Page 46 of Hard Tail
“Hi!” I said brightly, bounding into Jay’s room, nervous excitement giving me wings no energy drink could match. “How are you? Feeling any better today?”
Jay looked up from the mountain bike magazine he was leafing through. “I’m all right. You look like you’ve had a bit too much caffeine, though. Either that or you’ve been nicking my drugs.”
“I’m fine!” I said a bit too loudly. “Um. Have you seen Matt?” I mentally crossed my fingers. Surely if Matt had been in to spill the beans, Jay would have mentioned it straight away?
“Yeah—he came in last night.” Jay grinned. “Bit of an interesting visit.”
Oh, bugger. “Really?” I squawked.
“You got a sore throat or something? Yeah, he had to wait until Mum went home, though.” Jay laughed. “He told me all about you—I can’t believe it!”
I swallowed. “Um…”
“Showing this kind of stuff to kids! You can get in trouble for that, you know!” He turned the bike mag around to show me the magazine he’d concealed inside, and with a sense of relief so profound I nearly collapsed under the force of it, I recognised Samantha, age twenty-three, who apparently liked dancing and looking after the elderly. Although hopefully with a few more clothes on than she was wearing in this particular picture.
“Oh, that!” I froze, hoping I hadn’t given myself away, then realised standing there gaping like a dead fish wasn’t exactly going to allay suspicion. “That was entirely unintentional,” I finished hurriedly.
“Should bloody well hope so. Now, how’s the shop going? Really—I mean, takings and stuff.”
Pleased to get back to my area of expertise, I gave him a quick run-down, making it even quicker when I realised his eyes were starting to glaze over. “So in summary, takings are up on the last few weeks, but I assume that’s just seasonal. Oh, and I signed you up to a local business directory, and I’ve been thinking about promotions—there’s no reason why we can’t spread the servicing work out over the year a bit more, and it’d be good to attract some new customers…” I noticed Jay wasn’t exactly looking overjoyed. “What? I thought you’d be pleased I wasn’t running the business into the ground.”
“Yeah, but…” Jay waved at Frankenstein’s leg. “Just feeling a bit useless, that’s all.”
“Don’t worry,” I said with false heartiness. “You’ll be back on your feet in no time.”
Jay brightened a bit. “Have been already, actually, although they told me I won’t be able to go home for a while yet.” He grinned. “Although I reckon it might be just the hospital trying to get as much money as they can out of the insurers.”
“Well, if your doctors are telling you to stay in hospital, I think you should listen to them,” I said piously, mentally crossing my fingers Jay wouldn’t realise there was an element of self-interest there. “So how did the walking go, anyway?”
“Oh, you know. Stiff, painful—but it was good to get off the bloody bed for a bit.”
I gave him a look. “Never thought I’d see you desperate to get out of bed. Usually it’s the other way around.”
“Tell you what, I’m getting desperate for a bit of that too. Olivia couldn’t make it in to see me yesterday.”
“Are you telling me you and Olivia have been…here? In the hospital? With your leg like that?” I boggled. “Didn’t it, well, hurt? Come to that, is it even possible with all that scaffolding screwed on?”
Jay leered. “Trust me, Olivia’s a very inventive girl.”
Maybe my mental image of her as the Ice Maiden was a lot further from the truth than I’d thought.
