you goof.” Lucy edged closer, eyeballing the red and purple bruises circling his arm. “Fuuck.” She squirmed in her winter coat. “That must’ve hurt. Is it broken?”
Tarquin gave a half-lidded sigh.
Harry offered a small bag of green grapes, a British tradition when visiting loved ones in hospital. “I thought you might be peckish.”
“Maaate!” Tarquin hugged the fruit against his chest with his good arm. “Leia loved—she always put these…try it, she said…”
Lucy flinched. “O-kay then! I don’t even want to know what that kink is.”
“Er, don’t start! The grapes were meant as a joke,” Harry whispered, hiding a chuckle in the collar of his coat. “Tarq hates them—well, he used to.” Ducking his head, he made a play for his best friend’s attention as Lucy leaned over the bed’s railing. “Balfy, what happened?”
“I miss her, Haz.”
“Yeah, we know, mate. You’ve talked of nothing else since New York. What were you up to tonight?”
Gazing lovingly at the grapes, Tarquin huffed. “Missing her!” He punctuated his declaration with a scrunched face and a frustrated exhale reminiscent of a toddler mid temper tantrum. “What don’t you get, man?!”
Lucy recoiled, stepping back from the bedside. “Fuck! Well, that boozy vomit breath won’t bring her back! Talk about rank.” She flapped her hands in front of her face, eyeing the empty sick bags. “If he pukes in front of me, I’m outta here.”
Harry ignored his girlfriend’s dramatics. “A&E called just as we were leaving Leicester Square. Lucy dragged me to see”—he deferred to his girlfriend—“what was it called? Lost for Words.”
“Breath!” Lucy corrected. “Lost for Breath—just like me right now. Ugh.”
“It was good, but I could’ve done without seeing that French bloke’s bare arse.”
“You’re just envious,” said Lucy, swooning. “He’s scorching! I’m like ‘Ooh la la!’ every time I spot his advert on my bus. You can strip for me any time, Bastien!”
Bast… ? Tarquin’s brows pinched slowly like he was on a three-second delay. Yeah. The photo… the Brooklyn one in the Mail. That’s why Leia isn’t—she’s with HIM! Bloody actor! All over the buses—all over HER!
“Bastard!” he snarled, his swaying focus surrendering to the ceiling.
Harry rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. I’m a bastard.” He leaned into Lucy, watching Tarquin mutter to himself. “He’s so out of it.”
“He’s legit angry, more like,” said Lucy.
“Why?”
She tutted. “Like you have to ask!”
Oh, shut it, you two! Tarquin’s weary eyes flickered shut, the sleepy nothingness of the pain medication more desirable than his friends’ bickering.
“So I told him a little white lie? It was for his own good and you know it.” Harry lowered his voice. “If I hadn’t told him Leia was seeing someone, he would’ve interrogated Sarah—and that’s not moving on, Lucy!” He glanced down as his friend. “I’m just thankful it worked.”
Lucy crossed her arms. “Yeah, Haribo, your porky worked a treat. Dude gets rat-arsed, topples over in the street, and lands in A&E, all purple and puffy.” She smirked as Tarquin stirred. “Oh…he’s waking up again.”
Harry raked an exasperated hand through his blond hair and frowned, studying his mess of a friend stretched out on the bed. Tarquin’s expensive blue trousers were torn at the knee and mottled with wet filth. “Balfy, I thought you had a date tonight with that woman you met shopping. Did she leg it?”
Tarquin grunted.
“I guess that’s a yes, then,” said Harry.
No, it’s not. I never even called her. So there!
“So, what happened?”
“I was at Vin’ger…” Tarquin dipped his chin and blinked wearily at the bag of grapes, his pout relinquishing little information. “Drinksss…”
“No!” Lucy chuckled, her brow scrunching sardonically.
Harry leaned on the bed’s rail. “Vinegar Yard?” The cheap and cheerful al fresco food and drink venue tucked behind London Bridge Station was a short walk from Tarquin’s office in the Shard and his home. “And then what? The Southbank Centre? The nurse said that’s where the ambulance picked you up.”
Lucy bumped Harry with her elbow, her eyes dropping to the floor and a banged-up skateboard resting wheels-up beside Tarquin’s unlaced dress shoes. “Check it. He was at the Southbank Centre—the undercroft.”
“Oh, you twat!” Harry’s face pinched. “Shit-faced noseslides and grinds? Bloody hell! How many pints did you have?”
Six? Eight? Don’t know. Enough so I felt nice for a little bit. Tarquin scratched his moustache and shrugged, the slight shift firing a blistering bolt of nerve-splitting pain down his arm. Fucking hell! He clenched his teeth. “Bollocks!” As he writhed in agony, the grapes slipped through the bed’s railing. “I dunno!” he screeched, his chest rising and falling,