Page 88 of Goldilocks
“You may only call me Goldilocks,” he said to Eric. “And you may call me Roan,” he said to Sam.
Roan’s hand, Sam now realised, was resting quietly on his ankle. Soft and unobtrusive, simply there. And Sam looked at Roan again, something niggling at his head. Familiarity, for one. Fondness. Though perhaps the fondness came from that pretty face. Mary always told Sam that he had shallow tendencies when it came to liking people. So long as they were pretty, personality be damned, Sam would find himself drawn in.
“There was an intruder at the house yesterday,” Eric said. “Did that person come back? The guards said it looked like you tripped and hit your head, but you said…” Eric’s face tensed. “You were on the phone to me. You said something about a monster.”
Sam fingered his temple where the uncomfortable edge of a sticky bandage clung to his skin. “Was this before or after I hit my head?”
“Before. I…Actually, you know what? I don’t know.”
Sam dropped his hand, taking stock of himself. He felt as though he’d spent hours on the boat in pelting rain and stormy seas, and his body was spent, exhausted, and in desperate need of a long rest. “I don’t know,” Sam said. He looked between Eric and Roan, each as unlikely a figure as the other. A brother. A boyfriend. But the longer he looked at Eric, the more he niggled at Sam’s head too. Be it because the resemblance to himself was obvious, with the red hair and green eyes, or perhaps because he looked like the photos in the house of his dad when he was young—
“Where’s Dad?” Sam asked, sudden worry bolting through him. If he was in hospital, then would anyone remember to stop by and bring his dad food? To cook for him and make sure that he was okay?
“He’s staying with Mary,” Eric answered. “At Aunt Mal’s house. He’s going to stay there for a while. I took out a longer rental on the flat from before, so you can stay with me in town while we figure out what to do with the house.”
“The house?”
“It’s not fit for living in, Sam.” Eric tensed, as if Sam was about to yell at him. Was this an argument they’d had before, and Sam couldn’t recall it?
“Okay,” Sam said.
Disbelief flashed in Eric’s eyes.
Roan squeezed gently, drawing Sam’s attention to him. “You may also stay with me,” he said. “I gather that you find your sibling’s company disagreeable.”
Eric shot Roan a dirty look. “Thanks for that.”
The door opened with a quick swing, and in rushed Mary. Real relief filled Sam, even when her green eyes landed on him as if she were about to grapple him to the ground and lay into him. “I’m getting you a collar” – Mary stomped to his side – “with a GPS, and you are going to wear it, always. Why were you back at that house alone? You told me it was giving you the creeps, and you didn’t want your dad anywhere near it, and what? After the break-in, you decided to go off therealone?”
Sam blinked, taking a moment to understand the gush of words pouring from Mary’s mouth. “There was a break-in?”
“I just told you – never mind. His memory’s not great right now,” Eric explained.
“For Christ’s sake.” Mary rubbed her forehead, stress evident in every tense muscle from her cheek to her neck to her wrist to a finger tugging roughly on an errant curl. Sam reached out, catching that hand in his own before she pulled the hair out.
“Was anything stolen?”
Mary sat on the edge of his bed with a deflating sigh. She lowered her hand, leaving it in his, and then covered his hand with hers in turn, squeezing his fingers hard enough to hurt. “Let’s talk about that later. What did the doctors say? Concussion?”
“Must be if his memory’s affected,” Eric said.
Roan’s hand pressed tighter on Sam’s ankle, and Sam glanced to see his troubled expression. Sam dragged his gaze to meet Mary’s eyes.
“Apparently I have a boyfriend?” Sam prompted her.
Mary’s expression became as troubled as Roan’s, but whatever worry she was about to voice, she caught. “Yeah. True to form, you picked the best-looking guy in Ireland to ask out. I only met Goldilocks for the first time the other night, but you two seemed tight. You’re always sneaking off on the boat together, getting up to God knows what.”
Mary wouldn’t lie, so it must be true that Sam was dating Roan.
“Oh.” Sam looked once more at Roan. “Cool. Sorry, I can’t really remember…”
Roan inclined his head. “There is no need to apologise. If your memories do not return, we will begin again from the start.”
Sam opened his mouth, and a small, tired laugh escaped. So he had a gorgeous, assertive boyfriend. “Alright then.” He grinned. “I look forward to it.”
Even Mary gave Roan what could only be described as an approving look, and Mary didn’t hand those out easily. The door opened and, along with Connor and Laurence, a doctor strolled in. They asked for the room and went through a series of tests, at the end of which they concluded he was concussed and needed to stay for observation. They asked him about partially healed cuts on his left hand, too old to be from the fall, but Sam had no answer for the doctor.
Laurence, Connor’s stepbrother from the family that had ‘kept him,’ was the first inside after the doctor left, followed closely by Connor, and through the open door, Sam saw Roan, Eric and Mary crowding the doctor quizzing the man.