The Way You Are (4 page)

“Can we do that every night?” he asked.

Warrick’s laugh was both surprised and tired. “I don’t know. We can try. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to cum for a few days after that performance, though.”

“That good, huh?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

There was never any question about Warrick staying. After a few arbitrary attempts at cleaning themselves up, they both fell into Leon’s bed and slept, Leon finding himself cradled comfortably against Warrick’s strongly muscled frame.

A
T
PRECISELY
7:23 a.m., the Earth rotated enough that the morning sunlight slanted over the backyard fence, past the outside corner of the living room, and slipped between the venetian blinds to play softly over the rumpled gray-and-white striped sheets on Leon’s double bed. Grumbling about daylight savings, Leon opened his eyes, blearily squinting into the light. His body felt sated, languid, and slightly sore in strange places, and he smiled as he recalled the events of the previous night. Stretching slowly he rolled over to face his lover.

“Warrick, are you—”

Leon rolled over to find the other side of his bed empty and the mattress cool.

“—awake?”

Leon sighed and glanced around his room. It was a small space, containing his bookshelf, desk, floordrobe, and paper piles
{11}
.
Yeah, should have cleaned the place up,
he thought, sagging back into the pillows.
Fuck!
This was exactly why he never brought guys home. Or dated. Or flirted. Or—

A high-pitched squeal from the kitchen had him bolting out of bed and nearly tripping over a pair of khaki shorts. Warrick was half-crouched in the kitchen doorway, clutching an empty dish to his front. A slightly bedraggled Krissy was in the living room, one manicured hand covering her glasses.

“You’re Warrick, right?” she said.

“Uh… yeah.”

“Krissy. Hi.”

“Oh wow, you’re Krissy? Leon’s told me so much about you.”

“And he’s told me a lot about you, but not in so much detail.”

“Oh my God, you’re making me breakfast?” Leon asked.

“That’s your takeaway from this situation?” Krissy demanded, turning to glare at Leon. “He’s naked and….” Krissy turned around to face the door so quickly her shoes squeaked. “Why am I the only one here wearing pants?”

“Well, we were—” Leon started.

“Do not finish that sentence,” Krissy said. “I don’t need any mental images.”

“…getting up?”

“Mmm, really could have done without that one, chickadee.”

“Waking up,” Leon said firmly. “Waking up from sleep. That is all.”

“Well not quite all if you count—” Warrick started.

“Warrick!”

“Sorry.”

“Let’s just get some clothes. Now?”

“Okay,” Warrick agreed, almost running to Leon’s room.

“Oh, Warrick?” Krissy said, her back still turned.

“Yes?”

“Pyrex dishes are transparent.”

A
FTER
that day Leon became a fixture at the hospital, and Warrick a frequent guest for Sunday brunch, especially once Leon and Krissy discovered his cooking was much better than either of theirs.

“Why don’t we ever go to your place?” Leon asked one Thursday. “I have Fridays off from uni, and you live out east anyway.”

Warrick shrugged. “A lot of hospital staff live where I do, and I’d rather not have rumors start up about my love life.”

Leon’s spoon stopped halfway to his mouth. “Excuse me?”

Warrick looked around the brightly lit interior of Ghanda’s Indian restaurant and leaned in closer. “I’m not out at work.”

“Then why did you hit on me?”

“You were cute,” Warrick said. “Look, I’m sure people know. Staff anyway, but can you imagine what would happen if it was common knowledge to patients?”

“They’ll get over it if they want their meds,” Leon said around a mouthful of butter chicken.

“And my job?”

“Are you telling me the hospital doesn’t have an equal-opportunity policy?”

Warrick sighed and reached for the basket of garlic naan. “They do, but they also have a ‘code of conduct’.”

“What’s that supposed to mean.”

“Do you remember Monday when you dragged me into the bathroom for half an hour?”

Leon licked his lips. “Mmm. Yeah, I do.”

“Someone saw or heard. Probably heard.”

“Do I need to gag you next time?” Leon asked slyly.

“Leon, there can’t be a next time.”

Leon’s spoon hit the table with a clatter. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“No! But you can’t keep coming around at work.”

“You work in a public building, Warrick. I think you’ll find I can walk in whenever I want.”

“Leon, I work there. I can’t have you coming over and distracting me all the time.”

“Oh, is that what I’m doing? You’re the one who keeps dropping by Rook’s room whenever I’m around. Maybe you should learn some self-control,” Leon said, tossing his napkin onto the table and standing up.

“Where are you going?” Warrick asked.

“Home,” Leon said shortly, rifling through his wallet and throwing a twenty on the table.

“I
DON
’
T
think he meant it, Leon,” Krissy said as they stripped down to their swimsuits—Krissy in a navy-blue one-piece and Leon in sporty orange-and-black swim trunks. “That doesn’t sound like breakup talk.”

“No, it just sounds like overly controlling boyfriend talk,” Leon said, fishing a pair of goggles out of his backpack. “You will do this; you won’t do that. These are the cans and can’ts of your movements for the rest of eternity, dictated by the big man, who knows best.”

Krissy tied her hair back into a ponytail and tucked it up under her favorite pink swimming cap. “You know, I’m not really sure what to say without sounding like I’m taking his side,” she said as she stepped down into the murky pool of seawater. “Oh, that’s cold,” she said, wincing.

“You should do what I do and just jump straight in.”

“You’re just going to jump straight into this?” Krissy asked incredulously.

“Um, yes?” Leon said. “And I’ll splash around trying not to scream until the pins and needles stop.”

“And why couldn’t we just go to the campus pool?”

“One, this is free, and two, it’s an ocean pool. They bring the water in fresh every two weeks, and there’s no chlorine.”

Krissy inched further down the sloping sandy bottom of the pool until she was hip deep in the water. “And there’s a lot of sand, making it impossible to see the bottom. Isn’t it dangerous swimming in murky water?”

Leon sighed. “There are no barracuda in ocean pools, Krissy.”

“Sure, and when they find my chewed-up body washed up on the beach, I will blame you.”

“Krissy, if they find your body washed up on a beach, you won’t be able to blame anyone—you’ll be dead.”

Krissy scowled and splashed Leon with near-frigid seawater, the cold striking his skin like needles. “Fuck, that was cold.”

“I know. Why do you think I splashed you?”

Ignoring the taunt, Leon waded into the pool purposefully until he was waist deep, and then jumped, ducking his head under and showering Krissy with cold droplets.

When he resurfaced his eyes were squinched shut, and he could feel Krissy’s amusement. “You so deserved that.”

“Yeah, okay. Whatever,” Leon said, wiping his eyes. “Remind me to put on my goggles next time.”

Krissy paused as if in thought. “No,” she said firmly and struck out for the seaward wall.

D
ESPITE
his misgivings, Leon headed back to the hospital to sit with Rook. It was Friday, and just like any other Friday, Leon walked into room 14B, now devoid of the snoring woman, who had been wheeled out some two weeks ago. Sitting down, he pulled out a sheaf of past accounting exam papers to go through.

“Sometimes boys suck,” Leon said a few hours later, looking up at Rook’s perfectly composed face. “Okay, so that’s probably something you’d hear more than you’d say. I guess I’m just stressed about the exams. You’re missing exams. Huh. I’m not sure if that’s something you’d like or not.” Putting his most recent paper to one side, he stretched back into the poo-brown chair, the vertebrae in his neck cracking. “I’m just sick of everyone telling me how to live my life. ‘It’s a phase; you’ll grow out of it,’ or ‘Have you tried not being gay?’ And of course, ‘You can’t work here anymore; you don’t fit in with the company culture.’” Leon closed his eyes and clutched at the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, sorry. I should really stop unloading on you, and I shouldn’t tell any jokes about you being a good listener on account of the fact that I don’t actually know you can listen. Krissy said I was being insensitive making that joke—although more to the point, she said it was old and clichéd.” Rising to his feet, he leaned against the roller table and stared down at Rook, whose blond hair had grown out enough to frame his face in soft curls. “You know, you’re going to need a haircut when you wake up from all of this.” Reaching out, he pushed Rook’s fringe away from his forehead. “Definitely going to need a haircut.”

He was pulling his fingers back when Rook’s eyelids fluttered.

“Rook?” Looking down at the bed, he wondered if he’d imagined it. “Is this where I ask you to squeeze my fingers?” he added, grasping Rook’s left hand in his own. “Okay, you’re not that awake.” Sighing, he looked back at Rook’s face and saw a telltale flutter again. “Doctor!”

It took Leon a few moments to find the bed remote and hit the call button, and the medical staff were there in less than a minute, with a tall, muscular nurse leading the way. When Warrick rounded the corner he stopped, and the rest of the staff nearly ran into him.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I think he’s waking up,” Leon said.

For a brief moment their eyes locked, and then Warrick looked down to Rook and Leon’s joined hands. “All right. Please step back so we can work?”

“Sure,” Leon said, backing away from the bed as Rook was checked over by the doctors. After a brief consultation, the staff started to wheel the bed out of the room.

“Wait—where are you taking him?” Leon asked.

The doctor in the horn-rimmed glasses had a few brief words with Warrick, and the large man nodded and walked back into the room. “They’re going to see if they can wake him up,” Warrick said.

“How?”

“Hypothermia.”

“What?”

“They’re going to cool him by about two degrees. There’s been no sign of brain swelling for a few weeks, but he doesn’t appear to be lucid. The cold has been known to help in some cases.”

“So he’s not waking up.”

“Not in the sitting-up-and-talking sense. They won’t keep him cold for more than a day.”

“Right. Okay. As long as they know what they’re doing, I suppose.”

“Leon?”

“What?”

“Are we okay?”

Leon set his jaw. “You’re at work.”

“That’s not the point,”

“Isn’t it?” Leon asked. “I should go,” he added, picking up his backpack and heading for the door.

“Do you want to do dinner tomorrow?”

Leon paused. “Sorry. I picked up some extra shifts at work, and I’ve got an exam on Tuesday.”

“Tuesday night, then?”

“We’ll see.”

T
UESDAY
came and went, along with debits and credits, assets and liabilities, and Leon continued to stay close to campus, even allowing Krissy to drag him to the university swimming pool despite the chlorine content.

“Don’t you hate having to shower twice to get the smell off your skin?” he asked.

“I can shower twice and be back at work in less time than it takes to get to the beach,” Krissy said with a shrug. “Things are getting interesting. There’s a lot of buzz about Rook’s trial around the office.”

“Rook’s not on trial. He’s the victim!”

Krissy waved a hand at him and leaned back into the comfy chair, her free hand clutching her cappuccino mug. “You know what I mean. The guys who assaulted him. We don’t have the case, but now that he’s awake….”

“He is? Oh right, yeah. He is. It was in the paper.”

“Leon,” Krissy said, affecting her serious tone, “you haven’t left the house recently unless it was for work, exams, food, or me dragging you swimming.”

“Oh, I can see where this is going.”

“Good,” Krissy said. “So I don’t need to say that I know about Warrick?”

“Well, you didn’t have to, but you just did.”

“He’s been calling.”

Leon shrugged, cradling his tall glass of iced chocolate in both hands. “I put a call blocker app on my phone. I really wouldn’t know.”

“Yeah. He’s been calling me.”

“Then tell him politely to fuck off.”

“Chickadee, did you ever think—”

“No.”

“Right, clearly,” Krissy said, slapping her hand down on her vibrating phone. “Oh look, I have an exam. See you on the other side.”

“Okay.”

“Leon,” Krissy said seriously as she stood up. “Leon, look at me.”

Slowly he lifted his gaze to meet hers. “What?”

“You need to work out what you really want from all this. Because you’re sucky company when you’re moping.”

“I am not moping.”

“Right, you’re just addicted to
World of Warcraft
again.”

“It’s not an addiction. It’s a socially acceptable pastime.”

“Leon, you were swearing for five hours because you couldn’t unlock the trampoline achievement. And you know that coding is random.”

“What’s your point?”

Krissy grinned brightly. “Our Internet usage is about to be shaped
{12}
, and you’re going to get hit with massive lag issues. I figure you’ve got about two hours of game time left until our downloads reset on the twenty-fifth.” Turning, she walked out of the café before he could formulate a suitably outraged response. Using the long-handled teaspoon to extract the last of the ice cream from the bottom of his glass, he licked it clean, feeling the tang of chocolate syrup
{13}
coating his tongue. Usually after exams he felt a sense of relief and took at least a day—sometimes up to three—to unwind before hitting the books again for the next one. Only this time, it wasn’t the same. Possibly this was because the next exam he had scheduled was econometrics, which appeared to be statistics renamed by someone who wanted it to sound nonmathematical, but he was also honest enough with himself to admit that it wasn’t just exam stress. Putting the glass back on the counter
{14}
, he headed for the bus stop and the bus that would take him back to John Hunter Hospital.