Digging Deep

by Jay Hogan

  Jesus Christ. “Unconscious? Surgery?” My chest stuttered with the effort to breathe.

  “There’s one more thing.” she hesitated before blurting, “They had to remove his kidney, but he’s doing okay.”

  What? The blood in my veins ran to ice. “His kidney? Carmen, what the fuck? Have you lost your fucking mind? Okay? That’s not okay. That’s anything but okay. Why…. Goddammit, Carmen, I need to see you.” I unlocked the door and flung it wide, still sitting, sweats bunched round my ankles. It took a second to sink in. Fuck. No one saw me like this, no one. I did an internal check. Nope, not a single fuck to give.

  Carmen’s gaze flew from me to the ceiling, her cheeks pinked, and she looked all kinds of awkward. It would’ve been comical were it not for the major freak-out I was currently experiencing. “Oh for fuck’s sake, woman. Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

  “Maybe not,” she hissed, approaching gingerly, her voice low. “But I’d rather avoid the headlines, ‘Drag Queen Caught Perving in Hospital Toilet.’”

  She had a point. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  Her eyebrows shot to her hairline.

  “You heard me. Why the hell didn’t you tell me when he was first admitted?” I swallowed hard, remembering my own decision not to tell Caleb when I’d gone to hospital. Shit. I’d been such an arsehole.

  She flushed. “Hey, it took me a couple hours just to get here from Auckland. I didn’t know anything more than what they told his folks, which was fuck all, by the way. He was already in surgery when I got here, it was late, and you’re not exactly in tip-top health either, in case you’ve forgotten. I wanted to wait till I had more to tell you. I didn’t want to add to your stress….”

  “So he’s doing okay now, then?”

  “As far as I know.” Her eyes slid away.

  My mouth dropped open. “You mean you haven’t seen him?”

  She threw up her hands. “He’s in Intensive Care, Drake. It was night, and it’s family only. They wouldn’t let me….” Her eyes filled.

  Fuck. I finally got out of my selfish head long enough to recognise the raw fear reflected in Carmen’s eyes. Shit. Caleb was her best friend of over twenty years. She had to be hurting and I was being an arsehole… again. I took her hand, noting the tremble. “I’m sorry. Newsflash, I can be a prick sometimes.”

  She grinned weakly. “He’s gonna be okay, Drake, right? I don’t know what I’ll do….”

  Why in the hell was she asking me? Shit. God, I wasn’t sure I could do this. I took a moment to think before I answered, tried to rally a bit of rationality.

  “As long as they’re his only injuries and the surgery went well, there shouldn’t be any problem. One kidney does the job as well as two, he’ll just have to take better care of the one he’s got left. I don’t know about the head thing, though.”

  She nodded and some of the anxiety lifted from her expression. “Thank God. I didn’t mean to just land all this on you, I just thought you….”

  A thought occurred to me. “What about his parents?”

  Carmen shook her head. “They were at some family golden wedding anniversary in Wellington.” She checked her watch. “Should be landing in an hour.”

  “His brother?”

  “Thomas is with Caleb. We drove up together. Carolyn stayed behind with Lexi.”

  Thank Christ. The thought of Caleb on his own nearly did my head in. “Good. That’s good.” But not good enough, not by a long shot and I was about to remedy that.

  Carmen sighed. “Do you think…?”

  I shook my head. “We can talk later. Right now, I need you to grab my toilet bag so I can get a quick shower, and while I’m doing that, you’re gonna rustle us up a fucking wheelchair, I don’t care where from, and then we’re heading to Caleb.”

  Her eyes popped. Whether at being ordered around or at what I asked her to do wasn’t clear, and I didn’t give a rat’s arse either way.

  “They’re not gonna just let either of us….”

  I pinned her with a glare. “Just watch me. And if anyone tries to stop us, I expect you to stab them in the leg with one of those fucking stilettos you’re so fond of wearing. What’s the point of having a drag queen alongside if you can’t fucking use all that fierce? Got it?”

  The outburst was greeted with silence, but I could give less than a fuck. I was pissed and terrified in equal measure, and so I just waited her out.

  A soft chuckle finally broke the quiet, and I watched as a worried and uncertain Daniel took back seat to a much fiercer Carmen. She straightened her back, brushed the lint off her suit, and threw me a wink.

  “If I didn’t know better, Drake Park, I’d swear you’ve been taking pointers from Pete. And let me just say that I’m fairly certain something just died in there with you cos, whoa—” She screwed up her nose. “—that shit should come with a hazard warning.”

  Holy fuck, I loved this woman. I barked out a laugh. “Fuck you, Carmen.”

  She threw me a wicked smile. “You should be so lucky. Now jump in that damn shower and freshen that cutie patootie up for your boy. Apparently, I have a wheelchair to steal.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Caleb

  UGH. FUCKING alarm. Goddammit. Had Leanne changed my ringtone on it again? What the hell had I been doing last night? I tried to focus, but my thoughts refused to be pinned down, slipping away like water down a drain before I could grasp their intent. I’d been dreaming, I was sure, something about Drake, trying to get to him, but traffic kept slowing me down. By the time I got there, he was, oh shit, he was dead and they’d already had the funeral and nobody knew who I was. Fuck. Drake, dead. My stomach pitched violently and damn, that didn’t feel good at all.

  I tried to roll to my side, but I couldn’t move my arm… or anything much, it appeared. What the hell? Oh, okay… there, my shoulder shifted. I must have slept on it, and… holy fuck…. A searing blade of pain sliced through my side and rocketed my head back into the pillow, stealing every scrap of breath from my chest. Shit, shit, shit. I froze, too terrified to move. What the fuck was that? A minute or so later, it eased enough to let me breathe, and I sucked in a few small whispers of breath, just enough to come and go on while I ran a silent diagnostic on the rest of my body.

  Opening my eyes wasn’t gonna happen in a hurry. My lids cracked a smidge, but there was something in the way, and I could see no more than a blurred, foggy nothing through the lashes. South of my hips seemed present and accounted for. I wiggled my toes, shuffled my knees, and my dick felt… odd, actually.

  The pain in my side shifted to a sharp ache, leaving me reluctant to test its limits, and although I could move my head from side to side, any attempt to lift it seemed directly connected to that fucking pain button, ditto for my chest. My left arm jerked on command, but my right was definitely tied down. Not good. And in the background, some TV medical drama soundtrack, the sheer variety of alarms and beeping raising my hackles to the max.

  I was no Sherlock Holmes, but even I could figure out I was likely in hospital. Images faded in and out of my pounding head… and why the fuck wasn’t I on some decent pain relief, people? The 7-Eleven, the two gangbanger wannabes, the van, and… oh shit, yeah… the fucking driver. And a knife. Right. The hot slide of it into my side…. The pain blazed anew, and a groan escaped my lips. Jesus Christ, I’d been stabbed. Trembling in my legs worked its way up to my chest accompanied by a cool tide of shock until I was a quivering mess, enough to set the bed rattling.

  A sharp intake of breath to my right.

  “Holy shit, he’s awake. Nurse!”

  I knew that voice, I craved that voice.

  “I’ll get her.”

  Thomas? What are you doing here? Who’s running the café? An alarm somewhere to my right. God, could someone turn the damn volume down?

  A hand slid into mine, warm and reassuring while a second cradled my face.

  “Shhh, sweetheart. You’re okay. You’re in the hospital, in ICU
. I’m right here beside you.”

  Not dead, then. “Drake?” It came out little more than a hoarse croak.

  A thumb brushed my cheek. “Oh thank God. Yes, it’s me. Are you in pain, sweetheart?” The voice broke with a sniff.

  Is he crying? Jesus. Why is he crying? Maybe I’m dead?

  “Fuck, yes,” I croaked.

  He chuckled.

  Okay, so I’m not dead either.

  “Bonnie, we need some of the good stuff here. My man’s finally awake and grumbling.”

  Grumbling? My man? A warmth bloomed in my chest, chasing some of the pain. Damn right. It was my last thought before someone smelling of roses and bleach closed in and the world was swallowed into a warm dark jelly.

  THE SOUND of somebody yelling yanked me out of a dream. I tried to grab on to the words, but it was like picking sand from honey.

  “I don’t care what damn rules I’m breaking,” someone hissed. “I’m going nowhere. So you either get a cot or recliner chair in this hospital room, or I’ll sleep on a damn pile of towels on the floor.”

  Drake? But the words stayed in my head. Huh. So, yeah, that happened. Fresh systems check. Open eyes? Nope. Still had two elephants sitting on them. Someone needed to move those suckers. Tongue? Cemented to the roof of my cesspit of a mouth amidst a million grains of sand busy scoring off my taste buds one at a time. Lips? The size of melons and about as supple. The rest of my body? Gone to lunch. Goddammit. A fuck-ton of focus and determination earned me a tiny peep of tongue through those flabby lips but nothing more, and seemingly at the cost of every scrap of energy I had. So that was that.

  “Yes I’m fully aware I’m a patient.” Drake still seethed.

  Okay, gotcha this time, sweetheart. Drake was somewhere to my right and monumentally pissed off. I smiled at the thought… or not, as the case happened to be, since that wasn’t working either, apparently.

  “Yes, they know exactly where I am. No, I don’t give a shit, pun fully intended, though if you keep stressing me like this, I will, and then we’ll all be sorry, won’t we?”

  Whoa.

  “Jesus, Drake, calm down. Okay, I’ll check again.” Unknown person. Nurse?

  “You just do that.” Drake again. “Meanwhile I’ll be here… for the night… in case you missed that part.”

  The squeak of a chair, then silence.

  Oh… silence. I let that sink in. Silence. No alarms, no hum of voices, no rattle of machinery. Okay, so not in the ICU anymore. They’ve moved me. That had to be a good sign, right?

  A hand wrapped around mine, lips pressed against my forehead, and just like that the whole world righted on its axis. Zeroing in on that small square of contact, Drake’s thumb drawing circles on my wrist, the squeeze of his fingers… and his smell. Oh God, his smell. Apples and spice and… hope. He smelled like… home. Everything is okay.

  “Goddammit, Caleb. You need to wake up already. I’m running out of friendly faces and favours here.”

  I’m trying.

  Silk covered my hand. I tried to snag a thread or two of that precious hair, but it slipped through my fingers.

  “Please wake up, sweetheart,” Drake rumbled against my palm, lips finding skin. He sounded scared and angry, and so damn tired. I wanted to wrap him in my arms and tell him that I was here, I was listening, and I was trying to find my way home.

  “Keep talking, Drake, I’m sure he can hear you.” This from the other side of the bed.

  Mum. Oh God, Mum.

  “WELL HELLO there.” A whisper in the dark.

  Female. A smile. Not Drake, then. Oh, I can see. Yes. Lashes batted at my cheek. They were mine. Finally. Go me. A tongue on my lips, mine too. Yuck. Feels like cracked plastic or close enough.

  “Here.” Fingers rubbed something slick across my lips that smelled disgusting. “Feel better?”

  Are you kidding me? A face appeared at eye level. Pretty.

  “You had a nasty bang on the head, and you’ve been drifting in and out, so let me fill you in,” the pretty face said. “You’ve had surgery to remove your kidney and to repair a knife wound. It went well, but you’re gonna be sore for a bit. Kidney number two is all smiles and doing its thing, and you’re on the mend. By the way, your boyfriend’s asleep on the chair next to you.”

  My boyfriend? Drake. I’d have looked but half my head had apparently been removed along with my kidney.

  “He hasn’t left your side, except for the bathroom. Worn a path between the two, he has. Been driving us crazy. I’d wake him, but he needs the sleep, he’s exhausted. He’s gonna kill me, though.”

  That’s my boy.

  “I’m giving you an antibiotic and a bit more pain relief. Go back to sleep.”

  Yeah, I’ll get right on that.

  I WOKE with a start, and holy fuck, when did I start snoring like that? Summoning a bit of strength, I tried a roll, and hey, what about that? My shoulder actually listened. I lifted up and managed a half-decent lean back until something warm and solid stopped me short. Something… snoring.

  Huh. Not me, then. I listened for a minute and my heart skipped in my chest. I knew that fucking freight train. Drake.

  A hand draped over my hip above the blankets and a nose snuffled into my hair, the scent of apples whooshing up my nose. I smiled into my pillow. Every bone and joint on my side ached, and I needed to turn over like I needed to breathe, but I wasn’t going anywhere. Drake Park was cuddled to my back and it was the best fucking miracle of my life. My free hand found his and wrapped around it.

  “THEY’RE OKAY tucked away in a blouse, but on stage and these puppies need to sit up and sparkle, look and feel like the real deal if you catch my drift. I use a supplier in the States, and there’s a variety of ways of fixing them depending on what you’re wearing.”

  Huh? Carmen? What the fuck? And yeah, those words never happened outside my head cos my tongue was once again too damn big for my mouth.

  “Oh, well they look very natural,” a woman commented.

  I knew that voice.

  “You wanna touch them?” Carmen asked.

  Oh dear God, Drake’s mother… and Carmen… talking about breasts. Holy shit. No, she doesn’t want to touch them, I wanted to scream.

  “Can I?”

  Oh. My. God.

  “Here you go.”

  My best friend was dead. Nobody would convict me.

  “Ooohhh. I see what you mean,” Alison Park said thoughtfully. “Gun, you should feel these.”

  Drake’s father? Holy crap.

  A man cleared his throat. “I think I’ll pass on that… though I’m sure they’re amazing, Carmen.”

  I could practically see the Jezebel preening.

  “Wise choice, Gun,” my dad said.

  Dad too? What the hell? I was clearly still dreaming. Either that or I’d entered the fucking twilight zone? I briefly thought about opening my eyes and yelling “surprise” just before I murdered my best friend, but my mouth was taking its time coming on board. That and sheer morbid curiosity.

  “You should both come see my show, Alison.”

  No, you really shouldn’t.

  “We’d love to, wouldn’t we, Gun?”

  Oh God.

  “Ah, yes?”

  Drake’s dad sounded a little less enthusiastic.

  “That’s settled, then.” Carmen purred. “I’ll get you ringside tickets… so to speak.” She chuckled.

  Fuck. My. Life. That woman was a dead drag queen walking.

  “I think you’ll love it, Mum.”

  Wait. Drake? How could he let this horror show unfold and say nothing? What the hell was he thinking even allowing them all in the same room?

  “… I’m ‘she’ if I’m dressed as Carmen, and ‘he’ when I’m Daniel,” Carmen explained to someone.

  “Yes, I don’t recommend getting them confused.” Thomas.

  Ooohhh, my baby brother. He was so gonna answer for this. Of all people he should’ve known better.

 
“Now, Tom,” Carmen soothed. “I’m not that bad. Don’t listen to a word, Alison. You can call me what you like. You’re practically family, after all.”

  Drake’s father choked somewhere to my right and a laugh damn near made it out of my throat. I was so close. Things were definitely switching on.

  “Well, I think it must be wonderful to be someone completely different every now and then,” Drake’s mother said. “God knows there’s been times I could’ve done with that.”

  “You could be a drag king.”

  Dead. She was definitely dead.

  “But I’d have to have a name, right?”

  Don’t go there.

  Carmen almost purred. “That’s right. How about Mo B. Dick or Duncan Deep?”

  Good Lord, kill me now.

  Alison and Carmen giggled like school girls while Drake let out a strangled groan.

  “Is she always like this?” Gun Park sounded painfully intrigued.

  “Unfortunately yes,” my father answered fondly. “But she grows on you.”

  Like fucking mould.

  Alison continued. “I always liked Matthew as a name.”

  “Who’s Matthew?” Drake asked.

  Gun interrupted. “Wasn’t that your ex from university? I thought you said he was a dork.”

  “He was,” she answered. “But he had great legs and a huge—” She paused. “—amount of stamina.”

  Everyone laughed.

  I was liking Drake’s mother more by the minute.

  “Well, aren’t you the naughty one?” Carmen hummed. “I dated a Mathew once. He was one of my apostles.”