Chapter Three #2
‘Apart from the bank robbing and shooting people bit,’ I said, still trying to tell myself that my pulse was racing because of what we were doing and not who I was about to see.
We’d gone a different, circuitous route to the place where I’d last seen Rhys, so it threw me for a moment when we rounded a corner and found him leaning up against the wall, waiting for us.
It was hot in the hospital and Rhys looked distinctly uncomfortable, with the sleeves of his jacket rolled down and the collar once again raised.
But despite all his efforts, the curious markings were still visible at his wrist and throat.
Rightly or wrongly, I found the lightning marks mesmerising and was strangely disappointed they were hidden.
I tuned out the voice in my head that annoyingly wanted to ask just how much of his skin they covered, because there was no way to slip that one innocently into a conversation.
‘This is really kind of you,’ I said instead, directing a grateful smile at both men.
‘Aww, no worries,’ said Olly, and it’s a measure of how distracted I must have been that it was the first time I noticed a distinct Aussie twang. ‘Smuggling patients out of the hospital is my favourite part of the job.’
I enjoyed the amused expression on Rhys’s face.
‘And I kind of like being known as the guy who helped the Park People avoid the press.’
‘Park People? Is that what they’re calling us?’ I asked, turning to Rhys and just about managing not to be dazzled by the intense emerald of his gaze. How did anyone ever concentrate when they were talking to him? Or was it just me?
‘Apparently. Until someone digs deeper and uncovers our names.’
We followed Olly through doors he had to swipe with a pass to open and along twisting labyrinth-like corridors.
I made the mistake of glancing down one of them and saw a pair of swing double doors with the word Morgue on them.
How easily our journey today could have ended up there.
A shiver travelled the entire length of my body, just like the lightning had done.
Olly was too busy leading the way to notice, but Rhys saw, and his eyes darkened to the colour of a midnight forest in concern.
‘Are you okay?’ Three words and that was all it took for me to feel seen – really seen – in a way I didn’t think I’d ever been before.
From the boys I’d dated who’d never understood me, to the men who’d slid in and out of my life and my bed, had anyone so effortlessly managed to scythe through my protective carapace before?
Old me, the person I’d been before thousands of volts of electricity had flowed through me, said I was talking nonsense. Except ‘nonsense’ felt like my life before this morning.
‘The exit is just up ahead.’ Olly’s voice cut into my thoughts as we entered a corridor with sack barrows lined up against both walls.
‘Wait.’ Both men stopped so abruptly they almost collided into each other like dominoes.
I closed the gap between Rhys and me, not knowing why, and my panic immediately subsided. But my heart was still skittering in my chest as all at once the enormity of the day caught up with me.
‘We were so lucky today.’
‘I know,’ Rhys said, and I felt like another link was silently forged in the chain binding us. The very real possibility that after we’d shared a taxi ride together I might never see him again was inexplicably terrifying.
This wasn’t me. I was a long slow burn in relationships.
I’d heard it too many times to ignore it or believe it was wrong.
I didn’t do spontaneous; everything was controlled and measured, and I had no idea who this impulsive, reckless person was who’d jumped into the driver’s seat of my life.
Or how the hell to get her out. Or even if I wanted to, I was honest enough to admit.
We all blinked like moles as we emerged into the dwindling daylight through a service exit at the back of the hospital outbuilding. We appeared to be in some sort of delivery drop-off area, but right now the only vehicle there was an idling blue taxi.
‘Ah good, your ride is here,’ said Olly with a satisfied nod, who’d clearly masterminded our covert exit.
‘I owe you one for this, mate,’ Rhys said, pulling Olly in for a short, hard hug.
I watched, fascinated. It had always seemed a shame to me that British guys didn’t embrace each other more, and yet Rhys looked totally comfortable as he held on to his friend with what appeared to be genuine affection.
‘Remember what I said.’ Olly’s voice was low and suddenly serious. The men exchanged a meaningful look. ‘You have to call, Rhys.’
‘I know.’
They were being frustratingly cryptic, and I only just managed to bite my tongue before it ran away from me and asked what they were talking about.
Olly turned to me and held out a huge bear-paw of a hand. The man truly looked more like an Aussie rugby player than a medic.
‘It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Ellie Harker. Take care of yourself and don’t overdo things for a while. This kind of trauma takes time to get over.’
I nodded, as though I knew all about how to recover from a day which so easily could have been my last.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ Rhys said, one eye on the empty delivery bay and the other on the taxi, whose driver was starting to look a little impatient.
‘We’d better go.’ He reached for my elbow and, gently cupping it, guided me towards the cab.
It was old-fashioned courtesy, the kind he’d probably afford to an elderly grandma or a maiden aunt, but it did something to my stomach that made me wonder if my internal organs were entirely safe in his vicinity.
As I slid into the back seat beside him and his thigh inadvertently brushed against mine, I decided that I really didn’t care.