Hollywood Heartthrob

by Clarissa Carlyle

  “Yes, like on a date.” Josh blushed.

  “Okay,” Amy found herself agreeing, while inside her head her inner voice was screaming that it was madness as he was a famous movie star and could never be serious about a nobody like her.

  “Okay, great,” Josh beamed. “I’ll come pick you up tomorrow night.”

  “Great,” Amy nodded.

  They parted ways and Amy headed back to her classroom and the pile of papers she still had to grade which were waiting for her on her desk.

  She was so caught up in the moment that she didn’t spot the figure lurking in the darkened hallway close to her classroom.

  As Josh strode off the figure moved, keeping closely behind him.

  Alerted by the extra footsteps, Amy looked out of her classroom door but was too late and saw nothing.

  Assuming she was hearing things she returned to the classroom but looked out of the window and frowned as she did.

  She was certain that John’s car was in the parking lot.

  She positioned herself directly by the window to make sure. Yes, it was definitely his car, there was no mistaking the private number plate of his BMW; ACE 1.

  “What the hell is he still doing here?” she grumbled angrily to herself, reaching for her phone.

  If he was lurking around the college she’d swiftly tell him to vacate the building before she was due to leave. The last thing she wanted was another awkward encounter with him.

  His phone rang but went directly to his voice message, which was unusual, as normally he fell over himself to answer her calls.

  Thinking nothing more of it Amy sat down and focused on the task at hand of grading papers.

  ****

  Two hours passed, and when she eventually finished it had grown dark outside. She began to organize her papers when she suddenly remembered John’s car.

  Walking over to the window she squinted to inspect the parking lot in the now dim light and saw that his car was no longer there.

  “Good,” she thought, “at least he can’t harass me now as I leave.”

  Gathering up all her things Amy went to leave, flicking off the lights and stepping out into the hallway.

  The college was always eerily quiet at night when everyone had either gone home or returned to their dorms.

  Usually Amy enjoyed this peace but today it troubled her. She found herself remembering all the old horror movies she used to sit up late and watch as a teenager, hugging against her friend and screaming as the masked killer inevitably caught up with his unawares victim.

  Quickening her pace, Amy was glad to leave the creepy building and come out into the warm evening air.

  She was about to head to her car when she caught sight of a large, dark lump on the pavement.

  Hesitantly, she drew closer to it for a better look and shrieked when she realized it was a body.

  For a moment Amy didn’t know what to do. Then her first aid training kicked in and she dropping all her papers to the floor, not caring as they scattered to the wind. She immediately fell to her knees to help the fallen figure.

  Touching their back, a low groan sounded out. Amy was glad to hear the sound as it meant the person was alive.

  “Oh my God, are you okay?” Amy asked anxiously.

  “Are you hurt?”

  All the body could do was groan in pain.

  “Did someone run over you?”

  “Owww!”

  “Here let me move you,” Amy attempted to move the body to a more comfortable position as gently as she could, but the whole time they moaned and winced in pain.

  She hadn’t yet looked directly at their face but she could see that there was a lot of blood; her hands were already covered in it.

  “It’s okay, I’m here to help,” she reassured the fallen man.

  “Just try and stay as still as possible.”

  She left him briefly to rummage in her purse for her cell phone.

  “Where is it?” she moaned as typically it falls to the bottom, beneath her hair brush, tissues, lip gloss and keys.

  “Damn thing…” Amy moaned to herself as she delved deeper; trying to find the long, black sleek design of her cell phone.

  “Ah!” Finally victorious and pulled it out and slid the keypad open with her finger.

  “Everything is going to be alright,” she told the man.

  “I’m going to call the ambulance and get you to the hospital.”

  “No!” the voice protested, sounding rugged and hoarse.

  “You need medical assistance!” Amy said, shocked that the man would refuse treatment.

  “You’re bleeding everywhere! I’m calling an ambulance!”

  “No!” the man said again.

  “You can say no all you want but I’m calling 911!”

  Amy typed the numbers in and raised her phone to her ear when a bloodied hand reached out and grabbed her arm, freezing it in place with frightening strength.

  Angered, Amy was about to break free when she looked down and recognized the face of the injured man.

  The same eyes had sparkled cheekily at her only a few hours earlier.

  “Josh!” she gasped, dropping her phone and raising a hand to her mouth.

  “Josh, what happened?”

  Josh was barely recognizable. His face was covered in blood and deep lacerations and his nose looked badly bent out of her shape. He’d clearly taken a very severe beating.

  “Aww,” Josh cried out, pain making him unable to speak.

  “Josh, you need to get to the hospital,” Amy cried, feeling panic rising up inside her.

  “No,” Josh wheezed.

  “You’re a mess!”

  “They can’t see me like this,” he spluttered, his breathing labored as he clutched his chest.

  “Who can’t?” Amy asked, but she already knew the answer. The media. Josh lived to play their games, to be the man they wanted him to be.

  “That’s just ridiculous!” Amy declared, picking her phone up off the floor and beginning to once more dial for an ambulance.

  “Your health is more important than any image ever could be!” she declared angrily.

  But then she looked into Josh’s eyes and saw the pain and sadness there. It wasn’t about his image, it was about his pride. Someone had done this to him, had hurt him and reduced him to a bloodied wreck upon the floor. For most men it would be difficult to accept but Josh wasn’t most men, he was the most famous man in the world. Something like this could follow him around for the rest of his life.

  Amy slowly lowered her cell and cancelled the call. She had no idea what she’d do with Josh, but knew that she’d at least respect his wishes.

  Chapter 4

  Josh coughed and spluttered as he lay on the ground, his breathing becoming increasingly labored.

  “I’m not just going to let you lie here and die!” Amy declared on the brink of tears.

  “No…hospital,” Josh managed to say.

  His skin was now deathly white as all the color had faded from his face and Amy began to be fearful for his life.

  “I’ve got to do something!”

  She fretted and tried to decide what to do. She kept glancing around the parking lot, hoping help would magically arrive, but no one came.

  If Josh wouldn’t go to the hospital then where could she take him? It was obvious he needed medical help.

  Finally she reached a solution – though it was a dubious one.

  “I’m taking you to my cousin.”

  “Huh?” Josh was starting to lose consciousness.

  “He’s a vet,” Amy explained hastily.

  “What?” Josh suddenly became more alert on hearing this.

  “It’s alright. He trained to be a doctor before deciding he’d rather save animals than people. He lives about twenty minutes away. Can you hold on that long?”

  Unable to speak Josh just nodded.

  Now all Amy had to do was get him in her car which was no easy task. Using all her strengt
h she tried to lift him to his feet and move him across the parking lot.

  Each movement made him scream out in pain but Amy had no choice but to move him, despite the discomfort it was causing.

  “Jeeze, you’re heavy,” she gasped beneath his weight which was now fully resting upon her as she slowly tried to move the ten feet across the tarmac to her car. It felt more like ten miles.

  After much panting and grunting on both their parts, Amy finally got to her car and laid Josh down across the back seats.

  His eyes were now closed, locked in pain and Amy fretted over whether she’d done the right thing to move him. Maybe her cousin could have just met them there? It was too late now either way.

  Retrieving her cell phone and taking a moment to catch her breath, Amy called her cousin to let him know she was coming. As usual she got his voicemail.

  “Hi, Matt. It’s Amy. Look I’m coming in with an…emergency. But it’s a bit unusual. I’m sorry to put you out…I’ll explain more when I get there.”

  Amy hoped that he got the message before she arrived and felt guilty about putting him out so late at night. She knew she’d definitely have to make it up to him.

  ****

  Driving as quickly as she could, Amy headed for her cousin’s veterinary practice, hoping against hope that he was there working late as he did most nights. A strong work ethic seemed to flow in her family.

  All the while Josh moaned and writhed on the back seat and Amy felt her heart racing at the terrifying prospect that either he’d pass out, or the police would pull her over and his cover would be blown.

  Pulling up at the vets, Amy drove her car up on to the sidewalk not caring about any potential damage to the paint work.

  She ran inside, knowing she didn’t have the strength to move Josh a second time.

  “I got your message, what’s wrong?” Matt asked, already waiting for her in the modest lobby area. The bags beneath his eyes told her this wasn’t the only night he’d worked late that week.

  “Come to the car,” Amy said quickly.

  Matt followed, confused as to why his cousin was so flustered. As far as he knew she didn’t even own a pet.

  “Can you help me get him inside?” Amy asked over her shoulder as she threw open the back doors to her car.

  “Oh wait…” Matt began to back off, holding his hands out before him. “If you knocked this guy over I’m not helping you patch him up. You need to go to the cops.”

  “I didn’t knock him over!” Amy said, appalled at the suggestion. “And if I had, I certainly wouldn’t bring him here to be patched up! You’ve been watching too many TV dramas!”

  “So what happened to the guy?” Matt cautiously approached the car and glanced inside.

  “I don’t know. I just found him like this on the parking lot at college. I think someone beat him up.”

  “Pretty badly by the looks of it.”

  Peering in, Matt attempted to make a brief assessment before glancing at the victims face and quickly pivoting around to be level with Amy.

  “Is that?” he asked his voice high and excited.

  “Calm down!” Amy ordered. “Yes it is. That’s why I’m here. He doesn’t want any publicity.”

  “Wow, wait till the kids hear about this!”

  “You can’t go telling anyone!” Amy berated. “Not even Jerry and Luca. Can I trust you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Together Amy and Matt carried Josh out of the car and into the veterinary practice. He barely moaned now, his head lolling back and forth lifelessly, like a rag doll as he was maneuvered.

  Once in the examination room they lay Josh down on the hard table in the center and Matt hastily began to wash his hands in preparation.

  “How long as he been like this?” he asked as he ran the tap water from the sink over his hands.

  “Umm…a few hours maybe.”

  “Jeeze.”

  “I know.”

  “Whatever happened to your campus security?”

  “No idea.”

  “Right, okay, I need you to hold his head up while I check his pupils.”

  Amy obliged and cradled Josh’s head in her arms. It pained her to see him like this; so helpless.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she reassured him, her voice soft, unsure if he could even hear her.

  Matt checked Josh’s pupils which were unresponsive and then began to examine his body and the various lacerations and bruising.

  “He’s been beaten up pretty bad,” Matt sighed as he worked.

  “If you see here, it looks like he’s taken a kick to the ribs.”

  Amy looked and then recoiled at the graphic sight of Josh’s lean chest covered in large, sore looking red bruises and cuts.

  “Is he going to be alright?” she asked anxiously.

  “I imagine he’s about to pass out in pain if he hasn’t done so already, so I’d best give him some morphine.”

  A moment later Matt injected him with the clear fluid which seemed to ease some of his distress almost immediately.

  “Can you help him?” Amy asked, still supporting Josh’s head in her arms.

  “I’ll do what I can but he really needs to go to a hospital.”

  “But he doesn’t want that!”

  “Well without it he risks any of his cuts going sceptic. And he definitely needs an X-ray done of his chest; I reckon he’s got a few broken ribs.”

  “Can’t you do that here?” Amy pleaded.

  “No, Aimes, I can’t. I’m a vet, remember? I don’t have the equipment to work on an adult man. If you’d brought a cat in, then yes I’d have been able to help.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll clean his wounds and bandage him up and give you some more painkillers to take away but that’s about the extent of it,” Matt explained apologetically.

  “You’ve already done more than enough.”

  “Damn right I have!” Matt agreed fervently. “I could lose my license for having a person in here like this.”

  “But you won’t because it’s a secret,” Amy smiled sweetly.

  “You’ve always been trouble,” Matt said, smiling and shaking his head. “Ever since you were a kid.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “How did you wind up having a battered Hollywood star in your car anyway?” Matt asked, his curiosity getting the better of him now that the more urgent task of cleaning and dressing his wounds was out of the way.

  “It’s a long story.” Amy sighed.

  “I think I’m at least owed the shortened version, given that I’ve helped you out at such a late hour.” Matt joked.

  “Basically he’s filming a movie on campus and I bumped into him a couple of times. He seems like a nice guy.”

  “Be careful,” Matt said defensively. “John seemed like a nice guy once upon a time and look how that turned out.”

  “Well I really can’t thank you enough,” Amy said eager to change the subject. Her family had only ever shown disapproval when it came to her choice of men, and rightly so, but she still didn’t enjoy feeling as though she were being judged for whom she gave her heart to.

  “I’m sure you’ll find a way,” Matt smiled. “A couple of bottles of Jacks should do it.”

  “Deal.”

  Matt began to prepare some pain killers for Amy to take with her when Josh began to stir in her arms.

  He moaned briefly, his eyes opening, and then they swiftly sealed shut again.

  “Josh!” Amy called alarmed.

  “Josh - are you okay? Is he okay?” the second question directed at Matt, her voice high and desperate.

  Matt came over and took another look at his patient and shook his head.

  “He’s at risk of going into shock, he didn’t get the painkillers in his system soon enough.”

  “What do I do?”

  “He needs to go to the hospital. I’ve done all I can. They need to monitor him.”

  Amy fretted as she stood holding Josh’s he
ad, knowing how desperately he wanted to avoid admission.

  “Isn’t there anything else we can do?” she pleaded with her cousin.