The Way You Are (2 page)

“Christmas-Christmas? Of course,” Leon said, grinning. “I’m not spending it with mine.”

“There’s a not-Christmas Christmas?”

“The Queer Collective Christmas party.”

“Fair point,” Krissy said. “Yes, Christmas-Christmas. Do I need to tell Mum to expect a plus-one with you this year?”

Leon pulled up his hood and sank further into the couch. “No.”

Krissy grinned at him from over her laptop screen. “Okay, love, but if you happen to show up with one, it’ll be cool with the folks,” she said, her fingers flying over her keyboard. “You know Mum always cooks enough to feed an army.”

Leon smiled weakly. “Yeah.”

After a few minutes of peering at what some author had probably thought was uncomplicated talk about corporate externalities, Leon leaned back in his chair and rotated his neck, the vertebrae cracking as they protested the cramp studying gave them. “What are you working on anyway?” Leon asked. “More random code for world domination?”

Krissy made an indelicate sound. “I wish. No, legal briefs that I’m supposed to familiarize myself with by Monday.”

“Oh, right!” Leon said. “There’s the actual degree you’re enrolled in. How’s that going?”

“Good, I think,” Krissy said. “The internship’s taking most of my time, though. They’re saying I can sit in the courtroom to observe some trials soon.”

“That sounds exciting,” Leon said. “So are you going to be at Rook’s hearing?”

“Maybe,” Krissy replied. “I don’t know if that’s one that we’re holding locally or if it’s a state trial.”

“Does this mean you have to wear a suit and tone down the jewelry, or are you going to go all
Legally Blonde
on me?” Leon asked.

“No, I am not wearing a pink suit, thank you very much,” Krissy said. “Although I would look totally hot in one.”

“Indubitably.”

Krissy laughed and started to close her laptop. “You and your big words,” she said.

“Leaving?” Leon asked.

“Yeah, I have work tomorrow.”

“Internship,” Leon corrected mildly.

“Okay, internship,” Krissy said. “But that’s still nine to five. Eight hours of hard work. Hard actual work.”

“I don’t know how you’re going to cope,” Leon said solemnly. “See you tonight?”

“Maybe. I could be in bed by the time you get back though. I’m making spag bol, so there’ll be some in the fridge for you regardless,” Krissy said. “And if you’re free on the weekend, you can catch me up on Rook and the hunky nurse.”

“Like there’ll be anything to say,” Leon grumped. “I probably won’t see him again.”

Y
EAH
,
right
, Leon thought the next day as he stepped off the blue-and-white bus and walked through the doors into the slightly antiseptic-smelling hospital air on his way to room 14B. It wasn’t Warrick. At least, he told himself it wasn’t Warrick. It was really the dying flowers and six lonely cards. When he walked back into the room, little had changed. The chair was still an ugly poo brown and the table still unused, although it appeared that someone had put one of those plastic strip things over the snoring lady’s nose in an attempt to reduce her volume. It wasn’t working too well, but at least instead of a constant “snore, snore, snore… snort, snore,” the sound she was making was much more a “mrrr, mrrr, mrr, mrr, mrr… blort,” which was at least a marginal improvement—except for the blort.

Dropping his backpack on the chair, he took the flowers from the jam-jar-cum-vase and dumped them in the sparkling clean rubbish bin before taking the jar to the bathroom to clean it out. Once dry, Leon refilled it with large colored sand granules and a vanilla scented candle and returned it to the table. Probably something that would never get used, but it looked nicer at least.

“Hey, Rook,” he said as he finished and pulled his course reader and a small netbook out of his backpack. “I hope you don’t mind me hanging out here. I just thought I’d get some study done. I, uh, got an essay due and lots of time to kill. My friend Krissy’s working, and I’m not on shift until six, so my day is pretty much open.”

Rook said nothing, but then, Leon hadn’t really expected him to.

O
VER
the next few weeks, Leon found himself at the hospital more and more. As Krissy became increasingly absorbed in her internship, he found the quiet of the hospital room a welcome change to the natter of the student union and less busy than even the library. More to the point, it also had better eye candy.

“Join me for a coffee, Leon?” Warrick asked, poking his head into the room.

Leon looked up from his notes on Giffen goods
{9}
and smiled. “Again? Is it break time already?” he asked with a grin.

Warrick shrugged, and for a moment Leon was distracted by the play of muscle moving against muscle in the nurse’s shoulders.

“Sorry. What?” he said, when it dawned on him that Warrick was waiting for an answer.

“I said it is for those of us on duty,” Warrick said with a grin.

Leon grimaced and held up his textbook. “I want to, but I should really finish the chapter.”

“You know, medically, it’s good for your brain if you take a break every now and again.”

“I seem to recall you’ve said that before.”

“The truth bears repeating,” Warrick said solemnly. “And I could really use the company.”

“Oh, all right,” Leon said, closing his notebook and putting it away in his backpack. “Cafeteria?”

“Unless you fancy taking a bus back to the old CBD for something better.”

“Personally, I do,” Leon said as he and Warrick exited the room and headed down the corridor, “but that would make you late for work, wouldn’t it?”

Warrick smiled and checked the hallway before leaning in toward Leon. “Actually, I think that would be worth it to have some more time with you,” he said, his voice low.

Leon peeked up at the other man shyly. “Yeah?”

“Why do you always sound so surprised when I say something like that?” Warrick asked.

Leon shrugged. “You always surprise me.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

“Fine,” Leon said. “Why me?”

Leon had gone a few steps down the stairs before he realized Warrick wasn’t with him. Turning, he paused and looked back up to where the other man stood, his face open and wondering.

“Haven’t you looked at yourself?” Warrick asked, his brow furrowing.

“Daily in the mirror when I shave, yeah. You can almost count my ribs. Every time I go for a checkup, I get asked if I’ve got an eating disorder.”

“Okay, so you’re slender,” Warrick said. “That’s not what I meant.”

“And what exactly did you mean?”

“You….” Warrick glanced up the stairs and hurried to join Leon, and Leon saw a doctor walk down the corridor they had just vacated. “How many other people bothered to come in and say thanks to Travis?” he asked in a lower voice. “I can tell you the answer right now, and that’s none.”

Leon stopped and stared at the larger man carefully, his eyes searching Warrick’s face.

“What?” Warrick asked.

“You really mean that, don’t you?”

“Um… yes?”

“Huh, okay.”

“Okay? I just bared my soul to you and you say ‘okay’?”

“Well, I didn’t think you—I mean, I wasn’t sure if you were… serious.”

“I am, all right?” Warrick said, his voice tinged with exasperation. “So… now with that out of the way, you still up for coffee?”

Leon grinned and started down the stairs again. “Definitely,” he said.

“Great,” Warrick said, smiling broadly. “Tell you what, why don’t we try the new place?”

“New place?” Leon asked as they walked down the varicolored corridors of off white, robin’s-egg blue, and a pale industrial red that never seemed to find a moniker. Personally, Leon called it cheap, itchy T-shirt red, but the paint tin probably had a different label on it.

“They opened a food court on level one of the new building—the Royal Newcastle Centre. You must have passed it on your way in.”

Leon frowned. “You mean the gleaming white part still waiting on landscaping? The part that looks like a grater with windows?”

“Grater?”

“Kind of. I was going to say Rubik’s Cube, but it’s all white and the blocks are too small.”

Warrick chuckled as he led the way through the children’s ward. “Okay, just don’t say that too loudly. Some of the staff are very fond of their new facilities.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Leon said, grinning. “What’s with the film crews?”

“They’re filming a TV show or something. Following student doctors around and billing it as a real-life hospital soap opera.”

“What?” Leon said, pulling the hood of his jumper over his head. “Don’t they need our permission or something if they’re going to show us on TV?”

“Technically, no,” Warrick said. “It’s a public place, so they can film what they want. They’ll get release forms from patients and families, but the rest of us….”

“I feel strangely violated,” Leon muttered. “Unless—sorry, you’re probably looking forward to seeing yourself on TV.”

Warrick sighed. “That would be nice, but it’s not going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a show about doctors, not nurses,” Warrick said as he led the way into the food court. “And I hear they’re focusing on the students’ personal lives, and there’s no way they’ll put me crushing on another guy on Australian TV.”

“Why not? They do it all the time on reality TV shows.”

“Not in Newcastle. It would be near impossible for me to keep working here if some of the patients found out. And you know how people in hospital like to watch their TV.”

“I don’t know,” Leon said, “I thought it was just a case of there not being much else to do.”

Warrick shrugged. “Maybe. In any case, I don’t think I’d get on the show. And by your reaction, I don’t think you’d sign the release form even if they did, right?”

“I thought they didn’t need one,” Leon said, glancing through the tall windows out into the bushland park beyond.

“Not if you’re just walking past a camera, no,” Warrick said. “But they do if you’re talking to them and they want to use footage of the conversation in the program.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“I occasionally do extra work for TV. It’s good pocket money.”

“Anything I might have seen?”

“You can see the back of my head in the new Big W ad,” Warrick said with a grin.

“Yowee, I’m dating a celebrity!” Leon said vapidly, faking a swoon, only to find himself swept into Warrick’s arms, looking into a pair of very concerned brown eyes.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? You don’t need to sit down? Maybe you should sit down,” Warrick said, guiding Leon into a chair. “Head between your knees.”

It took Leon a bit of effort to move Warrick’s hand from his back so he could sit up straight, and he smiled wryly at the larger man. “That was a joke, Warrick.”

“Oh.” Warrick sat down hard on the chair next to him, causing the wooden back to creak. “Sorry. I have a tendency to—”

“Take things literally. I remember,” Leon said, grinning. “I just didn’t realize that stretched to actions as well as words.”

“Well, you know, hospital and everything, yeah?” Warrick said. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” Leon said. “A little embarrassed, but I’m fine. That said, if you want to wrap me up in your arms again sometime, I won’t complain.”

Warrick’s skin flushed, and he looked around nervously. “Um, maybe not at work?”

Leon looked around at the rest of the food court where faces were pointedly turning back to their sandwiches, beef stroganoff, and cappuccinos. “Right.”

“Mind the table?” Warrick asked. “I’ll grab the drinks.”

“Okay. Can I get a chai latte?” Leon asked, digging into a pocket for his wallet.

“Sure. Did you want anything to eat?”

“No, I’ll be fine,” Leon said, pulling out a five-dollar note.

“Not on your life,” Warrick said. “I’ll probably get a snack, though, so feel free to steal from whatever I end up with,” he added before turning to head across the wooden floor to the polished counters, glass refrigerators, and perhaps most importantly, the shiny chrome coffee machine.

Leon watched him walk away for a little too long, wondering how it was possible for a man to look so good in hospital scrubs. Then he shook himself, put away his wallet, and pretended to look out the window instead—and not at the insubstantial reflection of the nurse in the glass.

When Warrick returned, bearing a tray of edible goodness, Leon couldn’t stop the dreamy smile that spread across his face. Warrick’s idea of a snack turned out to be wedges with sour cream and sweet chilli sauce—exactly what he did not expect, and probably one of his all-time favorite foods that he didn’t get to eat much. Krissy refused to let him count “deep-fried potato” as a vegetable serving, the spoilsport.

“So, chai latte with honey,” Warrick said. “And keep your mitts off my hot chocolate.”

Leon chuckled. “I love how ‘coffee’ with you doesn’t actually mean coffee.”

“I’m not good on caffeine,” Warrick said, sitting down opposite Leon and taking the piping-hot wedges off the tray.

“Oh?”

“I become a complete spaz,” Warrick said, pushing his fringe out of his eyes with a grin.

“I’m not sure I dare to ask,” Leon said, cradling his mug in his hands. “You know, for a hospital, this isn’t half bad,” he said, taking a sip from the glass.

Warrick smiled, “You doing much this weekend?”

“Not really. Why?”

“Well, we could go out for a real noncoffee,” Warrick suggested. “And maybe catch a movie?”

Leon grinned and grabbed a wedge from the bowl, dropping it quickly as it threatened to burn his fingers. “Okay. Which one?”

“Honestly, I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” Warrick said, his face flushing. “I’m not even sure what’s on at the moment. What sort of films do you like anyway?”

“Not horror,” Leon said immediately. “Anything but horror.”

A
ND
that was more or less how Leon found himself in the back row at Tower Cinemas giggling over the antics of an animated fox. Sometimes the oldies were the goodies.