“It’s impressive that you know those words in English.”
“Not really,” I admitted. “They’re virtually the same in French. Pneumonie. Septicémie. Méningite.”
“Huh.” Mac leaned back as he digested the information, looked like it was no more comfortable, and sat forward again. “Well, I guess that’s my French lesson for the day. Why haven’t you been teaching me any, by the way?”
“Because I’ve been teaching you other stuff and you can’t talk with your mouth full.”
The slow smile that crept across Mac’s face promised an x-rated response to the provocative comment. The nurse’s arrival at that moment to tell me I could see my father meant that whatever Mac might have said remained in my imagination.
Chapter Eighteen
To my surprise, rather than making an excuse, Mac accompanied me onto the ward, the curtain having been half pulled around for a modicum of privacy, and my father’s bed right at one end by the window. “Curiosity,” he said when I raised a questioning eyebrow. “It’s not that I don’t think you’re a big boy and can handle things on your own.”
My father was awake. Which was good in terms of his recovery, and bad because… Well, because he was awake and him being awake meant we could talk. The left side of his face was one big purpling bruise, a bandage covering what the nurse had informed me was a nasty cut that had required stitches.
By some miracle, the rest of him had escaped with nothing more serious than a sprained ankle, despite what, according to an observer’s account, had been a twenty-foot fall. It had been that same observer who’d called the ambulance. It was just a shame they hadn’t stopped him from making the climb in the first place.
My father remained expressionless as I arrived at the side of his bed. Neither pleased nor annoyed by my presence in the hospital, which kind of summed up our relationship?he fact that we were stuck with each other because of the blood that flowed through both our veins.
“They shouldn’t have called you,” he said, his voice raspy. No slurring, though, and I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been able to say that. Apparently being unconscious for a few hours could achieve what nothing else could: to sober him up for a few hours.
“You had my number in your pocket. What was it there for, if not for an emergency? Or was I supposed to do what you did when I was in hospital, just not bother?”
My father had no answer to that. And yes, I still bore a grudge that not once in my seven days in a hospital bed before they’d discharged me, had he dragged himself into the building for a visit. His lack of expression changed to a frown as he took in me not being alone. “Who are you?”
“Cormac King,” I said before he could answer himself. “He’s a friend.” Mac gave a nod of greeting, but otherwise remained silent. When I pulled a second chair close to my father’s bedside, he turned down the offer and stood by the window. The message was obvious without him having to voice it: to pretend he wasn’t there unless I needed his support.
My father eyed me warily as I shuffled my chair closer to the bed. “You shouldn’t have come.”
Ire dug its sharp fingernails into my chest. “’They shouldn’t have called me. I shouldn’t have come.’ Message received and understood. Unfortunately, they did call me, and I did come. So the least you can do is put up with me for five minutes without complaining about it.” He had nothing to say to that. I counted to ten slowly. “So what happened?”
“I had an accident.”
It was an effort to keep my voice level. “I know you had an accident. I didn’t think this was some sort of scam to get a bed for the night. All I’ve been told is that you were climbing a building and fell. Did you decide you were Spiderman or something? I don’t even know what type of building it was.”
“A house,” my father replied sullenly. “I needed to get in through the upstairs window. There’s no access through the door.”
I swore under my breath. “And you didn’t think that was a terrible idea when you were drunk? You could have died.”
“You probably wish I had.”
I refused to give him the satisfaction of saying that I didn’t wish that at all. That should have been obvious by me being here. Unfortunately, not saying anything left a long, awkward silence that neither of us seemed inclined to fill. He was right about one thing. I shouldn’t have come. I should have taken a leaf out of his book and stayed away.
“Have they said how long you’ll need to be here?” Mac asked from over by the window, his attempt to lessen the tension by intervening glaringly obvious.
“Not long, hopefully,” my father replied.
“Not an answer,” I growled.
My father’s fingers flexed on the stiff white hospital sheet, gripping onto it like it was some sort of lifeline. “They want to monitor me for at least one night.” A light dawned in his eyes. “You could have a word with them. Tell them it’s unnecessary.”
“And why on earth would I do that?”
His hand spidered across the sheets to grab hold of my arm. “I can’t stay here for that long.”
It took a moment to cotton on to what he was getting at. “You mean you can’t go that long without a drink?” There was no keeping the disgust out of my voice. “You just fell off the side of ahouse and almost killed yourself, and that’s what you’re thinking about, where your next drink is coming from?”
I stood so abruptly the chair toppled over, Mac there to right it as I backed away from the bed to get my father’s hand off me. “What about next time when no one sees you fall? Or they see you, but they don’t care enough to call an ambulance because they’re too drunk, or too high? What about when you pick the wrong squat to stay in and someone slips a knife between your ribs because you looked at them the wrong way? What then?”
