Page 4

Four

BHODI

He’s not going to come.

I tell myself over and over.

As I roll out of bed three hours earlier than I want to. As I shower in the tiny cubicle with the rainfall head, then contemplate the empty fridge and the unused log burner on repeat until it’s time to leave—for the appointment I made, unasked, for my landlord.

The insanely attractive bloke with the star tattooed on his face who’s rejected my concern for his fractured wrist ten times already.

If anything, I approach my car expecting a note tacked to the windscreen telling me to fuck the fuck off, but I’m wrong. I glance up from picking my way along the icy path to find Tam waiting for me, perched on the low wall surrounding his house, and the sight of him slows my steps.

He’s got those boots on. But instead of the sweats I’ve seen him in recently, jeans wrap around his long legs, a dark jacket thrown over a faded, gunmetal grey T-shirt, and Lord , I’m not ready for it.

I force myself into motion again. “Wasn’t sure you’d show.”

Tam stands off the wall, his injured arm still held at an awkward angle. “You grassed me up to my brother. It’s him or you.”

“I was your first choice?”

His russet eyes do something complex. “I can go on my own. You don’t have to come.”

I know that. He knows that. But somehow, we’re both here.

“Also,” he elaborates when I don’t speak, “I googled the fracture clinic, and it’s in a different building, so…”

So…? But I don’t ask. If he wants to share, he will. Or he won’t, and that’s okay. I point at my car, the windows already cleared of frost and ice. “Let’s go.”

A beat stretches before he shrugs and heads to the passenger door of my beat-up Golf. He slides into the seat. I do the same and start her up—kinda. It takes a minute and I shoot him an apologetic glance. “Needs an oil change.”

He snorts. “It needs glow plugs. And probably new cylinders if you keep driving it like a crazy person without getting it looked at.”

“How are you saying that with a straight face?”

Tam gives me a long look, one I can’t drown in while I’m reversing around the cul-de-sac to spin the car in the right direction. “Yeah yeah, I get the irony. But I looked at the engine while I was waiting for you, and you really do need glow plugs.”

I face forward and spy the oil smears on his hands, even the bad one. There’s other marks too—blue, maybe?—that make less sense, and a red that’s too vibrant to be blood staining the skin around his nails. “It’s cute that you looked at my car. ”

“Cute?”

“Yeah. But you didn’t need to. I was going to take it to Halfords tomorrow.”

“Fucking Halfords?” That earns me a growly grunt, and a flurry of muttered French that somehow fits with the subtle Brummie accent Tam has when he sticks to English.

“You don’t like Halfords,” I surmise, easing my cursed car down Stardust Lane and onto the A-road that leads to the city. “They do something to offend you?”

“They’re shite.”

“All of them?”

“Unless you’re in the market for a bubblegum air freshener.”

Tam shifts his attention to nail a glare at an SUV undertaking us. I roll my lips, suppressing a grin as a bump in the road jostles the Jelly Belly air freshener dangling between us. Blueberry, once upon a time, but it probably smells of old scrubs by now. Or whatever junk is lurking in the back of my car with the bags and boxes I’ve yet to unpack.

“Why are you going this way?”

I chance a glance at Tam. He’s scowling at the junction leading to the motorway, and to the best of my knowledge, the city where we’ll find the hospital. “Um. Because we’re going to the hospital?”

“Yeah, I know that. But why this way? It takes six times as long.”

“Then Google Maps lied to me.”

“Fucking right. Take the scenic route next time.”

I wait for him to elaborate.

He doesn’t, and I drive on, trying not to sneak glances at his profile, or breathe too much of his woodsmoke and cinnamon scent. He looks like a biker, but he smells like cake, and facing that without breakfast in my belly is a Herculean task. Add in that he’s satanically hot, and I’m a lost cause.

There’s no way around it. I want to eat him.

But I want him to feel better more than I want to think about fucking him, and I hold onto that as I navigate my way back to a place that already feels like my second home, park in the last staff space, and kill the engine.

Tam hasn’t spoken in a while. He doesn’t seem particularly tense, but what do I know? This is the fourth time we’ve met and the longest we’ve ever been in each other’s company. For all I know, he’s about to bolt, and despite his injury, I know I have little chance of stopping him.

I take a chance and press my fist to his shoulder. “Ready?”

“Hmm?”

“We’re here.” I let my fist slip away. “You’ve got a little time before your appointment, though. If you need a minute.”

Tam blinks. “You made me an appointment?”

“Yup.” I lean back in my seat, content to wait. “It’s quicker than sitting in the walk-in clinic all morning. Figured you had better things to be doing.”

Unless his wrist is so damaged it needs surgery, but we’re not there yet. We’re in my car—the one he opened the bonnet to without a key. The one that’s broken, but reparable. Like everything else.

“Fuck it.” Tam moves suddenly and gets out of the car.

I recognise the urgency. He’s done thinking and he wants it over with. So I follow him, slip ahead, and lead him round the building that seems to unnerve him so much, and to a smaller operation behind it.

The fracture clinic is busy. I put Tam in a seat by the door, and he lets me. Then I do all the talking at the desk for him so he doesn’t have to.

I take a form back to him, along with a chewed-up biro. “Fill that in.”

He obeys without comment and I settle into my seat, fighting a yawn. I spent way too long last night debating whether to slip that note through his letterbox. Then I got hungry and remembered I still hadn’t been shopping, and dreaming about a meal that didn’t come in a foam tray had me tossing and turning until it was time to get up.

I need a nap. A long one. Preferably after I’ve stuffed my face with something not fried.

“I’m not always this extra.” Tam’s deep voice startles me, speaking over the tinny rendition of Band Aid filtering from a speaker buried somewhere in the low budget decorations above us. He’s finished the form and fixed his attention on me instead, his stare swirling with dry self-deprecation, and the warmth that makes him so attractive. “In case you were wondering.”

I open my mouth to deny it, but it’d be a lie. “It’s not extra to be nuanced. Everyone has something.”

“What’s your thing?”

“Running away every time things don’t work out.”

“Girl trouble?”

“Sometimes. It was a dude this time, though.”

I force myself to keep my gaze on the screen that calls patients forward for their appointments. To not track his reaction to the man-love thing. If my sexuality makes him uncomfortable, I can’t say I care that much.

“He break your heart?”

I turn my head.

Tam’s expression hasn’t changed except to flare with sympathy I don’t entirely deserve. “Not quite. It was on its way, though. You know when your head signs up for something your heart can’t handle?”

His gaze deepens. “Ouch. Yeah. I’ve been there. It’s why I don’t do relationships anymore. Or even hookups unless it’s with someone I know for sure doesn’t want anything else.”

“You don’t get lonely?”

“So fucking lonely.” Tam touches his good hand to his chest. “But I’ve been broken before, and I don’t have the energy to fix myself again.”

The declaration feels loaded, as though we’re talking about more than love, and that wide awake part of me from last night surges to life.

I lean forward in the same moment Tam shifts a little, rotating to face me better. Like we’re in a quiet corner of a cosy pub instead of a bright and noisy hospital waiting room. Like we’re old friends, not new acquaintances.

It should feel weird.

It doesn’t.

“How long have you been sworn off love?”

“Years.” Tam lets his hand drop and it’s a struggle not to study the ink on his knuckles while I have him this close. “My brother calls me a bitter old spinster, but then he’s here every other week, kipping on my couch because he can’t get along with his missus, and I don’t feel like I’m missing much.”

I can’t disagree. It’s the same conclusion that led me to up sticks and move two hundred miles. But hearing him saying it, and seeing the certainty in his molten gaze that this is how it’s meant to be for him—I don’t know. It doesn’t sit right. Like a deeper part of me knows this man is meant to be loved.

“Tam Dubois? ”

Our cinched gazes break. We’ve been so wrapped up in our conversation we’ve missed Tam’s name turning green on the screen and the nurse has come to fetch him.

He rises, tension returning to his face.

I catch his hand—by accident, I think. But here we are. “You want me to come?”

Tam hesitates, a myriad of emotions crowding his gaze. Fear. Bewilderment. Frustration. They’re gone in a heartbeat, but I see them, and I stand without waiting for an answer.

“Come on, mate. Let’s get you fixed up.”