“Bridge.”
It took Marc a moment to compute the implication of the young man’s hoarsely whispered word, then he glanced up at the disused bridge that crossed the tracks. “You fell from the bridge?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember how?”
Silence, but Marc couldn’t tell if Ludo was hiding something or had simply lost the strength to talk. Either way, Marc’s main priority was to get him on the chopper as quickly and painlessly as possible. The police would do the rest.
It took an hour to stabilise Ludo. His ankles were broken, his pelvis fractured, and Marc suspected that he’d lose his spleen once they got to a hospital and the surgeons assessed him.Poor kid.Had he jumped? Marc couldn’t say, but whatever had landed him on the train tracks, his recovery was going to be long and incredibly painful.If the spleen injury doesn’t kill him on the flight.
It didn’t, but it was touch and go, and the helicopter diverted to a closer hospital when Ludo’s blood pressure dropped too low for Marc to manage in-flight. Marc delivered him safely into the hands of the waiting trauma team and then searched out the doctors’ lounge to ring Jamie. The call went straight to voice mail, like it often did if Jamie was in an NA meeting, but the line went dead before Marc could leave a message.
Antsy to get home, Marc wandered outside to find a cab to take him back to the Chesterfield and his car. On the way, he checked up on Ludo to find him already on route to have his ruptured spleen removed.
“Good call,” the department consultant said. “Another five minutes in the air and he’d have been DOA.”
It was an odd comfort. To know that Ludo would likely pull through was relieving, but if Ludo had jumped and truly wanted to die, had they done him any favours by saving his life?
The doctor within said yes, but the cynical soldier was more pessimistic until Jamie’s face filled Marc’s mind, eclipsing Ludo and taking his place on the operating table. There must’ve been times when had Jamie believed death to be easier than living, perhaps there still were, but what hope would he have had if those around him—Zac, Liam, and Marvin—had thought the same?
The notion was terrifying, and drove Marc into motion. He jumped in the first cab he saw and directed it to the Chesterfield. Halfway home, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, expecting a message from Jamie. But it wasn’t Jamie, it was Nat, and the message filling Marc’s screen stilled his heart with a sucker punch so deep his vision turned black.
Seventeen
Jamie paced the upstairs halls of the big old house. The rooms were practically empty now, and the eerie echo of his footsteps made him nervous, but he pushed away the dancing demons in his guts. For once, his own inevitable implosion was the last thing on his mind.
He checked his phone for what seemed like the thousandth time. The screen was blank, save the clock telling him that it was the early hours of the morning, and a tremor of anxiety rippled through him. Marc had promised to call when his shift finally finished, but that had been hours ago—sixteen to be precise—and aside from a message that had cut off before Marc had said anything, Jamie hadn’t heard a word. His phone calls had gone unanswered, his messages too. Logic told him that Marc was still working, but barring a nuclear emergency, he’d have found a way to get in touch—Jamie was sure of it.
Am I, though?It was hard to tell. He’d left the psychiatrist that morning on a cloud of reluctant hope that talking to Marc had only buoyed, but after hours on end alone in Marc’s house, the uncharacteristic optimism was beginning to wear off. In Jamie’s mind, there were two scenarios warring for airtime: Marc hadn’t called because something terrible had happened to him, or... he simply didn’t want to.
Though there was no logical reason for it, the possibility that Marc had come to his senses was winning. After all, Jamie had thrown so much shit at him over the last few weeks, what sane bloke wouldn’t run a mile?But he loves you—Did he? Was that real? His heart knew that Marc wouldn’t lie, but—
Stop it.
Jamie slammed the door on the doubt that plagued him every moment Marc’s warm arms weren’t keeping him safe. He felt jittery and weak, but beyond that, he was so worried about Marc that his chest hurt, and the only way to live through that was to keep busy.
At home that often meant tearing apart already spotless cupboards—counting things, organising them—but the psychiatrist had urged him to try everything else before he resorted to that. Cooking had soothed Jamie’s soul since Marvin had pushed a wok into his hands, and whenever Marc came home, he’d need to eat, right?
Jamie was boxing up chow mein for the fridge when a knock at the door scared the ever-loving shit out of him. Noodles splattered the kitchen floor as his hand flew to his chest, and for a long moment he thought he’d imagined it. But then the knocking came again, louder this time, and the cat appeared to investigate.
Frowning, Jamie crept into the hallway. The only people who ever knocked on Marc’s door were Mrs. Valentino and the postman, and at four thirty in the morning, it was hardly likely to be one of them.The police?Jamie stopped in his tracks—but no, it couldn’t be them either, because the only reason they’d ever come to where Jamie was before was to raid the place for hookers and heroin, and Marc’s house wasn’t like that... it was safe.At least, it was until you came along.
But Jamie’s self-absorbed bullshit didn’t make sense either. He wasn’t a hooker anymore, and he wasn’t using heroin. No one but Marc knew he was even here, and the only reason the police had to come to the house was because something had happened to Marc.Fuck.Jamie dashed to the door and wrenched it open. His mind was so convinced that he’d see flashing blue lights and grim-faced coppers that he almost didn’t recognise the tall, lean figure walking back to a car that he’d seen somewhere before. “Hey!”
The man turned, and the light from the only nearby streetlight caught his face.
Jamie ran a few steps out of the house, the gravel driveway biting into his bare feet, and raised his hand to shield his eyes from the drizzling rain. “Connor? Is that you?”
* * *
“Sorry for barging in on you in the middle of the night.” Connor wrapped his hands around his coffee cup. “I wasn’t even sure you’d be here.”
“No? You seemed pretty sure of my place in Marc’s life last time I saw you.” Jamie forced a smile, but it was tough. Connor had the air of a man bearing bad news, but aside from quickly assuring Jamie that Marc was, as far as he knew, safe and well, he hadn’t said much that made sense. “Do you want something to eat?”
Connor shook his head. “Nah, I’m okay, mate. It’s enough to be out of the house. I’m shit at waiting, and I don’t really— Well, put it this way, no one tells me anything, you know?”
“I don’t know anything either,” Jamie said as mildly as he could manage. “All I know is that Marc should’ve finished work sometime yesterday and he’s still not home. Want to fill me in?”