Luke woke late the next morning to a banging on his door. He was on the late shift and the call out last night had put him in need of those last few hours of sleep.
That banging was not going away, though, and its lack of rhythm ruled out any of his fellow cops. In fact the banging was familiar enough that Luke only pulled on his shorts before opening the door.
When he opened the door to his nephew, the kid didn’t stand on ceremony. Bowling past Luke, they didn’t do hugs in this family, he headed straight to the kitchen. Guess Luke’s sleep-in was over and judging by the way Tom was raiding his fridge, he’d need to buy some more groceries tonight.
“Hey, mate,” Luke said. “What happened to school today?”
“Free period,” replied the sixteen-year-old as he scarfed down the sandwich he’d quickly built. “Seeing as you hadn’t been out to the farm for ages, I had to hunt you down.”
Luke felt a stab of guilt. Just because he didn’t get on with his own brother didn’t mean he got to abandon this boy.
“Instincts of a greyhound finding me here in my own home.” Luke sat the table and bumped his shoulder to Tom’s. “Sorry, dude, I’m glad you came. Work has been busy.”
Okay, his excuse was on the lame end of the scale, but better than “I think your dad is a bastard who was never very nice when we were growing up.”
“School’s been shit,” Tom said, as he seemed to be contemplating the bottom of his plate.
Luke ached for the kid. He was at that awkward stage, tall like Dave and Luke himself, but painfully thin. He’d shown some interest in computer animating last year, a choice that wasn’t popular with Luke’s brother and didn’t seem to have much of social circle.
“Why is that?” Luke asked gently, not wanting to jump in there too strongly.
“Boring. Hate it.” Teenagers really went for illuminating answers when it came to articulating their feelings.
It wasn’t like Luke couldn’t relate. Outwardly his school experience hadn’t been too bad. He’d been big and strong enough to avoid any bullying, and his physical appearance as well as his footy participation were enough to stop anyone guessing that he was starting to want to shag the better-looking boys. But he’d known his thoughts about men were enough to make him separate, and he’d certainly known if anyone guessed at them he’d be due a kicking. Gay was something you only heard about on TV in their town then, and the word “fag” was hurled around and used as an excuse to start a brawl.
“Only one and a half more years,” he offered to Tom. Uncle of the year material there. Digging down to the issues.
Awkward though Tom might have been, he was a big part of the reason Luke was still in town. Tom had been an adorable six when Luke had left for the academy and had always thought of his uncle as his hero. Dave had been a shitty older brother and a not much better father, and when the rest of the family moved away, Luke had felt Tom needed him. After he had requested a transfer back to Dungoon, he had become so much part of the town fabric he couldn’t imagine leaving. He wished he could do more to reach out to the stressed teen.
“Why don’t you come to the gym with me some night?” he asked, in a sudden moment of inspiration.
Tom pushed away his plate and propped his sharp chin on his hands. “Dunno. I don’t think I’d be very good at it.”
“Nothing to be good at. Run on the treadmill, hit a punching bag, lift a few weights. I go when it’s not very busy. Last time the only person in the weight room was the new radiologist.”
Now he was randomly mentioning Jai. Talk about not getting the guy out of his thoughts.
Tom looked slightly more interested. “I think I saw him in Woolies. Cool tats, right?”
“Don’t even think about a tattoo,” came the automatic warning from Luke’s mouth. To be honest, the spark in Tom’s eye worried him more. Jai being attractive was obvious to Luke, but he wished his nephew was a little more oblivious to it. Being gay wasn’t the same now as it had been when he was a teenager, but there was a reason he hadn’t come out while living in this town. Also, he knew Dave’s reaction to his son having an interest in men was going to be ugly.
So far he had ignored his suspicions. He knew it was cowardly to leave Tom alone with his thoughts, knowing how isolated he himself had felt. He just didn’t know how to confront the issue with him, and he wasn’t ready to leave the comfort of his own “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
“Is he, like, part Asian?” asked Tom.
Yep, still on the subject of Jai.
“I think he had a Japanese grandfather.” Good one. No playing dumb about some sort of friendship when he obviously knew too much about the good-looking man.
“Cool,” Tom said, the word drawn out. “I’ll come to the gym if you are sure that will be okay.”
Luke was thinking it was going to be a little less okay than when he had originally suggested it. Now it looked like there was going to be a few more things to concentrate on. Namely, not getting caught checking out Jai’s ass, not letting his sixteen-year-old nephew involuntarily out himself, and even maybe having to give up his playful banter with Jai. However, the kid needed a hobby that would give him some confidence, and this looked like something Luke could do for him. God knew there was little else he was prepared to offer.
“Definitely,” Luke replied, with more confidence than he felt. “We’ll go next week. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”
He probably would. Even if their workouts didn’t lap over with Jai’s, there were enough fit bodies for it to be a teenager’s dream, and he’d be there to smooth over any awkward moments. He had a lifetime’s experience of doing that.
They chatted for a while longer—well, Luke asked predictable questions and was lucky if the answer was in multiple syllables. But Tom looked a little happier leaving than coming, which meant Luke hadn’t completely failed in the uncle stakes. Now he even had a teenage chaperone for the gym.
• • •
Three days later, Luke’s day had gotten immeasurably worse.
“That really fucking hurt.” Luke glared at the emergency room doctor who seemed to have decided that torture wasn’t illegal in this country.
“You picked up a fridge by yourself. You’re lucky that the dislocated shoulder looks like the worst of your problems.”
Luke was getting sick of having to tell everyone he didn’t pick up the fridge so much as have one fall on him. He’d been called out to suspicious activity in an abandoned shed, and it looked like someone had successfully booby-trapped the door by leaning an old fridge—ready to fall on anyone unlucky enough to enter. Bloody embarrassing to have to call fellow emergency services in to rescue him from that situation, so he’d got the fridge off himself. Then he’d had to call in the paramedics anyway when he’d realized he’d pulled his arm out of his socket. Insult to actual injury, and they wouldn’t give him the green whistle pain relief at the scene because they were worried he’d taken a head knock. Talk about lack of professional courtesy.
“If you are done shoving me around, can you finally, finally give me something to take the edge off?” he asked, aware of the distinct whine in his voice. He didn’t even care who heard it; once a fridge fell on you, your day was pretty shot.
“I’m not seeing any signs of a concussion, so you can get the good stuff now.” With that, Dr. Bill Curtis finally gave him an injection.
It didn’t take long for the searing pain to lessen and for the rest of the world to get a little fuzzy around the edges.