Page 10 of Love, Academically

Cocksure (adjective) cock·sure

Feeling perfect assurance, sometimes on inadequate grounds

Marked by overconfidence or presumptuousness

Lila

They had been waiting for hours. Well, two. But it was still a plural.

“Here,” Rhys said, handing her a plastic cup of hot chocolate. He sat down next to her again and pulled her leg onto his lap.

He really wasn’t all that bad. Sure, he could be a bit direct, but this was the second hot chocolate he’d bought her and he had stayed with her all this time.

“Kit Kat? The vending machine didn’t have any cookies, not that they’d be any good anyway,” he said with a wry smile, offering her a Kit Kat Chunky.

“Rhys, I would kill for chocolate,” she said, snatching it out of his hand, barely getting it ripped open before she stuffed it into her mouth. “What? I missed my afternoon cookie.”

“You have an afternoon cookie?” he asked, his eyebrow crawling up his forehead.

“Yes, and a morning cookie. It’s what makes me so sweet.”

The corner of his mouth ticked up in a tiny smile before he caught himself and forced his eyebrows together in a frown.

“Is it going to be much longer?” Rhys checked his swanky watch for the thirtieth time. “It’s been hours. I’m going to ask.”

“Rhys, don’t. They’re doing their best. They’re just overworked and under-resourced,” Lila said, gripping his strong arm. Which was very strong.

He was probably used to private health care, GPs and A a couple of kids, two extreme bleeders and a projectile vomiter.

It was an hour later when her mother texted back and even then it wasn’t really much of a text.

She may be an adult, but what she needed was a big hug, a soft blanket and someone to stroke her hair. Instead, her parents were busy living their own lives, and Lila should get on with living hers.

In the end, it was nearly three hours before she was called through to triage.

“Finally,” Rhys grumbled under his breath, helping her up. He wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her to the triage room. For a well-built man, he was really quite gentle.

“Are you coming in?” she asked as they reached the triage room door. Suddenly, she really wanted him to.

Rhys frowned, his eyebrows drawing in. “Uh, sure?”

It was definitely a question.

Lila swallowed and nodded. She was vulnerable and tired and so hungry, and for some reason, having a warm body next to her helped.

“Okay then.”

She sat in the slightly less uncomfortable chair and Rhys hovered behind. The doctor took off her sock and boot and poked at her ankle with cold fingers.

“Does this hurt?” he asked, perfunctorily.

Lila sucked in a breath. “Yes, it hurts.” Like a bitch.

“And to move it?” The doctor bent her foot up and down.

“Yes,” she said, grinding her teeth together.

“Should you actually be moving it like that if it’s sprained or broken?” Rhys asked pointedly. The doctor flicked his eyes to Rhys disdainfully before turning back to his paperwork.

“Right, we’ll need to X-ray it. I don’t think it’s broken, but we’ll have to see.”

“And how long will that take?” Rhys asked, voice laced with tension. She sighed; if he didn’t want to be here, he should just go. She’d given him an out time and time again.

“We work as quickly as we can, Mr Cartwright,” the doctor snapped, obviously overworked, scribbling something on a pink sheet of paper.

“We’re not—”

“I’m not—”

Rhys spoke at the same time she did, and they exchanged a strained glance.

“He’s not my husband. We’re not together,” Lila clarified.

The doctor obviously didn’t care and didn’t bother to look up. Rhys cleared his throat behind her. It was fifteen long seconds of silence before the doctor shoved the pink form at her.

“Follow the yellow line to the waiting room and the X-ray technician will be there soon.”

That was it, they were dismissed.

Rhys’s face was like thunder, probably at having to wait again for an X-ray. He looked like he was going to open his mouth, probably to have a go at the doctor for God knows what.

“Thank you,” Lila said with a smile, trying to balance the scowl on Rhys’s face.

“Is there any way,” Rhys started, supercilious and saccharine, “that we could have a wheelchair? It’s not like she can walk, is it?”

“Ask the nurse,” the doctor said, scanning his computer screen. “I’ve got another patient to triage now, so if you could…” He indicated the door with his head.

“Yes, of course. Thank you, Doctor, thank you,” Lila said, offering him one of her best, people-pleasing smiles .

The doctor softened a little. “You’re welcome.”

It took Rhys ten minutes to source a wheelchair for her and another ten minutes for them to navigate around the hospital because the yellow line to the X-ray department faded in and out and was not particularly helpful.

She tried not to giggle at Rhys’s increasing frustration, because that would not go down well whatsoever.

It was just that he was so ridiculous with his huffing and puffing every time they went the wrong way.

He even growled at an old woman with a Zimmer frame when she got in the way.

Did he expect people to be racing around as if it were the London Underground?

It was another hour (and another hot chocolate) in the waiting room before Rhys wheeled her to the X-ray area, trailing a harassed technician. A few scans later and they were back waiting again.

“Why does all of this take so long?” Rhys groaned and adjusted his position on his seat. Again. “And why, for the love of God, are these seats so uncomfortable?”

“Rhys, please. Just go home. You’ve been here long enough. It’s,” she looked at her phone, “nearly half-six now. Surely you have better things to be doing on a Wednesday night?”

“I’ve wasted the afternoon here, what’s a couple more hours?”

Lila looked at her hands and bit her cheek. How rude. It was not like she hadn’t told him to go, time and time again, and he had insisted on staying.

She was perfectly capable of looking after herself. She had Maddy and Jasmeet. She could call a taxi. She could cope. Lila didn’t need Rhys Aubrey, especially not a stroppy Rhys Aubrey.

Lila took a breath. “Rhys, you don’t have to—”

“Don’t say it, Lila,” he snapped, holding his hand out to stop her talking. “I’m here and I’m not going until they let you go.”

Rhys Aubrey-Dallimore, with his stupid double-barrelled name, couldn’t possibly be understanding, couldn’t possibly be empathetic. The only reason she kept going on about him leaving her there was that he blatantly didn’t want to be there.

“I was only going to say that you don’t have to be so grumpy. Waiting is just what happens in the NHS.” It was one hundred percent not what she was going to say. “They haven’t got enough funding or enough staff.”

“Yeah, well.” He visibly deflated.

Lila cast around for something else to say. Sure, they could sit in awkward silence, but if she was going to pretend to be his girlfriend, then they had to at least get on. Otherwise, it would be obvious.

“Did you start that online course? How’s it going?” Perhaps not the best subject, but she’d said it now.

“I did start it, yes. You told me I had to.” His eyes cut over to her. “It’s fine, it’s just annoying.”

“Why?” How could an online course be annoying?

“It’s telling me stuff I already know. It’s getting in the way of my research.”

Lila snorted a laugh. If that wasn’t the epitome of the petulant academic, she didn’t know what was.

“Really? Stuff you already know?”

Rhys glared at the floor, colour shooting up his neck.

His jaw twitched. Oh Christ, now she’d upset him, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

She was crabby and hungry, and they had been waiting for what seemed like six years, but there was no need to take it out on the one person who was actually here, looking after her. Even if he had been an arse about it.

He shifted to look out of the window and the darkening sky outside.

“Rhys.” Her fingers reached for the sleeve of his crisp shirt, buttoned neatly at the cuff. She had the intention of apologising again as she’d obviously touched a nerve, but the door swung open and they were ushered by a different nurse into a different office to wait for a different doctor.

Rhys

This could all have been dealt with in about thirty minutes at his private service.

As it was, he had wasted the entire afternoon and half of the evening.

They were now in another room, waiting for a doctor to give them the results of Lila’s X-ray.

Rhys hadn’t even asked if she wanted him there, he’d just wheeled her in and sat down in the chair with the rip in the padding on the seat.

The nurse left them. Again.

His fished his phone out of his pocket.

What had happened is that he was trying to be a good person (What Would Dan Do?) and help out a colleague. Now he was missing not only his research, but kickboxing as well.

Quite frankly, Dan seemed to be more interested in whether this would interfere with his date than the suffering Rhys was going through. He put his phone back in his pocket.