Page 16 of Maybe (Mis-shapes #1)

ISAAC

Ezra’s text randomly appeared during a busy afternoon of wading through an overfull waiting room.

A recent bullshit piece in the Daily Mail, written by a doc who hadn’t set foot on the wards since Florence Nightingale did her rounds , brought a flood of patients to ED convinced their excessive flatus was diagnostic of cancer and requiring further investigation.

Nonetheless, as a result of Ezra’s unexpected communication, my phone now boasted a new screensaver.

My cute nephew, taken at his school sports day, judging from the certificates he held aloft.

Squinting at them, I deduced Jonty’s future either lay in running fifty metres with his leg tied to someone else’s or tossing a wellington boot.

That the boy belonged to Ezra was never in doubt, and not only from the way Ezra could hardly drag his eyes from him, paternal pride leaking from his every pore.

But physically too, from Jonty’s stormy dark eyes, spelling mischief, right down to the direction of the curl of his too-long hair around his narrow shoulders, and even the way he leaned into his friend to say something, then tossed his hair back on a laugh.

He was quite small for his age, if my quick medical rule of thumb served me right.

Not that he was short exactly, but if Ezra purchased school uniform based on age, not size, then the trouser hems would trail along the floor and the sleeves dangle way beyond his skinny wrists.

The swings had not been shorthand for playground .

Two rusted swing sets, a short metal slide only a toddler would briefly find amusing, and a broken roundabout, barricaded off.

A sign at the entrance to the small park warned no dogs , but enough evidence littered the stubbly grass suggesting no one had explained as much to the dogs.

No words accompanied the cheery photo. I wondered why Ezra had selected that one and why he’d sent it without any explanation.

And why the picture of Jonty, grinning through so many gaps in his teeth, as though his tongue had been imprisoned, filled me with such joy.

The kid looked delighted, like kids should, finding simple pleasures in rusty swings and welly wanging.

And despite mine and Ezra’s childhood home in a leafy suburb of London so different it might as well have been on another planet, I’d challenge either of us to produce a photo of either of us appearing so happy.

“Aah, that’s adorable,” cooed Alaric over my shoulder.

He tapped on the computer next to me, reviewing the blood results of a patient with kidney stones.

I was supposed to be referring a child to the paeds surgeons with suspected appendicitis.

“Going to keep the orthodontists in work in a few years’ time, though. ”

“Ha! He’s my nephew, Jonty. He’s nine. Nearly ten.” Pride must be infectious; a rich swell of it engulfed me as we both studied the picture.

“Yeah? Local?”

“Fairly.”

“You’re lucky. My brother lives in Australia, and my parents retired to Spain three years ago. I’m starting to get the impression it was something I said. Hey, are you still on for viva practice together later, after we finish?”

“Yeah, sure.” I jerked my head in the direction of the patient waiting area. “Although the rugby player in cubicle three might slow you down. He’s been checking you out since he arrived.”

Coolly, Alaric appraised him. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d slipped his phone number to an interested patient.

On this occasion, however, he pulled a face.

“Nah, too hairy. You’ve seen how picky I am about shoes, and they only go on my feet.

He’s all yours. And we’ve got surgical exams to nail down.

I only managed a couple of hours on anatomy last night. ”

Only? Too tired to concentrate on revision, I’d watched half a football match on the telly.

Then I'd fallen into bed, where I tossed and turned, churning the bloody cot death over in my head—like that would make it any easier to deal with—then worrying about not getting enough sleep.

The first part of the exams was less than a month away. Alaric would fly through them.

“Christ, don’t you have any hobbies?” I joked.

He threw me a grin. “No, I have no time. I have a lot of sex.”

“Lucky you.” I took a last look at the photo of Jonty, then put my phone away with a heavy sigh.

“Something wrong?” he queried, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

“Apart from, you know, wondering if you’ve just sent someone home with a diagnosis of musculoskeletal problems when it was actually an incipient thoracic aneurysm and they’re now dying alone in their bed, too weak to call 999 because their entire circulatory volume is seeping into their chest cavity?

” He threw me a sideways grin, the gap between his front teeth not too dissimilar to Jonty’s.

“Um… thanks, mate. I needed another thing to lie awake worrying about. But yeah, sort of.”

He stopped tapping. “Man problems?”

A picture of Ezra, his stormy gaze narrowed like he was busily reading my soul, flickered at the edges of my vision. I don’t care about other shift workers. “Um… sort of?”

Alaric’s face lit up. “Of the I can’t fit him into a body bag variety? Or the other kind?”

“The other kind.”

But it was a close-run thing. I glanced in the direction of the rugby player, cradling one injured hand in the other. He was still in his muddy kit, big hairy thighs spread wide, muscular legs stretched out, reminding me I hadn’t indulged in any form of exercise for well over a month.

If you asked me, and no one had (or probably ever would, because who cared what a sexual loser like me thought), we gays didn't discuss enough how attraction to people of the same gender evoked a whole new level of comparison and self-image anxiety.

Even bookish Gerald had a flat belly and impressively toned arms.

“Well, whatever the problem is, you should phone him,” Alaric suggested. “So you can concentrate on revision. Stop letting it fester and sort it out.”

“Who? Rugby guy? He’s literally five metres away. Would it be easier to chat?”

“No, comedian, the boy occupying your cerebral cortex instead of your bed. Gerald, wasn’t it?”

Fuck no. “There is someone, but it’s not him. It’s comp…”

Alaric held up a hand. “Babes, you don’t need to explain gay to me.

It’s always complicated.” He flicked his eyes up at the rugby player, catching the guy checking him out.

“There are many perks to being a gay man: intuitively knowing chartreuse sits opposite red-violet on the colour wheel, for instance. But dating other gay men? Not one of them.”

Mate, you have no idea.

Dislocated finger man was assessed, treated, and discharged in under ten minutes, his stubby finger back to the spot it should be.

I’d never not find them satisfying. The key was to relocate them as soon as the injury happened, before the soft tissues around the joint swelled and made it harder to slip back into place.

Failing that, the trick was to catch the patient unawares before they tensed.

In this case, under the guise of a careful examination and mildly flirty chitchat about Harlequin's upcoming big game against Saracens, I gave the rugby player’s finger a sharp yank.

He yelped, the joint popped back into its rightful socket, and we were all done bar the X-ray and some buddy strapping.

For what it was worth, rugby guy wasn’t my type either— too bulky, hair too short, too much hair gel. Not enough eyeliner, not slender enough, too amenable, not a guitarist.

God, I needed therapy. Perhaps I should ask Gerald if he’d found anyone good.

Or at least try to get more sleep. What the fuck was wrong with me?

Here I was, chatted up by a strong, good-looking, pleasant enough chap with thighs like logs.

Yet a purring voice in my head compared him to a man with thighs like brittle twigs who happened to be my fucking brother.

Phoning someone up to thank them for texting you a nice photo shouldn’t have been this complicated.

Certainly not more complicated, for instance, than phoning my mother while she was sunbathing off the coast of Rimini and drilling down into a) why she’d never told me Ezra had a son, and b) why she’d let my dad run him out of town.

Oh, and c) why she didn’t think it mattered, and why was I so bothered after how he’d behaved at the memorial service?

The long and short of that terse phone call was that, for my own, sanity, I’d not ring her again for a while.

Anyhow, I had yet to teach my body fight-or-flight reactions were reserved for life-or-death situations, not, you know, speaking to your estranged brother.

Pacing my bedroom much later that evening, I prevaricated.

When was a good time to phone? I didn’t want to disturb Jonty’s bedtime routine—though ten p.m. had been and gone.

Then I told myself to delay as Ezra might need peace and quiet after sorting out his child.

After that, I broke into a hot sweat convincing myself he might be entertaining a casual sexual partner.

And now I’d left it so late he was probably tucked up in bed fast asleep. With another very cool guy. In his very cool bedroom. In cool black pyjamas next to an alarm clock playing a random selection of Cure songs before automatically switching to an underground indie radio station.

Fuck it, I phoned him.

“What’s wrong, Isaac?” said Ezra, not sounding very asleep at all. In fact, sounding on the edge of panic. Who the hell phoned someone at ten to midnight unless there was something the matter?

“Um… oh my god, nothing. I… sorry… I didn’t realise it was so late.” I winced at the lie. “I… um… just called to thank you for the photo of Jonty. I…uh… I really liked it. He’s… well, he’s obviously great at welly-wanging. I’d ask if it runs in the family, but I know it doesn’t, so…”