Chapter 7

A couple of hours or so later, I walked to the entrance with Dee pushing Zoe in a wheelchair beside me. Dee had found her a Tee-shirt and a set of scrubs to wear, and her arm was in a sling. They had wanted her to stay the night, but she didn’t want to. I’d offered to look after her, and Jose was happy with the idea.

I found my car where Mike had parked it. He’d taken the time to wipe down any blood that had splattered the interior. It wasn’t as much as I’d feared, I’d done a reasonable job of controlling the bleeding, and the bar towels had absorbed most of the rest. I pulled it up to the ER entrance and helped Zoe in.

We had talked while the wound had been dressed to Dee’s extracting standards. Zoe was a final year medical student and had been invited to a small medical conference in Savannah as the guest of her companion. He was to my disgust, her medical supervisor. Very beneficial for her training, he told her, he’d cover the costs, and not to worry it was all very platonic. Of course, when they had arrived, there was a mistake with the reservation. There was only one room, and the hotel was booked out.

The room had two beds; it wouldn’t be an issue he assured her. It had just gone downhill from there. She’d made a fuss, and he’d brought her to the bar to explain everything. Well, we all knew how that had ended.

All her stuff was still in the hotel room. She hadn’t thought that they were going to leave the hotel earlier, so her clothes and her purse were all there. I swung past the hotel she was staying at, and we found that dick head had checked out, surprise, surprise!

I got the front desk to check the room out; it hadn’t been cleaned yet. We found her bag and clothes trashed. God knows what he’d taken to them but nothing was salvageable. Her phone was smashed and scattered around the room. Her purse with her money, cards and ID was missing. I found the phone’s SIM card and picked it up. All she had left was the clothes she was wearing, and those were borrowed underwear and a scrub suit. Her own blood-soaked clothes were in a bag in the car, and they were only good for the bin. She stood there looking devastated and I put my arm around her. She clutched me, wincing as I pressed against her arm.

“We will get this sorted out,” I told her as I led her back to the car.

We ended up back at the bar where it had all started. Mike had given me his cell number before he had taken a cab back to the bar. I’d called him, and he’d got her a room at the motel. It was close to midnight by the time we got there. Julie had taken one look at her and wrapped her in her arms, and for the first time that night, Zoe had burst into uncontrollable sobs.

She sobbed, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t get home; he’ll have canceled my flight. I’ve no ID or money and no clothes.”

“Clothes we can sort out,” Julie said. She turned to us and said, “Give me your spare cash, there’s a Target open 24/7 a mile down the road, and I can get the basics now.”

She looked at Zoe with a practiced eye, “I guess small, 24-inch waist, and 30 A ... no B.” Zoe nodded. “God, I’m good,” Julie said and high fived Mike.

I handed her my wallet, and she rifled through it and found the five hundred dollars I’d tucked in the back.

“This will do nicely; I’ll be back in thirty minutes’ honey.” And she was gone.

Zoe came and sat down beside me. She took my hand and said, “Thank you. Dee said it was the best repair she’d ever seen.”

There wasn’t much I could say, so I changed the subject. “We need to get you home; I can book you a flight tomorrow.”

She shook her head, “It won’t work even if I would let you buy the ticket, I can’t fly. I’ve no ID.”

“Fuck.” I shook my head in disgust; I’d forgotten that security had been ramped up since 9/11. “Okay, where do you need to be?”

“Denver.”

Mike and I just looked at each other and laughed. I misquoted Boggy, “All the bars in the world, and you had to walk into this one.”

Zoe kept saying, “What’s so funny?”

“Madam, your carriage awaits you, I’m driving to Denver. Would you do me the honor of joining me?”

She just kept looking back and forth between Mike and myself. “You’re not shitting me, are you?”

“Nope, I’m taking up a position at the university hospital. Say hello to the new Professor Emeritus for radiology. I’m over here for the next two years.”

It was her turn to laugh, “That’s where I’m training. Oh, fuck, loverboy is going to crap himself. He’s a radiology resident in the same department!”

And that’s how Julie found us when she returned from the store. The three of us giggling and laughing. We’d calm down, then one of us would catch another’s eye, and we would start all over again.

Mike said to Zoe, “You’ve got to promise me that you will video his face when he gets introduced to Michael.”

He and Julie were looking exhausted. Zoe wasn’t much better. We locked the bar up and said our goodbyes. I promised to stay an extra day and see them tomorrow. They got into Mike’s truck and drove off. Mike had got the room next to mine for Zoe, and I stuck my head into reception and paid for her room and extended the stay for an extra night. She opened her door, and I carried the bags in for her. She looked scared and I noticed a connecting door between the rooms.

I said, “I’ll unlock it from my side; you can keep your side locked. If you need anything, you can come and get me.”

I rummaged through the bags and found the rolls of plastic wrap and tape I’d asked Julie to buy.

I told her, “If you wrap this around your arm and tape the ends, you can shower without getting the dressing wet.”

“Can you show me how; I really need a shower.”

I wrapped and taped her arm up. She stood on her tiptoes and pulled my head down to her. She kissed me, her tongue making a quick dart into my mouth. Then she stepped back and said, “I think you need to go. I need a shower desperately. Thank you for everything.”

I retreated to my room and had a shower as well; I needed one for more than one reason. My unruly friend needed controlling. I threw my blood-stained clothes into the tub to soak; with luck, I wasn’t going to have to chuck them out.

I’d fallen asleep with just a towel wrapped around my waist. I had pulled the covers over myself and dropped off as soon as my head hit the pillow. I woke early the morning, and there was a small warm body tucked in behind me. Her uninjured arm was around my waist. I rolled over carefully and looked at her cute face framed by her blond hair. She opened an eye and looked at me.

“I got scared, and you were asleep so I curled up behind you, I hope you don’t mind?”

“Mind that a beautiful girl is in my bed with her arm around me, are you crazy?”

“No, but it could become a problem, I think I’m falling for you.” Her fingers traced the line of my chin.

“That is probably a good definition of crazy.”

Zoe sat up on the bed, and I realized all she was wearing was a sports bra and a pair of skimpy pink cotton panties. Her breasts were small but perfectly proportioned for her pixie-like body: conical peaks and perfect nipples outlined in the soft cotton. Her skin was lightly tanned and I could see faint tan lines.

She looked at me and pointed at the wedding ring I wore on a gold chain around my neck, and then my iPad propped up on the bedside cabinet.

She asked, “Are you married or something?” There was a hint of disappointment in her voice.

The tone of her questions somewhat surprised me, and then I realized what she’d seen. I have an app on the iPad that I use as an alarm clock; the reason I like it is that it’s also a photo frame app. I’d loaded it with the best of the shots I’d taken of Sally and Mila in varying states of dress. There were a few of me with them. The photos were scrolling in a loop and that’s what Zoe had seen.

“No, not anymore; my wife died thirteen years ago. The two in the pictures are the special people in my life, Sally, my fiancée, and Mila, my lover.”

She gave a little gasp and moved away from me. I rolled onto my back and thought about my situation. I’d decided that as unusual as it was, I was never going to deny what the girls meant to me.

So I continued, “It’s a bit complicated, and I think I’ve earned enough of your respect for you to listen before you make any snap decisions.”

She looked piercingly into my eyes and must have liked what she saw as she nodded and her hand crept back and she took hold of my hand.

“Sally been my best friend and lover for the past twelve years; she’s the redhead. Mila is her niece and I found out recently they are lovers, and Mila’s been my lover for the last ten days.” Zoe’s eyes just grew wider and wider.

“I worked with Mila for three years, and it seems she likes me, likes me a lot apparently, and is flying out to join me in a couple of weeks, she’s one of the best radiographers I’ve worked with.”

Zoe asked timidly, “How old are you?”

“I’m fifty-four, and Sally’s thirty-two and Mila twenty-five.”

“And you all live together?”

I shook my head, “I said it was complicated, and honestly, it’s our own fault. We misread the situation; we didn’t realize the depth of our feelings for each other. Sally went and got married to someone else because she thought I couldn’t or wouldn’t commit to her. She and her husband, Clive, have come to an agreement and she’s leaving him and she’s going to join us in the New Year.”

“Ohh, what happened when he found out about you?”

“He’s always known about me. Sally would only marry him if he agreed with us continuing to meet.”

Now she did look really surprised, “That sounds really weird. He agreed to that?”

“Shit, I suppose it does when you say it like that, doesn’t it? That’s not what happened. I was in a terrible place after Linda died, Sally took care of the twins and me, and did I say I’ve got twin girls?” She shook her head.

“Oh, well, I do, both married now. Where was I, oh yes? It wasn’t Sally’s job; she was my secretary. If I were falling back into my dark place, she’d come and stay and drag me out of my funk. If that meant she decided she needed to make love to me, that’s what she did. We...”