Lonely

Excerpt

Lynton Brooke crouched down with his arm around the shoulders of his patient's owner. The ginger cat lay in her arms, drip tubing snaking back from his paw into the cage in the ICU. Lynton had just euthanized the patient and now listened as unobtrusively as he could for a fading heartbeat while Charlie's owner wept.

"He's gone now," he said softly, tightening his arm, trying to communicate comfort as best he could.

She nodded, kissing the cat on his head, swiping tears away with one hand.

"Shall I give you a few minutes?"

"Yes."

Lynton stood up, legs cramping. He disposed of his syringe and threw his gloves away before washing his hands. Then he stepped outside into the corridor and leaned against the wall. Fuck, he loved his job, but he loathed this part of it. Of course it was right to end suffering but how to comfort the devastated owner left behind after ten, fifteen, twenty years of loving their pet? This time it had been eighteen. After a full life, Charlie had succumbed to renal failure, as most elderly cats did.

He walked on down to the staff room and took a drink of water from the cooler to wash away the lump in his throat. It didn't get easier and he should have been grateful for that. When he did euthanize an animal without feeling deep regret, it would be time to retire. He sighed, allowed himself to sink into a chair. A couple of minutes was all he had; there were plenty of patients in the waiting room.

Lynton was married to his job. It had always been that way since he'd qualified as a vet: five twelve-hour shifts a week and not a lot of energy left over to devote to his personal life. What personal life? Lynton liked men but didn't often get the opportunity to be with one. After taking this job in Montpelier, Vermont, he'd left his parents and school friends behind in Seattle and traded in relationships for work. Now his only friends were work colleagues and he doubted any of them would want to cruise the gay bars with him.

He guessed he'd made his bed and had to lie in it, but lying alone night after night slowly became soul-destroying.

The door burst open, startling him from his maudlin thoughts. Head nurse Christina Buckley shouted at him.

"Just got an emergency from the parking lot. Dog versus car. You need to come. Exam room four."

"All right." Lynton was calm and collected and didn't speak a whole lot. He never lost it in a crisis. He never shouted and bawled for equipment during a resuscitation attempt. He never showed anything but ultimate respect for his colleagues. He knew what they thought about him. Solid, dependable, a wealth of knowledge. What he thought about himself was lonely, working his life away, tired, sick at heart. He stood and threw his cup into the waste basket before he followed Christina out.

He heard a dog whining and soft sobs as he pushed open the door to exam room four. A man sat in the corner, a fully-grown German Shepherd lying somehow over his knees.

Lynton's first professional glance took in the patient; in shock, whimpering in pain, dripping blood onto the floor from beneath a towel that the owner held to his right back leg and multiple abrasions to the rest of his body.

His second, less professional, glance took in the owner as he looked up. A man in his early thirties, he might have been red-eyed and tear-streaked but it barely detracted from a startling beauty--grey eyes and short dark hair, an exquisite, achingly beautiful face.

Lynton tried to jerk his thoughts away, concentrate on his job and the immediate treatment this patient needed.

"Good morning, I'm Dr Brooke, Mr..." He glanced down at his chart.

"Bale. Austin Bale." The man's voice trembled. "I just... looked away for a minute. He ran into the road. I couldn't..."

"All right, bring him over to the exam table."

Austin lifted the dog with difficulty and the dog moaned his protests as he was placed onto the table. Lynton stood on the opposite side to the owner.

"What's his name?" He started his top-to-toe exam, shining his torch in the dog's eyes, looking in his ears for blood and opening his mouth to note the pale colour of the gums. The dog was in serious shock. He couldn't waste much time on this.

"Rupert." Austin stroked his dog, his blood-stained hand colliding with Lynton's. "Sorry."

Lynton moved down to the injured leg. Austin drew the towel away and revealed a compound fracture of the femur.

"Okay, I need to take him through, give him some fluids and stabilise him. Tomorrow we can do surgery on this. Put a pin in the femur, close it up. It's a big operation, but we can do it." He waited a moment. All owners always agreed immediately, then some started worrying about the money. Austin wore a faded black T-shirt, jeans, and cheap sneakers. Lynton doubted he had any cash to speak of.

"Yes, yes," Austin said hurriedly as Lynton scooped Rupert up.

"Wait in the waiting room and when he's stable and I've taken an X-ray, I'll come out and have a chat with you."

Austin followed him to the door, opening it for him. They tangled uncomfortably in the doorway as Austin lowered his head to give Rupert a kiss. "I'll be here, sweet boy." Lynton's nostrils twitched. Austin smelled good. His body was lean and compact, a couple of inches shorter than Lynton's. It made his prick respond surprisingly fast.

"I'll see you shortly." Lynton carried Rupert away and pushed open the door to the resuscitation room, glancing back once at the loitering Austin. Christ, he was something else.

"Can I have some help here?" He laid Rupert down on a table. "I need a cannula in him and an iodine soak for this leg."

Christina descended on Rupert, shaver in hand, working on his foreleg, while another nurse went for dressings. Dr Toby Thomas wandered over, petting Rupert, who lay there limply, huge resigned eyes rolling from one person to another.

"He's a lovely dog," he remarked.

"Yeah, he is," Lynton replied. You should see his owner. Even now, his blood tingled with the memory of Austin. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so strongly drawn to someone at first sight. The feeling both excited and dismayed him. Austin was a client. His patient's owner. Austin was distraught, hardly in the frame of mind to notice his vet giving him the eye.

He shook himself out of it. The cannula was in; he ordered the drip and then groaned at the dog's blood pressure. "Okay, open it full. When it comes up, we'll take him to X-ray. Shouldn't need to sedate him." He watched Rupert's injured leg being bandaged. He hoped the dog didn't die.

* * * *

"Mr Bale."

Austin sat in the waiting room with his head lowered between his knees, as though controlling the urge to vomit. His head jerked up. His tears were dry but his pale face was blotchy with crying. "Austin," he said, standing.

"All right Austin, call me Lynton. Come through with me."

Austin followed Lynton to his office, where he had left the X-rays on the lightbox. He flicked off the main lights and gestured for Austin to stand next to him.

"Okay, so here's Rupert's injured leg. Here's the femur, the main bone of the back leg, equating to our thigh bone. The fracture's a nice simple one, a clean break across the shaft. Apart from the fact that it's open of course, one end of the bone penetrating the skin. The risk of infection is great, but we've got him on antibiotics and fluids. His blood pressure's come up and I'm hoping he'll be fit to go under anaesthetic tomorrow. After the pin is placed, he'll have a cast on and then it's a long road to recovery, with physical therapy."

Austin nodded. He bit his lip, staring at the X-rays.

"Any questions?"

Austin's swollen grey eyes slid to his. Here it came.

"Yeah, I..." He flushed, fidgeted. "I hate to have to ask this but..."

"How much will it cost?"

"Yeah."

"Somewhere in the region of seventeen hundred dollars. Excluding follow up care and physical therapy."

Austin's grey eyes remained on his for the longest moment. Then he sighed, sank into a chair, and put his head in his hands. "I haven't got that sort of money."

Lynton waited patiently. He had seen all this before. He had seen perfectly healthy animals euthanized because their owners couldn't afford to treat them and it broke his heart every time. It was a crime how much veterinary treatment cost, he knew that. But he also knew that a smart owner took out insurance for their pet. He didn't need to ask if Austin had it.

Austin looked up at him with fresh tears dewing those soft grey eyes. "What am I going to do?"

"We'll keep him here and let you work on it until tomorrow. Perhaps friends, your parents..."

Austin shook his head. "I don't have anybody."

Austin's plight moved him no less than anyone else's did. Lynton felt for him. He felt like offering him the money himself, as he always did, but if he had done this for everybody who had ever needed help, he himself would have been bankrupted and living in a cardboard box by now.

"Do you do a..." Austin stumbled over his words. "Payment plan?"

"You'd have to speak to reception. I think they do something, but you'd have to put down twenty-five percent to start with. Something like that."

"I haven't got that." Tears rolled down Austin's pale cheeks. "What am I going to do? I've had Rupert five years. I don't have anybody else but him. I can't lose him, he's everything to me. Everything."

"I understand." Lynton pulled a tissue from the box on his desk and handed it over. He clamped his jaws together so his treacherous mouth didn't offer Austin the money. No. Be professional. A pretty face doesn't get you offering money to a complete stranger.

"All I can say is, go home and think about it. Give me a call later in the day."

Austin stared up at him. He swiped at his eyes with the tissue. Nothing is going to change, his gaze told Lynton. I can think about it until the cows come home and that money isn't going to just appear.

Austin stood. "Thank you for your time, Doctor." He held out his hand.

"Lynton, please." Lynton shook it. Their gazes caught and held for the longest while before Austin pulled his hand free and strode to the door.

Lynton sighed. He switched off the lightbox and pulled the X-rays down before he left his office to go to the ICU. Rupert was curled inside his cage, looking mournfully up with big brown eyes as Lynton knelt before him.

He opened the door and petted him. "Hey boy, how are you doing?" Rupert nuzzled his hand weakly. "You're a good dog. It's going to be okay." He shouldn't make such promises. Austin wasn't going to find that money unless he robbed a bank.

This time tomorrow, Rupert would be dead.

* * * *

Lynton's shift finished at eight but he didn't leave until nine that night. This was usual for him. Sometimes he got the time back if the hospital was quiet. A quiet day was rarer than hen's teeth. He changed into jeans and T-shirt, threw his scrubs into a linen basket, and found his bag and car keys. His lunch sat uneaten in a Tupperware dish. He guessed he would eat it for dinner when he got home.

He walked across the dark parking lot and unlocked his car with the remote. As he stowed his jacket and bag on the back seat and opened the driver's door, a sudden rustle behind him made him start.

He swung around to see Austin Bale standing behind him.

"Jesus Christ, what are you doing?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." Austin looked no less pale and red-eyed than twelve hours previously.

"What do you want?"

"I've thought of the only way I can do this."

Lynton felt both relieved and wary. "Go on."

"If you do it for free, you can... have me. For one night."

Lynton's eyes must have bulged. He almost laughed with nerves. "I'm sorry?"

Austin went on undeterred, earnest. "Come on, I know you like me. That much is obvious. I'll do whatever you want. Anything and I mean anything. I'll sleep with you every night for a week if you want. A month. A year. The rest of your life. I'll do anything. Only please..." Austin's voice broke. "Please save my dog."

Lynton's mind whirled with X-rated scenarios. Here was a new one. Never yet had someone offered their body as payment. But Austin wasn't stupid. He offered the only thing Lynton would be interested in. Nonetheless, he laughed. "Come on, behave yourself."