“Brilliant.”
Harry sighed.
Rhys closed his eyes and pictured him prowling around Joe’s farmhouse kitchen, rubbing his head like a deranged gorilla—his favourite tic when his anxiety was up. “He’s okay, mate. Just exhausted. We’ll get some grub into him and maybe get him up on his feet, see how he goes.”
“Be careful. His balance is awful when he’s been down—hang on a sec—” Harry spoke to someone else, then came back on the line. “Listen, Joe’s going to drive the van up and get him. Bring him down to us until Dylan gets back. Do you think you can watch him until Joe gets there?”
Relief flooded Rhys. He hadn’t relished the idea of leaving Angelo alone again. “Why can’t you come?”
“Because I have eight residential patients waiting on me. If I could leave, I’d already be on my way. Seriously, Rhys, do you honestly think I’d have created this mess for you if it was something I could’ve sorted myself?”
“So you admit it’s a bloody mess then?”
“Which part? Angelo needing us both right now? Or the fact that he was fucking you in a sex club long before the hospital referred him to me? Because from where I’m standing, bro, none of that is my fault.”
“Are you saying it’s mine?”
“No, I’m saying it’s ridiculous, and it doesn’t even matter anymore. Angelo needs help, and I’m asking you to give it to him until Joe can get there.”
Rhys let loose a heavy sigh of his own. Angsty conversations with Harry always went like this—round in circles and making no sense until one of them blinked and played the part of the father they’d never had. “How soon can Joe get here?”
“He’s leaving now.”
Rhys glanced at his phone screen and his stomach sank. Harry and Joe’s Newquay home was five hours away on a good day. Add in rush-hour traffic and motorway bullshit, and an afternoon ETA was wishful thinking. “Fuck. I’ve got to be on the chopper at noon. There’s no way I can stay until Joe gets here.”
“Can you leave a key? So he can get in if Angelo can’t get up?”
Rhys stepped out into the hallway and stuck his head around the living room door. Jevon was holding the phone to Angelo’s ear with one hand and rubbing Angelo’s seized-up leg with the other. “Yeah, I’ll do that if I have to, but I’ll try and sort something else out first. Just tell Joe to put his foot down.”
“Will do. And Rhys?”
“Yeah?”
“For what it’s worth, you would’ve found out about Angelo and Dylan last Christmas when they were here too. But you didn’t show up.”
Ten
Rhys came back into the room with a face like Jevon had never seen. He crouched by Angelo and fixed him with what Jevon imagined was a mask from his paramedic skin. “Joe’s coming to get you. Harry wants you to stay with them until Dylan gets back.”
The defeat in Angelo was obvious, even to Jevon. “I can’t let them look after me.”
“Why not?” Rhys said. “They’re your friends.”
“They’reyourfamily and you don’t let them look after you.”
“How do you know that?”
Angelo raised one shoulder in a slight half shrug. “He doesn’t talk about you much—which makes sense now—but I know he misses you. Joe’s clan are awesome, but it’s not the same as your own having your back.”
Rhys’s gaze sharpened. “I have his back. It’s not my fault he fucked off to Cornwall, is it?”
“If you found someone who loved you like Joe loves him, you’d fuck off too.”
There was no malice in Angelo’s tone, but Rhys seemed to bristle all the same. “I can’t fuck off. I work on the air ambulance, mate. I can’t hand a car crash off to someone else because I fancy spending my summers on horseback.”
“Okay.” Angelo leaned back on the couch again. “But I think you’re being a bit of a dick. Yeah, maybe he could’ve given you a heads-up about me and Dylan, but I don’t know when. He’s not my official physio anymore, but I don’t think I’ve ever stopped being his patient.”
Rhys said nothing, his expression clear he was done talking about his brother.