Sticks and Stones

by Susie Tate

  *****

  ‘I think maybe Miles has his wires crossed,’ she started, and Dylan tensed, recognizing the broken quality in her voice that he had grown to hate. Miles was a dead man for humiliating her like this. ‘You see I…um…I really, really can’t sing. In fact, I’d say that it could even be considered a health hazard if I performed in public.’

  ‘Come on Lou! Don’t be such a pussy!’ Miles shouted from in front of the stage and a ripple of laughter spread through the crowd around him. He then stood and got up on his chair. ‘Who here thinks the birthday girl should just bloody sing?’ he shouted into the crowd, whipping them up into a frenzy. ‘Sing. Sing. Sing. Sing,’ he started chanting, waving his arms for the crowd join in. Once everyone had followed suit he smiled and turned back to Lou on the stage.

  *****

  Lou shifted on her feet, heat flooding her face as she prepared to make her excuses and get the hell out of there. Just as she was about to speak though, she locked eyes with a chuckling Miles, who had crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow in challenge.

  Well fuck him and the horse he rode in on, thought Lou. She closed her eyes for a second before slowly opening them and taking a deep breath in through her nose, fixing Miles with a chilling glare. His smile faltered for a second in the face of her blatant defiance.

  That’s right, thought Lou, squirm away spawn of satan; you ain’t seen nothing yet.

  *****

  Dylan was halfway to the stage when he saw the look of determination replace the abject fear on Lou’s face, then saw her turn away from the mic to talk to the sax player at her side. A slow smile spread across the guy’s face and he nodded, before moving to form a huddle with the rest of the band. A few seconds later the first chords of Etta James’ ‘I Just Wanna Make Love to You’ rang out through the bar. Lou’s hips began to sway and her eyes closed for a moment, before she yanked the mic out of the stand and started murdering the song with gusto.

  ‘I don’t want you,’ she started, more shouting than singing really, and bearing little relation to what the band were playing, ‘to be no slave.’

  Then the strutting began, back and forth across the stage until she came to a stop in front of the piano.

  ‘I don’t want you,’ she continued, wrapping a hand around the back of the pianist’s neck and then up into his hair. A couple of notes faltered, but to give the guy credit he managed to continue valiantly on.

  Despite the terrifying noises she was making, the crowd was going absolutely crazy, ripples of laughter and applause coming from all sides of the bar.

  ‘To work all day.’ She moved on then to the sax player, and Dylan noticed the male laughter stop abruptly as she executed a perfect slut-drop onto her haunches in front of the poor guy, and then slowly worked her way up his body. The women were still cheering her on but most of the men were frozen in place, eyes fixed to the stage with their mouths hanging open. This only intensified as Lou ripped her shirt off when she came to a stand, leaving her in a tiny vest top, which showcased her bright pink bra underneath.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Dylan heard a man next to him breathe as Lou made her way back to the front of the stage.

  ‘But I want you,’ she continued, her free hand going into her hair and lifting it up to the top of her head, before releasing it with a flourish and shaking it out around her shoulders. ‘To be true.’ Her focus now fell on the table in front of the stage, and Dylan saw that she was staring straight at a slack-jawed Miles, who’d foolishly failed to retreat a safe distance.

  ‘And I just wanna make love to you,’ she pointed at Miles as she started descending the steps into the audience, never taking her eyes of him.

  ‘Well I can tell by the way you walk that walk.’ She was circling a wide-eyed Miles now. Terror and confusion were warring with blatant arousal across his features.

  ‘And I can tell by the way you talk that talk.’ She crouched down in front of him, put her hands on his knees to spread his legs, then moving in between them and to work her way up his body, until her free hand had slid up into his hair and her mouth was a hair’s breath from his. Miles held perfectly still and looked like he was having trouble breathing.

  ‘I can tell by the way you treat your girl,’ she continued, having to move the mic up between them, but still managing to keep her lips centimeters from his. ‘That I could give you all the loving in the whole wide world.’

  She grabbed his tie and pulled him up with her as she stood.

  ‘All I wanna do is make your bread.’ Another perfectly performed slut drop saw Lou at Miles’ feet, and then slowly working her way back up. ‘Just to make sure you’re well fed.’

  Once back to standing she pulled him down towards her as if to kiss him. Miles’ lips parted and his eyes completely glazed over, mesmerized by Lou’s beautiful face.

  ‘I don’t want you sad and blue.’ She pushed him down, and he was so stupefied that the move threw him off balance, falling sharply back into his chair. Her leg then came up to rest on one side of the back of his chair next to his shoulder, stretching the dimensions of her skirt almost to breaking point.

  Dylan had unconsciously moved through the crowd towards her and realized that he was now directly behind Miles’ chair. She briefly flicked her eyes to his, and then nodded towards Miles whose eyes were fixed on her leg.

  Dylan realized what she wanted just in time as she belted out, ‘I just wanna make love to you.’ And gave Miles’ chair a firm push with her foot, causing it to topple over backwards.

  Before his head hit the floor Dylan caught the back of the chair. He was going to right it, but at the last minute when he remembered how the bastard had tried to humiliate Lou, and he tipped it on its side. Miles came crashing out and, Lou stood over him for a second, before snatching his pint of beer from the table. ‘Love to you,’ she continued whilst emptying the pint over a spluttering Miles on the ground.

  Then, before he could get up, she turned on her heel and strutted back up to the stage, finishing off the song with a huge smile on her face. The crowd erupted with applause. Everyone was up on their feet cheering by the time Lou had calmly dipped down to pick up her shirt and sauntered off the stage.

  *****

  ‘You’re my idol!’ shrieked Katie, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet in front of Lou. Lou looked down into her shining face and felt her heart lurch. Why oh why did she have to be so adorable? Why the hell couldn’t Dylan find someone that Lou could justifiably hate?

  ‘You. Are. A. Goddess.’ Katie continued to shriek, grabbing hold of both of Lou’s hands in her excitement. ‘I mean holy guacamole, I would have freaked out all over the place. But no, you were all like BAM! “Take that Miles you sniveling weasel”’ Katie’s arms were flailing wildly as she mimed punching Miles in the face, something Lou was pretty sure didn’t actually happen.

  ‘Then he was all: “Oh no,”’ for some reason best known to herself Katie was using an extremely high-pitched voice to imitate Miles. ‘”I made a huge mistake”,’ she was now cowering down in front of Lou, her hands held up in front of her in mock surrender. ‘”Please don’t kick me in the nuts while you pour beer all over me”.’

  Lou couldn’t help herself; she gave in and started laughing at Katie’s performance, vaguely wondering if the girl ever stopped talking, and if anyone could locate her off switch. Dylan reached down and plucked Katie up off the floor with an arm to her waist, laughing along with everyone else in the group around them.

  Well, nearly everyone.

  Lou had noticed that Rob’s friend (another military guy called Sam) looked totally non-plussed by Katie’s performance, and was regarding her like she was something rather unpleasant that he’d scraped off the sole of his shoe. As Katie was Sarah’s best friend, Lou assumed she had been around this guy a fair bit before and wondered what he could possibly have found so offensive about her. She noticed Katie glancing briefly at him as she was set on her feet by Dylan, and saw that her face p
aled and her smile slipped slightly as she took in his disapproval, before quickly looking away. Sarah slung her arm round Lou’s shoulders.

  ‘You’ve got to teach me some of those moves Louey-Lou,’ she slurred, leaning heavily into Lou’s side. Lou smiled at her briefly, but was distracted again by Katie who had started chattering to Rob. Although Rob wasn’t always the most forthcoming bloke, it was obvious that he had a soft spot for Katie, and was grinning in the face of her verbal diarrhea: something about the local Women’s Institute, and would he mind coming and talking to them about pirates. Apparently a particularly feisty ninety year old had asked if she could come for a ‘ride-along’ when the team next went out to Somalia.

  Lou sighed.

  It was official; Katie was the nicest person Lou had ever wanted to punch in the face.

  *****

  Katie settled into the crook of Dylan’s arm and felt his breathing even out as he fell asleep. This was the first time she’d stayed over, the first time really in years that Katie had felt comfortable enough with a man to allow that level of intimacy. Not that they’d done anything. She knew she wasn’t ready for that. But for some reason, despite Dylan’s extensive reputation, she felt safe with him; she instinctively knew that he wouldn’t push her. It was almost as if he wasn’t really bothered either way, which Katie knew should have set off alarms bells but in contrast she found it oddly reassuring.

  He was so much fun, and a massive contrast to her past experiences with men. She had vowed to herself that no boyfriend of hers was would ever again be a dark, brooding type and Dylan was anything but. In Katie’s experience grumpy men made grumpy boyfriends, and grumpy boyfriends were not fun. From bitter experience she knew just how not fun they were.

  Her mind flashed to Sam. Yes grumpy and broody and mysterious pretty much summed him up she thought, and bloody rude. Katie knew that she talked too much, got too overexcited and was generally a bit of a goof, but there wasn’t really any way to hold it in. Lord knows she tried around Sam. She tried to talk less, not snort when she laughed, not bounce about too much as she was wont to do but it was too hard, her personality was just too much to contain.

  So she endured his obvious disapproval and remained her normal self whilst around him, which fortunately wasn’t much given his commitments in Somalia with Rob’s company. The only slight problem was how desperately attracted she was to him. Despite his foul personality every physical thing about him made her hairs stand on end: his height, his bulk, his thick dark hair and dark eyes, his strong jawline, the way his muscles on his forearms rippled and bunched even when just passing her the salt at Sarah and Rob’s house. Yes, in terms of aesthetics that man was pure perfection.

  She huffed and snuggled in closer to Dylan, annoyed that she had allowed herself to think about that prick again. What was wrong with her? Here she was in bed with an attractive, laid back, funny, great guy and all she could think about were the forearm muscles of a man who clearly detested her.

  Right, no more thinking about Soldier-boy, she told herself furiously. Snuggling into Dylan and kissing his neck for good measure. Dylan sighed in his sleep and pulled her closer, and Katie allowed herself to smile against his chest. Perfect, she thought, this is just perfect, exactly what I need.

  ‘Mmm babes,’ Dylan muttered, obviously still mostly asleep. Katie hadn’t heard him call her babes before and smiled even wider at the endearment, but his next words wiped the smile straight off her face.

  ‘Lou-Lou,’ he breathed, pulling Katie more firmly into his side, ‘My Louey, my babes.’ After that bombshell his breathing evened out again and when he started lightly snoring, Katie felt it safe to roll away. She stared up at the ceiling for what seemed like hours, running all her encounters with Lou and Dylan through her mind.

  Sighing in defeat she began to make a plan.

  Chapter 12

  Twp

  Lou sucked in a breath through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth, searching for control over her temper.

  ‘I said that she has had an NSTEMI and as such we can’t – ‘

  ‘A whatty-what?’ Mr Kent piped up, frowning across the meeting room.

  ‘A non ST elevation myocardial infarction,’ Lou said slowly, staring at Mr Kent in disbelief, as his face remained blank. Did this guy actually go to medical school? And if so how the hell has he managed to wipe his brain clean of any knowledge obtained there? There were more than a few chuckles from the other orthopaedic surgeons in the meeting, and fortunately Lou was saved from repeating herself yet again when ‘Percy’ aka Luke chipped in from the back.

  ‘He’s had a heart attack boss,’ he shouted and Mr Kent’s face cleared of confusion.

  ‘Ah! A dicky ticker is it?’ Mr Kent said. ‘Well I’m sure you chaps and chapesses can sort that out. We’ll hold off on the old chop-chop and bang-bang for the moment. You just give us the go ahead when you’re ready.’ Lou opened her mouth to reply but was cut off, ‘Right, I do so enjoy these little chats but must dash. You can tell Percy here anything else you need to.’ After clapping ‘Percy’ so hard on the back that his tea split onto his trousers, Mr Kent strode out of the meeting room without a second glance. The rest of the room swung their pained eyes back to Lou after he’d left, silently begging her to cut the rest of the presentations short.

  Every two weeks the elderly care team attended the fracture meeting to discuss medical issues of their patients, thus encouraging a ‘joint approach’. In theory Lou supported this as a plan but so be honest most of the time it was like banging your head against a brick wall.

  ‘Okay look,’ she started, crossing her arms over her chest and rolling her eyes when she noticed this had fixated most of the room’s attention below her neck.

  ‘Hello?’ she called, snapping her fingers. ‘Stay focused boys. Eyes up here.’ Some of them had the good grace to look mildly embarrassed but most just sat there smirking. ‘Let’s cut the crap. All I want is for you to stop fluid overloading Mr Jenkins overnight. Leave the fluid balance to me. Just cause he’s not pissing thirty mills an hour doesn’t give you leave to pump him full of normal saline.’ After a few moments of staring at her blankly (most were still focused on her chest) Lou sighed, saying: ‘Right, okay. Lecture over. Off you go back to your power tools.’

  *****

  ‘It’s not that they don’t care babes,’ Dylan said carefully, he wasn’t about to risk their recent truce. ‘They’ve got their skills and you’ve got yours. Maybe it’s just best that we all stick to what we know.’

  Lou sighed and ground to a halt outside the entrance to the ward, turning to Dylan. ‘I understand that Dildo,’ she said, laying her hand on his arm and looking up at him. Since ‘Lou kicking smug wanker arse night’ as it had been christened by Katie (she was still in bewildered awe of Lou after watching her humiliate Miles, who it turned out had thrown a few snide remarks Katie’s way previously) Lou had seemed to soften towards Dylan, and their friendship was nearly back to how it was. This, being what Dylan had been working towards for bloody ages, should have made him happy; instead he felt strangely empty. Somehow friendship with Lou was no longer enough. To be honest it hadn’t been enough since the night he woke up in her bed. In fact, being with Lou and not holding her, kissing her, and doing other things to her (things that his imagination had catalogued in meticulous detail) felt almost painful.

  His efforts to win back Lou’s approval and respect by being in a relationship for a change had backfired bigtime. Although he was now sure that he’d been wildly off base about what he wanted in a woman before (he now knew now that shy and quiet were not for him) and technically Katie, being bubbly, loud, outrageous and cute as a button, should have fit the bill perfectly; the problem remained that she simply wasn’t Lou.

  ‘I understand that Dildo, I promise,’ she continued, dragging him back to the present. ‘And that’s why we share care, but you guys know the basics, you know you do. Sometimes it’s like you’re deliberately trying to blo
ck it out, and the fact is that you’re patients aren’t just a bunch of bones to be hammered together; they’re people with medical conditions and social issues too. There’s no getting around that and you know it.’

  *****

  ‘Urgh,’ Dylan muttered under his breath as he tried to pull Alun up into a sitting position. Christ, this guy was heavy.

  ‘Fuccoff!’ Alun grunted, pushing Dylan away with surprising strength considering the state he was in. ‘Drink!’

  Dylan sighed.

  ‘No wets right now Alun okay? Let’s just try and work out what’s wrong with – ‘

  ‘Twp bugger,’ Alun slurred in between his quick raspy breaths, eyeing Dylan and swatting at him like he was an annoying fly. ‘Lou!’ he shouted.

  Dylan looked up to the ceiling, seeking patience. ‘She’s on her way big man, okay?’ At least he hoped she was, he’d bleeped her enough times.

  Alun snorted from behind his oxygen mask. Things were going south quickly, and Dylan was realizing that he had lost control of the situation. He had no other choice.

  He turned to the ward sister, who was looking increasingly concerned at the unfolding disaster before her. ‘Fast bleep Miles,’ he told her and saw a look of relief flash across her face. He clenched his jaw. The last thing he wanted was for that smug bastard to see him floundering like this but he didn’t know what else to do short of putting out an arrest call, and seeing as Alun was still very much alive, that would make him look even more of an idiot.

  Dylan had started the rehab ward round without Lou She’d told him she would be late today; there was some reason that he couldn’t quite remember. As soon as he arrived he was dragged over to a gasping Alun. The problem was Dylan didn’t have the first clue why Alun was fighting for breath. His temperature wasn’t high (if anything it was low) and there were no signs of pneumonia or fluid overload. He hadn’t aspirated. His chest was clear.