Chapter 25 England #2
“Alerts on my mobile.”
“For me?”
He holds me tighter. “You, Julian, Emerald, everyone. You’re… very missed.”
When we finally pull apart, I study his face. “You look kind of awful.”
He gives a sad smile and chucks me under the chin with a fingertip. “I reckon so.” Nodding sideways toward the hospital, he says, “Couldn’t let you do this alone, however you may feel about me. And I’m terribly worried for Julian. How is he?”
“I don’t know yet.” As we start toward the entrance, I reflexively take Alexander’s hand, then drop it. “Sorry,” I mutter.
The knot of journalists catch sight of us, and Alexander drapes an arm protectively around my shoulders. As all three of them crowd me, blurting out questions, Alexander shoves away the extended arm of one who gets his phone too close to my face.
“Off you fuck, then,” he tells the man in an efficient tone. “There’s a good lad.”
In seconds, we’re past and inside, where I practically run to the reception desk, pulling free of Alexander.
As we get into the elevator, two other people are about to step in with us.
Alexander again puts an arm out, warding them off and earning an indignant sputter from the two older ladies.
I smile, looking down at my feet as the doors close, remembering us in Melbourne when I told that old couple to take the next elevator because Alexander and I were going to have sex in that one.
I try for a weak joke to break the silence. “We’re, uh, not gonna fuck in here this time.”
“More’s the pity.” He leans against the wall. “Though we didn’t that time either. Not until hours later.”
We watch each other as the elevator hums upward.
“How are you?” he asks quietly.
“Oh, great, great. Thanks, yep.” I do a slow nod. “I mean, my brother might be—fuck, I don’t even know—like, in a coma? And my last four races were varying degrees of garbage, and… oh! I also got my heart broken. So it’s been a gas. And you? How’s tricks?”
I want to sink into the floor and disappear, because I wasn’t going for “rant”; I was hoping for wry and irreverent.
But my voice got louder with each sentence and cracked like a twelve-year-old boy’s, and my eyes are stinging and I want so bad to throw myself into Alexander’s arms. The fact that he rushed here to be with me is a little swoony.
His eyebrows lift and it draws my attention to that tender white scar and I want to cry.
“Well,” he says, sounding tired, “Badrick got married, so that’s lovely. As for me, I turned into, erm…” He waves a vague hand at himself.
I scowl. “Are you eating? Your cheeks are hollow, though the beard covers it a little. You’re a cross between eighties goth-band skinny and pale and… uh, Grizzly Adams.”
He smiles cautiously. “I’ve no clue who that is. This?” He touches his profusion of facial hair, and I can almost feel my hand there too.
“Mmm-hmm. Hokey TV show about a mountain man with a pet bear. My mom liked it.”
The elevator chimes and I squeeze out the barely open door.
I race-walk down the corridor with Alexander at my heels, and as I zero in on the room, my stomach is trembling like it’s full of ice—I’m so scared of what I’m going to see.
Will Jules be all limp and gray with tubes sticking out?
Beeping machines and a hysterical Priya draped over his legs?
As I round the corner, I stop so quickly that Alexander runs into my back, then grasps my shoulders to steady me.
Jules is sitting up in bed, Priya in a chair beside him, and they’re both looking at their phones.
“Got it in three,” Jules says with a teasing smugness. He turns his phone screen to show Priya, and he’s playing Wordle, for fuck’s sake. “In your face,” he adds.
She snorts. “More like your face,” she returns. “Which of us has another black eye, hmm? And I guessed it in four.” She leans to look at his phone. “Tsk! You just got lucky.”
“Um, hello?” I say.
They swivel to look, and Priya jumps up and hurries to me, yanking me into an embrace. Once she lets me go, I make eye contact with Jules, who offers a nervous fingertip-wave.
“Hey, Sage,” he says, voice tentative.
“Hey, fuckwit.” A wave of sorrow and relief and just plain love crashes over me and the next thing I know I’m on the edge of the bed, holding him hard. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again. Do you hear me? Never… again.”
A shiver passes through him like he’s trying not to cry. “I really fucked up. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t have it planned or anything, and—”
“I know,” I breathe against his cotton-gown-clad shoulder.
“And I’m not asking you to trust me, because I haven’t earned it.”
“Oh, fuck that, Jules.” I pull back, and yeah, now I’m crying. I swipe my tears away. “Of course I trust you. And I love you. Just don’t die, okay?” I look at Pri. “If you do that to my best friend, I’ll kick your ass.”
She lets out a small sob of a laugh. “Take a number. I told him I’d kick his butt too.”
Standing inconspicuously to one side, Alexander watches us with a kind smile. Julian finally notices, and he sits up and practically shouts out, “Shit, dude! You’re here! Bring it in.”
Alexander goes to exchange a fist bump and one of those guy hugs, then gets a chair from by the window and drags it over, sitting down.
When he does, I notice that oh my God, he’s wearing the fly fishing socks from the suit I gave him in Italy.
My shocked gaze goes from his ankles to his eyes, and he gives me a cute helpless shrug, and my heart clenches.
Pri and I perch on either side of Jules’s bed and we all chat and I’m brought up to speed on what happened.
Long story short: Jules told an old pal (um, drug pal) he’d be in London, the friend asked him to drop by, he thought he’d prove to himself how “over it” he was by seeing the friend, and…
obviously he was wrong about being over it.
I’m not dense enough to buy his story completely, because if the thought of using never crossed his mind, he would’ve taken Priya with him and wouldn’t have lied to her about where he was going.
So it’s a process. We’re not there yet, but I believe in him. I prepared for the 40 to 60 percent possibility of a relapse, and I’ve educated myself with the tools to help Julian to help himself more effectively as we move forward.
I’m not giving up. And I won’t let him give up either.
“Sage, no way am I letting you pay for treatment again after I failed,” he tells me upon hearing that I’m sending him right the fuck back to rehab.
I take his jaw in one hand, pinning him with a stern look.
“We’ll do this as many times as it takes,” I insist. “I’m driving for you now, got it?
You didn’t save me the first time you went back to look for me in Thailand.
I didn’t save you the first time you went to rehab. We keep trying. We’re family, Jules.”
There’s a discreet tap on the open door, and I look over to find Maya Ardley leaning in. “Is this an okay time?” she asks.
“Meems!” Julian calls out with a happy laugh, using his years-ago nickname for her. “What the hell are you doing in London?” He beckons her over, and as they exchange a hug, she glances at Priya like she’s checking to see if it’s okay.
“Technically I’m in England to attend the British GP,” Maya says, adding in an amused deadpan, “Your sickbed is just a detour.”
I know Pri doesn’t feel weird about Maya.
But Maya still seems self-conscious, probably aware that it lands different that she’s here for Jules.
She mentions her husband, Tau, a few times, and I suspect it’s not only because she’s nuts for the guy but also to make it clear to Priya that she doesn’t have designs.
After we’ve all been talking awhile, Julian falls asleep, and I feel like I understand the contentment my mom once described to me when she’d see us kids sleeping, knowing we were somewhere safe for a few hours, where nothing could hurt us.
I examine the relaxed lines of Julian’s face and I want him to get better so much…
I don’t think I’ve ever even wanted to win a race as much as I want him to win this fight.
Alexander—who’s mostly been quietly listening to the conversation—gets up and makes his way subtly to the door, meeting my eye and pointing to indicate that he’s leaving.
Pri and Maya are chatting, so I stand and follow him into the hall.
We wander to the recess of an empty doorway where there’s some privacy, and he takes both my hands in his.
“I’ll shove off, then,” he tells me. “I know you can hold your own with the press. I just, uh… I didn’t know what we’d find—Julian’s condition, that is to say—and I wanted to be here for you in case it was quite bad. But you’re fine.”
There’s a sinking feeling in my chest. “Yep, that’s me. Totally fine.”
He squeezes my hands, staring at our dovetailed fingers.
“I told myself I wouldn’t say this and look gauche, as if I’m taking advantage of this situation to get near you when you want nothing to do with me.
But…” He looks up cautiously. “Salvi, I love you. I always will. And I know you may still not believe that I had nothing to do with that shite Maya’s mum wrote.
But part of me is always going to be waiting for you, too lovesick to let go. ”
I can barely breathe, and I know my eyes are wide. I can’t even manage to pull on my aloof mask—this hurts too much. God, he’s beautiful.
He emits a breath of a laugh, rueful. “If ever I were to marry someone else,” he goes on, “I’ll insist that it’s written into my vows, ‘But if Sage comes back to me, it’s straight into the bin with you.’”
I choke out a snort-laugh, then clap a hand over my mouth. “Oh, your hypothetical future wife will love that.”
He shrugs with a weak smile. “Needs must.”