Free Handle With Care by Josephine Myles Page A

back but kept running my gaze over his face, trying to convince myself that this was real. That Ollie was here. That he was my…boyfriend?
    I felt the smile start deep inside me, blotting out the pain as it rose up towards my face.
    “Are you all right?” he asked me. “What happened? I was so worried, I couldn’t sleep last night.”
    “ You were worried?” I wanted to say, but my voice cracked. Then Ollie was holding that tiny little plastic cup up to my lips, and I gulped down my water ration. It was sweet, but not as sweet as Ollie’s mouth.
    I started laughing. God, that hurt. Tears ran out of my eyes, but it was almost impossible to stop. Eventually I wheezed to a halt, and the tearing on my stitches eased. I clicked my morphine button in the hope of some more being sent down the drip feed.
    Ollie looked at me like I was certifiable. My gaze drifted up to his hair.
    “She said you were a redhead called Brian. I thought I must have had amnesia.” It was the most words I’d said in one go since the surgery. That water must have really helped. Or maybe it was just the joy of having Ollie here, alive and whole.
    “Oh yeah. Uh, about that…” Ollie flushed, his face almost matching the vibrant crimson of his new dye-job. “My mates all call me Ollie after the skateboarding trick. I was never that keen on my real name, so I use it all the time now. Only my mum ever calls me Brian.”
    “You must be good.” Ollie gave me a puzzled look. “At skating.”
    He dropped his eyes and shook his head. When he looked back up, there was a softness in his expression that made me want to kiss him all over again.
    Shame I was in too much pain to sit up that far.
    “Nah, I’ve got the energy but not the precision. Took me a whole summer holiday to get the hang of an ollie, and I still bollocks it up half the time. That’s why they called me it, you know? Just taking the piss, like mates do.”
    I was going to have to admit my ignorance. “What’s an ollie?”
    Ollie enthused. “It’s like, the foundation of most other tricks, but it’s bloody hard to learn. You basically start on the ground and make the board jump. That bit’s tricky enough, but then you’ve gotta land without falling off. I’ll show you sometime, when you’re out of here.”
    I had to mentally readjust my vision of Ollie as a skateboarding pro.
    Something about the idea of him getting back onto the board after all those falls really appealed to me, though. His persistence was endearing. I could definitely learn something from him.
    “I thought you were dead,” I told him.
    “Why on earth would you think that? I thought you’d been abducted by aliens or something, just taking off like that and not even leaving a note.”
    “I did! With Mrs. F. You know, the gnome lady.”
    “I didn’t see her.” Ollie frowned, and I wanted to wipe the furrow from his brow, but my hand was still too sodding weak to attempt it.
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    “So, go on, then. What’s the story? They wouldn’t tell me when I phoned up, but this is the transplant ward, right?”
    “Yeah. I had a new kidney and pancreas put in.” I frowned at him, remembering. “That bitch! I can’t believe she didn’t give you the note.”
    “She’d probably just had to pop out or something. I’m sure if she’d been in, she’d have heard me pounding on the door and seen me peering in through all your windows.”
    “She’d probably have phoned the police if she had. Bloody busybody.”
    Ollie frowned at me. “I’m sure she means well enough.”
    I decided I didn’t want to tell him about Mrs. Felpersham’s homophobia right now. Let him think the best of everyone if it made him happy. He’d learn soon enough.
    “How did you find me in the end?” I asked, changing the subject.
    “I didn’t think you’d have stood me up, so I was pretty worried. Thought maybe you’d had another attack. Phoned round all the A&E departments I could think of. It wasn’t till this morning I