas shot back. “Or at least
I tried to. No idea yet if it worked.”
But of course Alex wasn’t concerned about
automotive repair. “That’s really sweet,” he said sarcastically.
“Cute, even. Almost adorable.”
“Could you at least do some work while you’re
bitching at me?” Lucas had swept nearly half the barn while Alex
stood there holding his own broom and complaining.
“I just want to hear you say it,” Alex
insisted. “I want you to tell me to my face that there’s something
going on between you two.”
Lucas took a deep breath. “You want to hear
it? Really?”
Alex looked momentarily unsure, then nodded.
“Yeah,” he said, and his voice was softer now.
The transformation made it harder for Lucas
to say the words, but he forced himself to nod. “I know it’s crazy
and it’s going to fall apart hard, but yeah, Alex. There’s
something going on.”
Alex took a deep breath as if trying to calm
himself. “Okay. Thank you for telling me.” He sounded defeated and
he turned to his sweeping with his head down.
Now it was Lucas’s turn to ignore his chores.
“It just happened, Alex. It wasn’t something either of us
planned.”
“But he was able to persuade you to take a
chance. I wasn’t.”
“He’s an adult, Alex. If he wants to do
something stupid, that’s his call.” Lucas didn’t mention the way
his body was drawn to Mark’s like they were both magnetized.
“And you? It’s your call if you want to do
something stupid too?” Alex whirled now. “Because it’s
stupid, Lucas! You’re going to get hurt! He’s a good guy and
everything, but he’s a priest, and he’s the brother of the guy you
killed, and…it can’t last, Lucas. You’re going to get hurt.”
Lucas just nodded. “Yeah. I know.” He forced
himself to smile. “And when I do, I’m going to need some help from
my friends. Which is going to be pretty much you, ’cause I haven’t
got any others.”
Alex frowned at him, then slowly nodded.
“Yeah. Okay. When it goes to hell and you need a friend, you’ve got
one. But…” He stepped closer, chores forgotten again. “Elise talked
to me about it. She said you’re not a pet. She said you’re one of
the wild animals and it’s our job to help you get better and then
get you back out where you belong. I know she’s right. And if you
go out and get hurt again, then we’ll help you get better again.
But, Lucas, don’t make me watch. I don’t like watching the animals
when they leave here, and I don’t want to watch you, either. I
shouldn’t have to watch you falling in love with someone else.”
Lucas felt like he’d been kicked. Was that
what he’d been doing? “Shit,” he said softly. “Look, I’m not going
anywhere…all that animal stuff is nice and everything, but this is
my job, and I plan to keep it. But the rest of it…it’s been
happening fast, Alex, and I guess I didn’t think it through. I’m
sorry. I won’t…I don’t quite know. I mean, I won’t fix his car out
here. I get that. But what else?”
“He only comes out here for you, you know. He
can spout all that ‘finding sanctuary at the sanctuary’ all he
wants, but he comes out because you’re here. Even Elise agrees, so
don’t go calling me paranoid.”
“You and Elise seriously talked about all
this?” Lucas wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or creeped
out.
“She’s very perceptive,” Alex said loftily.
“And she’s an excellent listener. She’s been very supportive.”
“Well, that’s great,” Lucas said. “Does she
have any ideas on the whole ‘no watching’ thing?”
“Like I said, she knows Father Mark is only
coming out here to visit you. So I think she’d agree that if you
and him are spending time together other places, he probably
doesn’t need to come out here anymore.”
Lucas swallowed hard. He looked forward to
Mark’s daily visits, and he was pretty sure the other man did find
value just in being at the farm, totally separate from any
attraction to Lucas. “I don’t know if it’s fair to ask him not to
come any more at all,” Lucas said slowly. “Maybe I could just…we
could work separately, maybe. Or just be really careful about not…I
don’t know. Not sending out whatever signals you and Elise are
picking up on.”
“It’ll be kind of hard for you to not send
signals when you don’t even know what they are,” Alex objected.
“Working separately, then,” Lucas said. “Or
he could just come out earlier in the day, when you’re still in
school.”
“Summer vacation starts in two weeks,” Alex
warned.
“Two weeks? Come on, Alex, you think this is
still going to be happening in two weeks?”
Alex looked surprised. “You don’t? I mean, I
was serious about it being a bad idea, but you don’t think it’s
even going to last two weeks?”
“I think it’s going to last until the first
time someone from his real life gets a hint of it going on,” Lucas
said quietly. “He’s temporarily insane, but he’s not totally
stupid. He’s not going to let it mess up anything really
important.”
“You deserve better than that!”
“Nah. I deserve what I get.” He forced
himself to smile. “So, on the plus side, this could all be taken
care of before you have to worry about it much more.”
Alex stepped closer, his face serious. “I’m
sorry, Lucas. I mean, I’m not happy that you’re getting involved
with someone else, but I don’t want to see you get hurt. And
honestly, I’m a bit pissed at him, but I like Father Mark too. I
don’t want to see him get hurt either.”
Lucas tried to sound casual as he said, “Not
much to be done about it, I don’t think.” He wacked Alex’s broom
with his own. “Now get sweeping. I want this floor clean enough to
eat off of! Then we can go play with Rascal for a bit. She’ll cheer
us up.”
That was when Elise appeared in the barn
doorway. “Lucas,” she said. “There you are. There was a phone call
from someone at the hospital. Apparently a friend of yours was in
an accident and he’s asking for you. It wasn’t clear how serious
the injuries are.”
Lucas gripped his broom a little more
tightly. He didn’t have that many friends… “Who?” he managed to
ask.
Elise dug a scrap of paper out from her
pocket. “Sean Gage. A car accident, it sounds like.”
“Shit.” If Sean was asking for Lucas…what did
that mean? If he was awake enough to ask, surely he was okay. But
then why would he want Lucas dragged into an environment with all
their mutual acquaintances, the same ones Lucas had permanently
alienated a couple nights ago? It flashed in his mind that it was
some sort of trap, but he dismissed the idea almost as quickly as
it had occurred to him. The hospital was a busy, safe place. If
he’d been asked to meet Sean in a back alley somewhere, he’d
suspect he was about to get into trouble. But not at the
hospital.
He checked his watch. It was mid-morning.
Alex was only there because it was the weekend and he had no
school. So Lucas still had a lot of work to do, and it was still
part of his paid time, not his volunteer hours. He shouldn’t leave
the farm, but if Sean had asked for him…
“Go,” Alex said. “Play with Rascal, mid-day
feed, pick out the pens, afternoon feed—I’ve got it covered. No
problem.”
“You’re sure?” he asked Alex. Then he turned
to Elise. “I can make up the hours,” he said quickly. “Or you can
dock my pay?”
“Give me a break, Lucas. I owe you so many
hours you could take the next year off and still come out ahead.”
She waved her arm in the general direction of Lucas’s car. “Go.
Take care of it.”
So Lucas went. He tried to control his
thoughts as he drove into town, but it wasn’t much use. He couldn’t
banish the memories of young Sean, his eyes dancing with whatever
mischief he was trying to drag Lucas into. Or teenage Sean,
convincing his mother to take Lucas in because he knew Lucas had
nowhere else to go. They’d grown up together, and Sean had always
been there for Lucas, in his own way. Now Sean was hurt, and Lucas
could only hope that there’d be something for him to do, some way
for him to help.
He got Sean’s room number from the front desk
and followed the signs through the maze of hallways until he found
what he was looking for. He knocked gently and pushed the door
open.
Mrs. Gage looked up from her seat by the
bedside. “Lucas,” she said. “You came.”
“Of course I did.”
She looked like she had something she could
say to that, but instead she reached down and smoothed Sean’s hair
back from his face. He didn’t respond to the gesture, and Lucas
felt his stomach lurch as he moved a little closer.
“How bad is it?” he whispered.
“He’s sedated,” Mrs. Gage said, her voice at
a normal volume. “He asked for you earlier, but then they gave him
something and he’s out of it.”
“For pain?”
“He was drunk,” Mrs. Gage continued as if
Lucas hadn’t spoken. “He knows how stupid that is, but it’s like it
just didn’t matter. He thinks he’s invincible or something. Thinks
he’s magic and can’t be hurt.”
“Was he alone? Did anyone else get hurt?”
“He was by himself, out on a back road.
Rolled the truck and got pinned beneath it somehow. He was…” Her
voice caught and she took a deep breath before continuing almost
angrily. “He was out there for hours, they say. Trapped, with the
weight of the truck…” She took another deep breath, but this one
didn’t seem very effective. “My baby boy,” she sobbed. “He must
have been so scared. And now, they…Lucas, they say they might take
his legs. They say there was so much damage they don’t think they
can repair it.”
Lucas stepped forward and wrapped his arms
around Mrs. Gage, holding her up as she cried for her son. Lucas
kept his eyes on the bed, trying to see the boy who’d been his
friend somewhere in the damaged man hooked up to all the
apparatus.
“They’re going to take him to the city,” Mrs.
Gage finally said. “To see if the doctors there can save his legs.
They just had to wait until he was stable enough to move.” She
turned her swollen eyes toward Lucas. “He wanted to see you. He
didn’t ask for any of the others, just you.”
“When are they moving him? Will he wake up
before they do?”
“I don’t think so. Nobody tells me anything
unless I chase them down and beg, but I think they’re moving him
soon. I think they want him out of it for the trip.”
Mrs. Gage pulled herself away a little and
Lucas stepped closer to the bedside. “Hey, Sean,” he said softly,
and he gently gripped Sean’s unresponsive fingers. “It’s Lucas.
You’re going to be okay.”
Mrs. Gage was watching him closely. She
seemed to have pulled herself together, at least a little, and now
she just looked confused. “He finally told me what they did to
you,” she said. “What he did. But he never really told me why.”
“I let him down,” Lucas said flatly. “We had
a sort of a deal, and I broke it.”
“A deal to stay quiet?” She looked at Lucas
appraisingly. “I always wondered about you two, being so close. I
saw things sometimes, things I wasn’t quite sure about. And then I
heard what they’re saying about you and Scott Wilson’s boy. It made
me wonder.”
“It’s just me,” Lucas said quickly. He had no
idea if it was the truth or not, but it was what Sean wanted people
to believe and Lucas couldn’t go against Sean’s wishes now. “It
freaked Sean out. That’s all.”
Mrs. Gage didn’t seem entirely convinced but
she looked down at her son in the hospital bed and didn’t argue.
Instead she reached for Lucas’s free hand. “Thank you for coming,
Lukey. I’m sorry Sean wasn’t a better friend to you. But I think
he’s going to need you now. Those other boys…they won’t grow up.
Sean wouldn’t grow up either. But now, he might have to. He might
need your help with that.”
“I’m not sure he’ll want it, Mrs. Gage.”
“He will,” she said quietly. “He’s been
missing you.”
Lucas stayed with them until the hospital
staff came to prepare Sean for transport. Then he stepped out into
the hall with Mrs. Gage and kept her company until she followed
Sean’s gurney down the corridor. Lucas stayed where he was for a
while, letting things soak in. It still didn’t seem real but at
least he had himself under control as he headed back out to the
parking lot.
He was climbing a short set of concrete
stairs from one parking level to the next when he heard a familiar
voice from somewhere in front of him. Mark. Mark was there, and
he’d make everything better. Somehow he’d known Lucas needed him,
and he’d come. Mark would know what to say and he’d help Lucas
figure out how he should be feeling. Lucas felt himself straighten
as if a weight had been lifted and he jogged up the last couple
stairs to see Mark walking down the sidewalk toward him.
He was with an older woman, Lucas saw. It
must be who he’d been talking to. Now, she looked up and saw Lucas.
It wasn’t until he saw her face twist into something ugly that he
realized who she was. Mark’s mother. Jimmy Webber’s mother.
Lucas took an involuntary step backward.
Mark was staring at him too, Lucas realized.
The man looked paralyzed, his mother clinging to his arm as if
Lucas had physically attacked her and she needed protection. Lucas
took another step backward, off the sidewalk onto the asphalt of
the parking area.
Mrs. Webber moved, then, resolutely turning
her face away from Lucas and dragging Mark forward, down the
staircase Lucas had just climbed. “My God,” he heard her mutter,
but that was all. Lucas stared after them and Mark turned back,
just his head, his feet still carrying him along with his mother,
his expression still stunned. Then there was another flight of
stairs, long enough to carry them out of Lucas’s sight. He still
stared after them, standing in the empty parking lot and realizing
just how quickly every damned thing had just gone to Hell.