by Lisa Henry
Hayden was more than that, wasn’t he? More than a footnote in someone else’s life? More than an anecdote: Did you hear what happened to our neighbour?
He rubbed the heel of his hand over his eyes.
Of course he mattered to people.
To Kate and Jimmy.
To Monique, who would at least notice if the rent wasn’t paid.
And people liked Hayden. He was likeable. He was popular. He was the life of the fucking party. But he didn’t have a large circle of close friends. He didn’t have anyone who badgered him about the unimportant shit in their lives after a horrible shift.
It was a strange thing to be jealous of.
Thoughts like these were night time’s specialty, weren’t they? Dark and insidious, but the sunlight killed them. Hayden just needed a good night’s sleep, provided he could trust himself to close his eyes.
It was midnight, and he hadn’t even looked over his lesson plan for tomorrow. Not that he needed to—Hayden knew that shit backwards. Then, tomorrow night, he had Heather’s birthday dinner. Hayden had been invited because somewhere along the way he’d been unofficially adopted by Kate and Jimmy, and he got corralled into all their family events.
And then he had a weekend off, and he’d hit the club again and find someone to hook up with. Finally work this restlessness out of his system with a good hard fuck.
He thought about Constable Matt Deakin, and that tattoo that climbed up his arm, and the way it drew Hayden’s gaze unerringly every damn time. He thought about how the muscles in Deakin’s forearms had corded when he’d put his hands on Hayden’s car that night and leaned in. The guy was an arrogant dick, but, well, Hayden would by lying to himself if he didn’t find him hotter for it. Hotter in an ‘I want to suck this guy’s brains out through his dick and make him beg for mercy’ sort of way.
Hayden slid his hand under the loose elastic waistband of his track pants and rubbed his fingers over his abdomen, teasing himself by not going any lower.
Yeah.
Matt Deakin and that tattoo, and that stoic façade Hayden would like to put a few cracks in.
The fantasy burst like a bubble as guilt flashed through him. He’d called Deakin Constable Dickhead, and he’d heard. Fuck. It had been dumb, and unprofessional, and even if Deakin didn’t report it—he wouldn’t, right? His mates, if he had any, would talk him out of it. The rest of the coppers loved Hayden—Hayden felt like shit for saying it. Because Deakin was a dickhead, but it was hard for Hayden to take the moral high ground when he’d thrown the word out there like a playground insult.
He withdrew his hand from his pants and reached for the remote control again.
Fuck his life, and fuck Masterchef.
He turned the television off and went to bed.
CHAPTER
FOUR
On Friday morning Matt turned up at the academy at a quarter to eight for his First Aid refresher course. The academy fronted Rowes Bay. It had a caravan park on one side of it, and a kindergarten on the other. Matt had vivid memories of his time at the academy: the kindergarten kids hanging over the fence watching him and the other recruits on the obstacle course get yelled at by the ex-military trainer who’d really had to curtail his language because of their audience.
“Get over the wall, you—you lazy person!”
He wondered if the recruits were still invited to the kindy kids’ graduation, and vice versa.
There was a group of people waiting outside one of the classrooms. He knew most of the faces, but there were a few strangers from outlying country stations. Matt wandered up and joined the group. It felt strange not to be connected at the hip with Sean, but Sean’s First Aid and CPR certifications were all up to date, and today he was flying solo. Well, he was doing paperwork at the station where he couldn’t get into too much trouble on his own.
This was probably what parents felt like on their kid’s first day at school.
“I hope we’re out of here by lunch,” Dave said.
The best thing about training days was the promise of an early knock off.
“I hope we don’t get the same woman as last year,” Helen said. “I had to do the whole course, and we were here until five. At least I’m only here for CPR this time.”
Matt was only half-listening. He was looking out at Rowes Bay, and watching the way the water gleamed in the sunlight. It was mesmerizing, but that might have been just because it was morning, and Matt was not enough of a morning person to be awake yet.
“Fingers crossed we get Hayden,” Dave said.
Matt twisted his head around. “Hayden?”
He shouldn’t have bothered asking. How many Haydens were there in the local Ambulance Service?
“Hayden the ambo,” Dave confirmed. “You’ve met him, haven’t you?”
“Once or twice,” Matt said, hoping his face didn’t show what he really thought.
“Yeah, he’s alright,” Dave said. “If we get Hayden we’ll be out of here by two.”
Matt didn’t care if they were here until midnight. He would have preferred anyone but Hayden.
But of course it was hot, arrogant Hayden who waltzed through the door at eight sharp with a smile on his face and a bag of red frogs big enough to share with the entire class. Matt, slouching in a seat toward the back of the room, was glad he’d been given the heads up before Hayden arrived. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to school his expression into something approaching neutral otherwise.
“Hey. Is Constable Dickhead still inside?”
Fuck Hayden Kinsella.
“Hi, everyone,” Hayden said, leaning against the desk at the front of the room. “I think I’ve met most of you before.” His smile faltered as his gaze settled briefly on Matt. “I’m Hayden, I’m a paramedic here in Townsville, and I’ll be taking you through your First Aid certification today. We’ll do the CPR component first, and let you guys get straight back to work.”
The smile on his face and the tone of his voice said he knew full well that none of them would be heading back to their stations after this.
There was something very distracting about Hayden’s smile, Matt thought, pretending he hadn’t noticed it. It was a nice smile, a cheeky smile, though it lost its warmth when it was turned in Matt’s direction. Sitting in a classroom for the rest of the day while Hayden held the floor was going to be an exercise in patience.
“And, as for the rest of you,” Hayden continued, “if we push through lunch, I think we can be out of here by one.”
That got a murmur of approval from the room.
“Okay,” Hayden said. “Let’s open up at the chapter on CPR and get started.”
Hayden the teacher was a very different man from Hayden the ambo. And both of them had nothing in common with Hayden the impromptu lap dancer—an image Matt was having difficulty getting out of his head.
Apparently what everyone said was true: Hayden Kinsella was fun. He was fun, and he was friendly, and he’d decided to hate Matt over a stupid fucking speeding ticket. When Matt had seen him straighten up in the back of the ambulance, his gorgeous smile vanishing in an instant, Matt had felt the sting. It had been as though a door had been slammed in his face. Everyone was invited to the party except Matt. Constable Dickhead. It shouldn’t have rankled, but it did. It was Hayden’s problem, not Matt’s, but it didn’t stop him from feeling excluded.
Of course it didn’t help that Hayden was so hot. That was the metaphorical kick in the balls that followed up the figurative slap in the face of the whole Constable Dickhead thing, wasn’t it? Just the shitty icing on the cake.
Matt, caught up thinking about how nice Hayden’s ass had looked as he’d waved it around in the back of the ambulance, realized a fraction too late that the man himself had asked him a question. And, from the way everyone was staring at him, he’d already taken too long to answer.
“Sorry, what?” he managed.
“Breaths and compressions,” Hayden said. “How many?”
“Two breaths and thirty compressions.” Lucky he had his book open at the right page.
“Exactly.” Hayden looked around the room. “Although, new research suggests that the breaths themselves aren’t necessary. If you do the compressions properly, air will get drawn into the lungs anyway, providing there are no obstructions. We’re still teaching it with breaths, but it will probably change in a few years.”
Matt studied his book and tried to appear interested.
“Handy to know,” Hayden said, “if you really don’t want to get that up close and personal with someone.”
Matt glanced up in time to see Hayden catch his gaze, and couldn’t decide it was an insult or not.
“Who wants to put their mouth on someone with weeping sores and pus?” Hayden said, his lips quirking in a smile.
Matt couldn’t stop looking at Hayden’s lips. Nothing disgusting about them. They were perfectly shaped. Matt couldn’t decide if he wanted to run his tongue over that full lower lip, or follow the delicate arch of the Cupid’s bow instead. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and stared fixedly at the page in front of him until the words blurred.
“We tell people that they don’t have to perform First Aid or CPR if they don’t want to,” Hayden continued, “but obviously that doesn’t apply to anyone in this room, because you have a duty of care. You guys on the road carry masks? I don’t need to tell you that the last thing you need is to end up with a communicable disease from trying to save someone’s life.”
A murmur of agreement filled the room.
“Okay,” Hayden said. “Get into pairs, and let’s break out the dummies.”
Matt rose from his seat and crossed the room. He found himself partnered up with Tina from admin. Together they wrestled a plastic torso from its bag and laid it on the floor. Hayden, walking around the various groups, passed out mouthpieces and demonstrated how to correctly insert the plastic bags that would function as the dummy’s lungs.
“You guys start when you’re ready, and I’ll come around, see how you’re going, and ask questions,” Hayden said. “Talk it out loud.”
It always felt a bit stupid, looking around for danger on a classroom floor, and then reaching for a non-existent hand.
“Can you hear me?” Tina asked the dummy in a bored voice. “Open your eyes. What’s your name?” Then she winkled up her nose. “Shit.”
“Airways,” Matt reminded her, flashing her a quick smile.
“Right,” she said gratefully. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I did the questions in the back of the book in the car park this morning. I copied off Dave. I hope he didn’t get any of them wrong!”
Everyone had to do First Aid, but some of them were less likely to need it than others, so Matt prompted Tina with whispers whenever she got stuck, and soon Hayden tapped her on the shoulder to say she’d passed.
She leaned back on her knees, her face flushed, and helped Matt prepare the dummy for his turn.
Matt ran though the scenario aloud, conscious of Hayden standing behind him and watching closely. Too closely for comfort, truth be told, but any faint arousal he’d felt staring at Hayden’s mouth before vanished. CPR was hard work. The dummy’s chest rose and fell under his compressions: thock, thock, thock. If only it was so easy to judge on people when you hit the right spot.
Two breaths, thirty compressions.
Stop, check for pulse. Start again.
Two breaths. Thirty compressions. Matt counted them in his head: twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight—
“You broke a rib,” Hayden said suddenly. “What do you do?”
“Reposition and keep going,” Matt replied, glancing up at him.
Hayden watched as he slid his hands up the dummy’s sternum. “Until?”
“Until the ambos take over, a medical professional tells me to stop, or I can’t physically continue,” Matt said, continuing the compressions.
“Okay, the ambos take over, you can stop,” Hayden said, and moved on to the next pair.
Matt leaned back. His thighs were aching. He reached down to remove the dummy’s lower face, carefully drawing out the plastic bag lungs.
He’d expected Hayden to take the opportunity to punish him by telling him to keep going, and was grateful for the unexpected show of mercy. He rose to his feet and stretched, and handed the dummy over to the next pair. Sliding back into his seat, he watched Hayden for a moment, then worried he looked too obvious about it, and flipped through his book instead.
Maybe he’d judged Hayden too harshly. Maybe he wasn’t as hostile at he’d originally thought. He’d gone fairly easy on Matt and Tina after all. It was Dave he was torturing.
Matt tore his gaze away from Hayden and stared at pictures of spider bites instead.
Probably safer.
For lunch, Matt found himself heading to the nearby fish and chip shop with one of the coppers from out of town. Matt’s local knowledge saved him from getting McDonald’s, and they introduced themselves on the short walk to the fish and chip shop. Gio Valeri was a senior constable from Richmond—Matt felt a jolt of recognition at the name and wondered why he hadn’t placed the guy before. He’d seen his picture in the media enough times.
“You like it out there?” Matt asked as they waited for their steak burgers to get cooked.
Gio’s mouth quirked, and he ducked his head. “It’s grown on me.”
There’s a story there, Matt thought, but he didn’t know the guy well enough to ask.
There were only seven of them left after their short lunch break, and seven did not divide into pairs. Tina from admin had finished her CPR component and left, leaving Matt with no partner when it came to the practical section of the First Aid stuff: bandages and slings.
“Right,” Hayden said, and beckoned him forward. “I’ll do you.”
Someone at the other end of the room whistled. Dave, that arsehole.
Hayden rolled his eyes and threw a red frog at Dave, and Matt saw a smudge on the pale skin of his inner wrist that looked like a bruise. No, it was the entry stamp for a club—of course Hayden Kinsella was a party boy—and he hadn’t been able to scrub it all off before work. And no. Matt didn’t need to think about Hayden showering either.
He stared at the wall and tried to ignore how close Hayden was as he used Matt to show the class the proper technique in applying an elevated arm sling. In real life he’d be in excruciating pain but even playing pretend this shouldn’t have felt this nice or as strangely intimate.
He tried not to react as Hayden took his hand and pressed it carefully up towards his collar. His first instinct was to pull away from the touch. His second was to press into it. And he castigated himself silently for both while he tried to keep his face impassive.
Hayden leaned in while he knotted the sling on Matt’s shoulder, and Matt could smell his aftershave. He could also feel the warmth rising off Hayden’s body, and turned his head slightly so that he could watch Hayden’s face as the man’s gaze was on the sling. Just learning from the expert.
Hayden quirked his lips as his long slender fingers knotted the bandage, and Matt’s heart beat a little faster. He hoped to hell that would be his only physical reaction to Hayden’s close proximity.
Hayden slid his hand gently back down Matt’s bandaged arm. He took the end of the bandage in his hand and twisted between his fingers until it tightened, and then tucked the end in behind Matt’s elbow. Their gazes met and held, and Matt’s stomach clenched when Hayden’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“And it’s that simple,” Hayden said abruptly, turning back to the room. “Now, who can show me a collar and cuff sling?”
Matt unwound the bandage and tried not to stare at Hayden’s arse.
Constable Dickhead, remember?
Hayden was an arsehole, and Matt really, really needed a drink tonight.
Training was finished by two. Matt walked out of the classroom with Gio, heading toward the gate. There was yelling from the oval, and a moment
later a group of recruits swept into view, and then out of it again as they continued their circuit.
“I don’t miss that at all,” Gio said.
“Hell no.” Matt tugged his mouth down into a sympathetic grimace. “Hey, listen, my team’s meeting up for drinks tonight. If you’re stuck in town with nothing to do, you’re welcome to join us.”
“Thanks,” Gio said, and glanced at his watch. “But I’m heading back this arvo.”
“That’s a long drive.”
“It’s not too bad.” Gio’s phone chirped an alert, and he pulled it out of his pocket. He squinted at the screen, snorted, and then shook his head. “Sorry. My boss’s kid wants me to get him Subway for dinner tonight and reckons it’ll still be good after a five and a half hour drive.”
Matt wrinkled his nose.
“Thanks for the offer though,” Gio said, and his smile seemed genuine. “It was nice meeting you.”
“You too. Drive safe.”
Gio’s phone began to ring as he walked toward his car, and he answered it. “Taylor. Why aren’t you at school? No, I’m not at Subway. Put your dad on.”
Matt watched him go. What would it feel like to kill someone? He shook the thought off, disgusted by it. More like, what would it feel like to have everyone wonder the same fucking thing when they looked at you? All that scrutiny and speculation. No wonder Gio wasn’t going to rearrange his schedule just so he could go out drinking with a bunch of people he didn’t know. Who could blame him?
Matt didn’t ever want to find himself in a scenario where he had to shoot someone.
He walked to his car, boots crunching through the gravel. He unlocked his car, and opened the door and tossed his first aid book on the passenger seat. Then he turned the ignition on and checked his phone for messages in the blast of the air conditioning. He had a message from Linda and one from Sean, both checking he was still coming for drinks tonight.
Hell yes, he was. After a day spent in Hayden Kinsella’s company, Matt deserved a drink. He sent both of them back a text confirming he’d be there at seven, and then set his phone aside as he prepared to pull out onto the road.
