Page 72 of Broken Heart Syndrome
‘I’ll just …’ Frankie jerked her thumb in the direction of the corner she’d come from. ‘… be off then. See you around, Nat.’
‘Call me,’ Natalie cried out to Frankie’s rapidly retreating back. ‘She is so lovely,’ she said to Tom, whose only response was to clench his jaw and signal the barman over.
He realized that Ash had overheard the exchange with Frankie when he saw him leaning against the bar in front of him. He looked utterly disgusted with Tom.
‘ “Against stupidity, Allah himself is helpless.” ’
Tom closed his eyes, trying to ignore Ash’s effective parting shot.
Chapter 27
Although she be little, she be fierce –Shakespeare
As Tom watched her approach, a shaft of what felt uncomfortably like fear went through him, but he told himself not to be such a pussy. To be fair, the way she was striding through CCU on those sky-high heels, with a murderous look on her face, her blonde hair flying out behind her, she did look like some sort of avenging angel.
She pushed through his team and the nurses, and stopped in front of him, right in his personal space, putting both her hands on her hips. Tom knew then that he was really in trouble: one hand on the hip usually signifies an annoyed or slightly irritated woman; both hands, and they’re more often than not straight-out furious.
It was Christmas day. Tom was on call and had to do the ward round of CCU before heading off to his mum’s to hopefully catch Christmas lunch. He knew that Lou was the medical registrar on call, which meant she would be spending the whole day in the hospital.
Since he was in no way in charge of the medical rota, he wasn’t sure why Lou was so furious with him. Granted, he knew he hadn’t been her favourite person for the last few weeks since Frankie dumped him (which, seeing as he was the injured party, he thought was grossly unfair) but he didn’t think he deserved this level of fury.
‘Where is Frankie?’ she spat at him. Tom’s eyebrows shot up and he crossed his arms in front of his chest.
‘What’s this now?’ he asked, careful to keep his toned bored and disinterested, so it wouldn’t betray how his stomach clenched at the sound of her name.
Lou narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Is she or is she not having dinner with your family?’
Tom’s brows drew together. ‘What are you on about?’ If one thing was certain, it was that Frankie would definitely not be welcome at his parents’ house.
His family had seen first-hand how heartbroken Tom had been since things had ended with her. He was close to them, and didn’t have to hide the way he felt to save face. They were not currently her biggest fans. His mum in particular felt that Frankie had tricked them into believing she was something she was not. She’d liked Frankie so much that Tom knew that she herself had felt hurt by the rejection.
Lou sighed and dropped her hands to her sides, her expression going from angry to worried.
‘Fine, look, don’t worry about it,’ she muttered distractedly, dropping her eyes from his and turning to go. Tom wished he could just shrug and forget it, but something stopped him from being able to. He caught her arm and she looked back up at him.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Like you care,’ Lou snapped, back to angry, and wrenching her arm away from him.
‘Sheended things withme, Lou,’ he said quietly.
She rolled her eyes. ‘Well,you,’ she said, poking him in the chest with her finger (complete with perfectly manicured, sharp nail), ‘should have grown a backbone and put’ – poke – ‘up’ – poke – ‘a fucking’ – poke – ‘fight,’ – double poke. She thankfully dropped her poking finger and glared at him whilst he rubbed his chest. Damn, that smarted; he’d probably have a bruise. He was losing patience with this tyrant and he wanted to get back to why she was so worried about Frankie.
‘Tell me what’s going on, Lou. We can do this the easy way or the hard way,’ he said in a firm tone.
‘Ha!’ she snorted. ‘You sound like something out of a bad western. I could squash you like a bug, Longley, and don’t you forget it.’ Tom let out a short bark of laughter, looking down at this relatively small woman (despite her heels). As if she could pose any type of threat to him.
‘Okay, blondie, whatever you reckon … arghh!’ He started hopping on one foot, clasping the other with both hands. ‘Jesus! Are you insane! You’ve broken my foot.’ Who knew that one of those spike heels with Lou’s full weight behind it could be so painful. ‘You’ve nearly gone through the bloody leather. These are my favourite shoes.’
He could hear the sniggers of his team and the nurses around him, and straightened as he realized a girl had just bested him.
‘Don’t be such a baby,’ Lou said dismissively. ‘And those shoes have seen better days anyway. I don’t know why you insist on dressing like tramp.’
The sniggering bastards around them were getting louder. Some (like Ash) even had the balls to outright laugh at him. He decided that sparring with Lou in front of an audience was getting him nowhere. Taking her arm, he led her out of the ward into the deserted corridor. Unfortunately he was limping, which seemed to amuse everyone all the more.
‘Right,’ he said, trying to strike a vaguely threatening pose, which was tricky when balancing on one foot. ‘Tell me what’s going on, right fucking now.’
‘Look, it’s nothing for you to worry about,’ she said, fluttering her hands at him as if to shoo him back into the ward. ‘I just wanted to know where Frankie is today. She told me she was spending Christmas with Dylan’s family but I phoned him to check (because she’s not answering her mobile to me), and he said she told them she was spending it with Gio and Gabriella. So I phoned them, and they said she was spending it with your family.’
