Infected: Lesser Evils (54 page)

“I grabbed Roan’s cell. She’s in his phone book as Dr. No.”

Okay, yeah, that sounded true. “How is he doing?”

Holden grimaced and looked away, as if he could physically duck the question. “I don’t know. They haven’t told me anything, not since they rushed him back there, and Doctor Rosenberg hasn’t come back either.”

Dylan had been afraid of that. He inquired with the nurse at the check-in desk, but she had no information, or at least none she would share with him. He knew this would be agonizing waiting time, so they found some seats and Dylan decided to call Robin and let him know he wasn’t coming in tonight. He waited until Holden went off to get a cup of coffee, then called, and Robin wasn’t thrilled with the short notice. That’s when Dylan decided to give him notice over the phone. No, it probably wouldn’t get him a good recommendation, but right now he didn’t give a shit. All he cared about was Roan, and if he didn’t make it… what point was there in staying? In this state, in fact. Yes, his sister was here, Tommy was down in Oregon, but Dylan realized if Roan died, he couldn’t stay. He would have to leave; there were too many memories here. He had no idea where he would go, but that wasn’t important right now. Roan was the only thing that mattered.

Holden came back with a paper cup of coffee, and had brought him a paper cup full of tea. Dylan hadn’t wanted it, but thanked him anyways. Holden was trying to be thoughtful. He tried to get Holden to tell him what had happened again, and he did, fleshing out his story more, but Dylan still didn’t completely believe him. Dylan got snappish with him, he couldn’t help it; he hated the idea of Roan being with Holden and not him at his time of need. “Maybe you two do belong together,” he snapped. “You’re in his life more than I am.”

“No, I’m in his second life. You’re in the first.”

Dylan looked at him askance. “Huh?”

“Roan separates himself, cuts himself in two. His good life, his Human one, is with you, and I think he doesn’t want to taint it or you with his second life, his darker one, which is where I come in. He loves you, and he wants to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

“Himself. You’re part of his good life, what he wants, and I’m representative of a darker reality.”

Holden paused to sip his coffee and grimace, and Dylan stared at his profile, a brief flare of anger making him imagine that it might feel good to punch him. Of course he didn’t. “You working on that psychology degree?”

“All hookers are psychologists. Some of us are just better at it than others.”

Before Dylan could think of an appropriately scathing response to that, he saw the small figure of Doctor Rosenberg coming down the hall toward them. She wasn’t in scrubs, which may have been a good sign, but a visitor’s badge dangled from a cord around her neck, and if it wasn’t for the grim, determined look on her face, you could have mistaken her for someone’s grandmother. Dylan got up and met her near the elevators, Holden trailing behind.

“How is he?”

Rosenberg sighed explosively, and she ran a hand through her curled salt and pepper hair, as if trying to comb it with her fingers. “I’m gonna need you to sign some papers, so I can transfer him to the university’s hospital as soon as he’s stable. You good with that?”

“Grand, if you answer my question. What happened to him?”

Her lips, already thin, thinned even more, almost disappearing. She grabbed Dylan’s arm and pulled him aside, away from the crowds near the elevator. “He’s suffered a brain hemorrhage. He’s in surgery right now.”

It was like someone had thrown ice water on him. Dylan was suddenly so cold he thought he might be getting frostbite. “How did it happen? How bad is it? Is he going to be all right?”

“It’s unclear how it happened, at least for the moment. Coulda been an aneurysm, coulda been a result of skyrocketing blood pressure from a transformation, coulda been a result of a tumor, or some combination of them. Right now they’re closing off the bleeders and reducing the pressure on his brain. If all goes well, and why wouldn’t it, he should be fine. Well, within reason. That’s why I want to transfer him to the university hospital, so we can do the follow-ups.”

“Follow-ups to what?” Holden asked. “Are you taking out those tumors?”

So he knew about that, did he? Sure, why not? Holden probably knew as much about Roan as Dylan did, or possibly more. He felt an irrational stab of jealousy toward him, and realized he’d prefer it if Roan was sleeping with him. He could understand that, and it would seem like less of a betrayal than having this whole other secret life that Dylan wasn’t a part of in any form.

Rosenberg looked surprised, as if she hadn’t expected Roan to mention that to anyone. Yeah, Dylan was surprised too. “He was scheduled for a biopsy, so yeah, we can get that done, maybe take out some tumors if his body is up to the surgery.”

“His body is up to anything,” Holden replied, almost dismissively. “His bones break and heal all the time. He’s physically resilient beyond anyone I’ve ever heard of.”

“Yeah, I agree. But can his brain take the stress and strain?”

She let the question just hang there, rhetorical and somehow damning. And it was—how could it not be?

Roan could take a lot of damage, but his brain couldn’t, and that’s what would eventually kill him. The only question left was when. Dylan just hoped it wasn’t tonight.

Idaho

S
OMEHOW
Holden hadn’t imagined he’d be spending the afternoon lying in bed with a hockey player, smoking a joint and watching a
Mythbusters
marathon, but things had been so weird lately, in retrospect it was inevitable.

The Falcons didn’t have a game until Thursday night, which was good timing, as it allowed Grey to fly home for the wedding of “brother number two” (Grey was one of several, which might explain a lot), and it meant Scott had their apartment all to himself. He invited Holden over for lunch—lunch! Seriously!—and it was such an odd thing that Holden agreed, just to see what he had in mind.

As it turned out, Scott really meant lunch. Scott made them grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with apple (he said a girlfriend’s mother once taught him to add apple slices to a ham and cheese, and he really liked it), with a side of rather intense salt and vinegar chips, and a decent Canadian beer. Holden told him, in all sincerity, “You’re fucking adorable.” Scott suspected he was being sarcastic, but no, he was serious—he’d made him lunch. No one made a prostitute lunch, certainly not one as homely and homey as this one. It actually was quite good; he made a mean ham and cheese.

They talked about everything but what was or wasn’t going on between them. Sure, they had sex, but they didn’t talk about it beforehand. Afterward, neither of them was all that tired, so Scott pulled out a spliff from his nightstand and they watched TV, with Scott finding a
Mythbusters
marathon, which they both seemed to agree was acceptable to watch. When Holden asked if he wasn’t worried about the pot showing up in a drug test, Scott smirked, and said, “It’s not a performance-enhancing drug.” He then added they hadn’t made him piss in a cup for a long time, and it just wasn’t a priority.

They were lying side by side, naked on his bed, just the sheet haphazardly pulled up, mainly to avoid any possible ash or ember somehow finding a tender spot. Holden took a toke, not actually sure why he was taking one, but the way it hit him he figured it was B.C. Bud, and you had to enjoy that stuff when you got it. “You toke a lot?” Holden asked, exhaling a cloud of smoke and handing the joint back. They were shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh.

He shook his head. “Makes me break my diet too much. I just save it for special occasions.”

“What’s the special occasion here?”

“No game for a while, and my bruise hurts.”

Ah. Scott had a big purplish-black splotch on the back and side of his right shoulder, which apparently came from being checked into a stanchion during his last game. It looked super ugly and painful, but also oddly endearing. Much like Scott’s room.

It was kind of small, but relatively neat and austerely appointed, with a queen-sized bed on a plain metal bed frame, a dresser that looked like a Goodwill special, a bookcase/media rack that looked Ikea (save for the hockey pucks used as bookends), and gauzy but opaque curtains on the one window that let in filtered sunlight. The television was one of those smaller ones that could double as a computer monitor, and sat on the low dresser, beside a smattering of loose change and condoms from various clubs. On the screen, the
Mythbusters
guys were shooting guns into a swimming pool.

“I broke up with my girlfriend,” Scott said, resting the joint in an ashtray shaped like a bear’s head that sat on his nightstand. The ashtray had something about Saskatchewan painted on it, so he assumed it was Canadian kitsch.

“Really? Why?”

He shrugged his bruised shoulder and shook his head, sending out contradictory messages. “I just realized that we didn’t have much in common, and didn’t even like each other that much. The sex was fun, but when we had to talk we could hardly stand each other. I think I knew last month I had to break it off before it went on too long, but I just never got around to it. I coast if allowed to, I’m kinda lazy.”

“Says the guy who told me he spent two hours running on a treadmill this morning.”

“That’s just endurance training. It’s part of my job. If I coulda gotten out of it, I would have.”

Holden didn’t know if he believed that or not. It was possible that Scott was just exhausted by his own training regimen, so when he had no one forcing him to do it, he wouldn’t. That wasn’t lazy, that was normal. But was Holden going to tell him that? Nah.

Scott picked up the joint, took a drag, and offered it to him again. Holden took it, but he only took a small toke before handing it back. He didn’t need much to feel stoned. Actually, just being in Scott’s little bedroom was enough to make him feel unhinged from reality. What was he doing here? “What do we have to talk about? You talk hockey, I talk hooking, but not the kind done with sticks.”

Scott chuckled as he put the joint aside. “Are you kiddin’ me? We’re spending the afternoon doin’ nothing but getting stoned and watchin’
Mythbusters
. I think I love you.”

That made him laugh. “Girlfriend wasn’t interested, huh?”

“No. She wanted to go to nice places and be seen, and I told her I’m not good at that kinda shit, I’m just a suburban asshole from Burnaby, nice to me is any place where you don’t hafta eat food out of a bag. I mean, I’m not a caveman, but I’ve never gotten fancy restaurants. Why would you pay a hundred bucks for a steak the size of your thumb? Or worse yet, an eighty-dollar salad. Fuck me, I hate paying five dollars for a bowl of lettuce, and I hafta eat that shit half the time.” After a pause, he said, “I’m gettin’ hungry. You want anything?”

“You could get me a drink.”

“Beer?”

Holden shook his head. “Nah. Something nonalcoholic, I don’t care what.” He was probably stoned enough as it was. He felt oddly warm and fuzzy toward Scott, which was a huge warning sign.

Scott got out of bed and walked naked out of the room, and Holden enjoyed the view. Scott was one of those guys that looked so good naked it probably should have been illegal for him to wear clothes.

What the fuck was he doing here?! Oh sure, curiosity had made him show up, but he should get the fuck out of here as soon as possible. He thought Roan was falling apart? He was falling apart. Holden was giving this guy freebies, and Scott could probably afford him. Since when did he ever have sex for free? The stress was getting to him.

Scott came back with a quart of ice cream and a bottle of Vitamin Water. He gave Holden the bottle and sat back down on his side of the bed with the ice cream, which was vanilla fudge swirl. “Did anything blow up?” Scott was referring to the show, where stuff always blew up.

“Not yet.”

As soon as Scott tossed the lid aside and sunk a spoon into the ice cream, Holden realized it looked good. After Scott buried his spoon in the carton, he handed him a spoon.

“Figured you’d want one anyways.”

“Thanks.”

As soon as they settled the quart between them and each took a spoonful—it was possibly the best ice cream Holden had ever had, confirming he was stoned—Scott asked, “How’s Roan?”

“As well as can be expected, as far as I know.” He’d checked in on Dylan, but Holden got the sense that Dylan really didn’t want anything to do with him, so he was giving him some space. All he knew right now was Roan was alive, and that was all that mattered. At first, he thought maybe Dylan blamed him for Roan’s condition, but now Holden wondered if it was just the fact that Dylan knew Roan was keeping him out of a chunk of his life. That had to be a bummer, even if Roan was doing it with the best of intentions.

“I heard it was bad.” Scott didn’t want to appear to be fishing for info, but he was. Scott was seriously into Roan, wasn’t he? Well, with his monstrous pheromone load, every guy who wasn’t a hundred percent straight and every woman who wasn’t a hundred percent gay probably went for Roan. He also had the lure of the exotic, which was inexplicable in a red-haired white guy, but it made more sense if you knew he was probably the planet’s only genuine shape-shifter. (Never mind that he just had the one shape he could shift into; it counted.)

“It wasn’t pretty. But he’ll live. What doesn’t kill him leaves him pissed off.”

“I thought the cliché was stronger.”

“It is, but with him, it’s pretty much the same thing.”

“I wouldn’t like him when he’s angry?” Scott replied, with a goofy grin.

“No, nobody does. And he’s not even green or in purple pants. It feels like a cheat somehow.”

Scott snorted a stoned kind of laugh before filling his mouth with more ice cream. It wasn’t until the show went to commercial that Scott asked, “You slept with him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He’s a serial monogamist, and he’s always with some guy. He just won’t cheat.”