Before I could look away, she yanked the little catheter out from under her skin. Gross. “Now you’re bleeding from the wrist. Isn’t that, like, dangerous?”
She looked at me with suspicion on her face. “Seriously, Hartley? You’re squeamish?”
I turned around and grabbed a tissue off of the counter, handing it to her, keeping my eyes trained on the wall in front of me.
“Wow. Tough hockey star faints at the sight of blood.” I heard her giggle as she dabbed at the blood.
“Hey, I haven’t fainted since the fifth grade.”
The giggle bloomed into a belly laugh. “What did you do after your knee surgery? Weren’t there bandages?”
There were, and it wasn’t pretty. “I changed them myself. With my eyes half-closed.”
For what it was worth, embarrassing myself had one benefit. At least Corey was smiling again. “And you say I’m a piece of work. Turn around so I can change my shirt.”
“What, I can’t watch? I just saw blood for you.” Chuckling, I faced the wall.
I heard her wrestling with her clothes. “I’m good with gore. You can always ask me to change a bandage. Not that we’re ever coming back to this godforsaken place.”
“Sing it to me, sister.”
“All done,” Corey said.
A nurse with unnaturally red hair walked in then. “This is your escort?” she asked, eyeing my cast and crutches, a sneer curling her lip.
Corey whirled on her. “Don’t tell me you’re discriminating against him,” she snapped. “We’re leaving now.” Corey wheeled around the end of the bed and bore down on the nurse. The poor woman lumbered out of the way, and Corey sailed out the door. If a wheelchair could squeal its tires, hers would have.
The nurse stuck a clipboard in my hands. “Sign here, sir.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
By the time I found her, Corey was holding the elevator door open for me.
Because my leg was aching, we called for the gimpmobile, but they told us it would be a thirty-minute wait.
“Fuck it,” I said. “Let’s walk.”
For Callahan, it was an easy roll towards campus. But for me, it was slow going. When we were about halfway back, I needed a break. Crutching over to a bench outside the medical school, I sat down. “So how did you end up in the hospital, anyway?”
She bit down on her lip. “It was just a stupid little infection. I was a little careless, and everyone overreacted.”
“Careless? This weekend?” I massaged my aching leg.
Corey’s face went stony. “I’d rather not talk about it, okay? I know you just did me a huge favor, but…” she shook her head.
“Alright. I’m just saying that we could have come back a day early. You only had to say…”
She cut me off. “I didn’t want to, Hartley. I’m not fragile!” The look on her face just cut me. She looked vulnerable, and miserable about it.
“That’s not the way it is, Callahan.” I grabbed her hands and rolled her closer to me, until our knees touched. “The thing is, we’re all fragile. It’s just that most of our friends are lucky enough not to know it yet.”
Her eyes blinked against exhaustion, and I wondered if she might cry. But not Corey. Not my blue-eyed fighter, the girl who dreamed of skating every night, but always had something positive to say. She humbled me every fucking day.
I tugged on her hands again, leaning forward until I could get her into an awkward hug. I don’t know if she needed one, but I sure did.
With her chin on my shoulder, she swallowed hard. “Thanks for springing me from jail, Hartley.”
“Any time, beautiful. Now let’s go home.”
Chapter Twelve: First-Rate Hooch
— Corey
On the first day of December, snow fell past the windows as I crutched through the dining hall. I’d been trying to spend more time on my feet, but it made everything harder. Dana waited for me at the end of a long table, where Hartley, Bridger, Fairfax, and a few others were tucking into hamburgers. When I sat down, she passed me my plate.
“Thanks,” I said.
“No biggie.” She ate a French fry. “How’s the studying going?” Classes had ended, and exams were about to begin.
“Not bad,” I said. “I have three take-home exams and then econ. I think I’m getting off easy.”
“I’m worried about Japanese,” Dana said, her cute nose wrinkling.
“But Dana, you speak Japanese.”
“Not as well as the professor thinks I should. And he’s such a tool. He makes everything more stressful than it should be.”
Down the table, Bridger poked Harley in the arm. “Did you tell Fairfax about the birthday present you got today?”
“Is it this week?” Fairfax asked. “Where’s the party? Are we making you do twenty-one shots?”
I raised my head. Hartley’s birthday was this week? I would need to find a gift. Of course, there was no way to top the gag gift he’d given me. Mine would have to be something more conventional.
“I don’t think any of us are invited to Hartley’s birthday,” Bridger answered. “Tell ‘em, dude.”
Hartley shook his head. “The package store delivered a bottle of champagne to me. You know, the kind that costs the GDP of a developing nation?”
“So, Stacia’s back in town,” Fairfax said.
Hartley pointed his finger like a gun at him. “Bingo. The note said: Dear Hartley, put this on ice, I’ll be there for your big day.”
My stomach dropped.
“Big day,” Bridger grinned. “Dude, you’re going to get spectacularly laid.”
Hartley shrugged. “The bookies should be careful with their odds. She’s been even flakier than usual lately.”
“She’ll turn up,” Bridger theorized. “She sent the bubbly.”
“Tell her you’re drinking it whether she shows up or not,” Fairfax suggested.
“Of course I’m drinking it,” Hartley said. “That goes without saying.”
As it happened, Hartley’s birthday fell on the Saturday before exams began. Dana and I spent the day studying in the cozy little Beaumont library. Harkness College had a seemingly infinite number of places to study. You could visit a different library every day, and not repeat for more than a month.
But even I wasn’t geeky enough to hit the books again after dinner.
“What are you up to tonight?” Dana asked carefully, fishing earrings out of her jewelry box.
“Um, watching TV?” I didn’t need to point out that my pal Hartley was unavailable for video games. But it wasn’t like there was anything else to do. During exams, the social activities ground to a halt.
“You could come with me,” Dana offered.
I laughed at the suggestion. Dana was on her way out to hear a portion of the English department’s all night reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses. If that didn’t showcase the nerdiness that was Harkness College during exam week, then nothing did. “But I’m not even taking that course! Do they hand out big L-shaped stickers at the door, to paste on your foreheads?”
She gave me an eye roll. “That’s not nice, Corey. I just don’t like to think of you sitting here alone tonight.”
“I know,” I sulked. “I’m sorry.” Obviously, there was no hiding my broken heart from Dana. It wasn’t that I’d planned an evening of sitting across the hall while the love of my life got “spectacularly laid.” It just worked out that way.
After she left, I turned up the volume of the TV, hoping to blot out any sounds of reunion joy that might filter through the hallway. For a restless couple of hours I flipped channels. At last, I was rewarded with a showing of The Princess Bride. It was exactly the right movie for such a crappy night. I lay down on the sofa, braces and chair cast away, and let the familiar story suck me in.
— Hartley
When my phone rang, I knew it would be my mom. She always called at 8:30 on my birthday. I was born in the evening, right during an episode of Melrose
Place. Before I was born, my mom never missed an episode of that cheesy show about West Hollywood brats.
She had me when she was younger than any of the cast members.
“Hi Mom,” I answered my phone.
“Happy Birthday, sweetie. Please don’t do twenty-one shots tonight.”
I laughed. “I promise not to do twenty-one shots. Or even twenty. Maybe I’ll stick to nineteen.”
“That’s not funny, Hartley. You could die.”
“I won’t drink much. I promise.” Just half a bottle of champagne.
“Be careful, sweetie. I was young once.”
“You still are, mom.” She wouldn’t even turn forty until the springtime.
She laughed. “I love you, Adam Hartley.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
We hung up, and I checked the clock again. I was starting to feel impatient. Stacia had given me only a vague itinerary. She’d flown into JFK that afternoon, but was sticking around the city for farewell drinks with some of her other coursemates. I’d asked, but she didn’t say when she thought she’d arrive.
She often pulled stunts like this, and I knew it was intentional. She was the type of girl who understood the value of playing hard to get. Hell, she practically invented it. Worse — it worked. Waiting for her always made me wonder if she was done with me. Part of wanting Stacia was knowing that she ought to be unattainable. I wanted her in the same way that she wanted her designer shit — because it was only sold in Italy, and nowhere else. Therefore, she must have it, and parade it around in front of others.
Fuck. Forget what it said about her. What did that say about me?
I got up and began to pace around my room, which is not an easy thing to do in a boot cast. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Everything about me tonight was ridiculous.
It was going to be strange seeing Stacia for the first time in months. Of course I was looking forward to it, because long-distance Stacia had not been nearly as appealing as the real thing. Truthfully, I was a little worried about getting back into the swing of things with her. She was like song I’d forgotten how to sing. I needed to hear it again to remember why I liked it the first time.
Except songs didn’t really do that, did they? Even if you forgot the words, the tune was stuck deep in your soul.
Gah. I was thinking too much. Way too much. And there was nobody around to stop me. The evening marched on, and my anticipation began to fade into disappointment. Stacia wasn’t going to show, and in my heart, I wasn’t all that shocked. The weirdest thing was that it left me feeling like an asshole. As if I ought to be more surprised. As if I should care more than I did.
So when the text from Stacia finally came, it was pretty much anticlimactic. Sorry, Hartley. I’m stuck here tonight…
Blah blah blah.
It took me about three seconds to throw down the phone and stand up. There was someone just across the hall that I wanted to see — someone who was always easy to be with. Before I could overthink it, I had the bottle in hand, and was headed for the door.
— Corey
Just as The Man in Black was sitting down to poisoned wine with Vizzini, I heard our room door open. Expecting Dana to call out her usual greeting, I didn’t sit up or turn around. But it wasn’t her that I heard. Instead, there was the distinctive sound of crutches on the wood floor. And its pace was slow — the stuttering thump of someone crutching clumsily, possibly because his hands were overburdened. My heart began to thump in my chest. My hope fairy buzzed to life and began dancing with ticklish feet on my belly.
“Jesus, Callahan, could you take something?”
I kept my eyes on the screen a half-second longer, as if I hadn’t seen the film a good two dozen times before. When I sat up, it was just in time to reach over, catching the two glasses dangling from Hartley’s fingers. In his other arm, he cradled a fancy looking bottle of champagne.
Hartley didn’t say anything more. He simply limped in as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world to walk into my room when he was supposed to be having I-missed-you-so-much sex with Stacia. He slipped the bottle into my corner of the sofa. Then he crutched around the coffee table to the other end. He bent over me, lifting first one of my legs and then the other, then slid in underneath me, my legs in his lap. He hiked his broken leg onto the table and reached all the way over my body for the bottle.
As I watched the Man in Black charge off in search of his princess, Hartley began twisting the wire holder off the bottle of champagne. A moment later I heard the satisfying pop of a cork expertly ejected, and then the glug and fizz as he poured it into glasses.
“Callahan,” he said, his voice a masculine rumble. I sat up to accept a glass, shoving my legs onto the coffee table beside his. “Stash this?” he said, handing me the bottle. Without comment, I bent down to find a place for it on the floor.
When I leaned back again, my shoulders collided with his arm, which was draped behind me on the sofa. The arm didn’t move. So, gingerly, I rested against it. Hartley gave an enormous sigh, the sound of defeat and frustration. “Cheers, Callahan,” he said.
We touched glasses, and some instinct made me avoid his eyes. I wasn’t about to grill him on his sudden change of fortune. He was supposed to be getting sweaty with his gorgeous girlfriend, and now here he was, sitting in front of another movie with me.
But this is so snuggly! my hope fairy cried, clapping her tiny hands with glee.
I took a sip of my bubbly. “Wow,” I blurted out. It was smooth and tangy and delicious. If expensive had a taste, this was it.
“Smooth, right?” his voice sounded tired.
“It’s amazing Hartley. But maybe you find it…bitter?” I looked him in the eye for the first time then, giving him a wink.
He rolled his eyes. “The wine is good, Callahan. It is empirically good. In my family we’d call it first-rate hooch. In Stacia’s family, there’s an entire dictionary of words for it. You should hear her father go on about wine.” Hartley snorted.
“Sounds riveting.” But then I felt guilty, since I’d never met them in my life. “If nothing else, she has very good taste.” But that was a fraught comment too, because it revealed too much of how I felt about Hartley. “Sorry she was a no-show.”
He shook his head with obvious disgust. “She’ll turn up tomorrow, full of apologies. She always does.” He took another sip and turned toward the movie. Together, we watched Wesley rolling down the hill, yelling “AS…YOU…WISH!” up to Buttercup.
God, it was the perfect moment in a perfect film. Hope fairies everywhere probably sipped from that scene like nectar. Leaning back against Hartley’s warm body, I sipped my champagne rather more quickly than I meant to. But it was so good I couldn’t help myself.
“Time for a refill?” he asked after awhile.
I bent down for the bottle, and then refilled both our glasses, emptying the bottle. “Happy birthday,” I said then. “I don’t think I said it before.”
He clinked his glass into mine. “Thank you, Callahan.”
“I got you a present,” I told him. “Is it terrible that I’m too lazy to get up and get it right now?”
In answer, he pulled me a little closer to him on the sofa. The contact with him was making me completely crazy. Behind me, he absently fingered the ends of my ponytail as we watched the film. “I love this part,” he said, a smile in his voice. “The Rodents of Unusual Size.”
While Buttercup shrieked her way through the fire swamp, Hartley’s hand came to cradle the back of my head. His fingers and thumb rubbed slowly along my neck and hairline.
Oh, hell and damn.
In spite of the frantic scene on screen, I closed my eyes, sinking into the sensation of his touch. It should have been relaxing, but his scalp massage had entirely the opposite effect. It was as if the skin at my nape had developed an unparalleled number of nerve endings. Wherever his fingers moved, an electric charge crackled down my spine and deep into my body. I became overly conscious of my own br
eathing. My second glass of champagne slid down my throat while I tried to convince my heart rate to decline to a more normal pace.
Then, even as I contemplated my own stupidity, Hartley removed his thumb from a very sensitive spot below my ear. And to my slightly drunken disbelief, he leaned closer to me, pressing his lips to the place where his thumb had just been. The feel of his mouth on my neck was almost enough to shoot me through the ceiling. His moist lips pressed firmly against my body. Slowly, his kiss meandered down toward my collarbone, his tongue singeing me everywhere along its path.
No matter how cool I would have liked to play it, all I could do was to melt back against his chest, my breath escaping as a shaky sigh.
That’s when I heard him chuckle, and knew that Hartley understood exactly the effect he was having on me. And even though my breasts had begun to tingle with desire, I found the strength to speak up. “What the hell are you doing, Hartley?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” he said without removing his lips from my neck. “Still does.”
I took the last sip of my champagne, playing for time while my brain and body had a messy little argument about how to proceed.
Hartley took the glass out of my hand and set it on the trunk. “Look,” he whispered. “You can slap me right now, and tell me I’m a prick for coming on to you when my girlfriend blew me off. And then we can watch Billy Crystal bring Wesley back to life.” He downed the last of his own glass. “Or you can kiss me, Callahan.”
His voice was husky and warm. The sound of it made me turn my head to face him. There was humor in his eyes, but also a depth that I always saw there. He was my friend, maybe my dearest friend, and it was impossible to be afraid of him.
“Why would you complicate our friendship?” I whispered.
“Like it’s so simple now?” he countered.
I didn’t even know what that meant. But my brain was too scrambled just then to figure it out. Hartley and I regarded each other for a long moment, not speaking. Then he cupped my face with two hands, his touch so gentle that my heart ached just to feel it. And then the months of wishing for his kiss were too much for me. I closed my eyes, and then his lips were on mine. They were just as soft as I’d always imagined them to be — his perfect mouth pressing sweetly against me. His lips opened, parting my own, and I gasped with happiness.