Stranded in an Empty Hall With My Injured Roommate, I Slipped and Took His Towel With Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Boyfriend
Damian doesn't cover himself, Noah gets him to the shower and spends a silent evening pretending nothing happened, until Damian says the hospital nurse told him his boyfriend sat in the waiting room till four.
Noah lay on the sticky lino with Damian's towel balled in his fist.
He couldn't look away.
He tried.
His eyes went to the fan, and then they came straight back.
Damian didn't cover himself.
He didn't even move his hands off the desk.
His chest was going up and down fast.
"You okay?" he said.
His voice was rough.
"Yeah."
"You hit your head?"
"No."
"Then you going to give that back?"
Noah sat up too fast and held the towel out at arm's length.
Damian had to let go of the desk with one hand to take it.
He wobbled.
Noah grabbed his hip to steady him before he thought about it.
Damian's skin was hot and damp under his palm.
They both went still.
Noah took his hand away.
Damian wrapped the towel around himself with one hand, badly, and tucked the corner in.
"It's the heat," he said.
"Okay."
"It just happens. When it's hot."
"Okay, Damian."
Damian looked at the ceiling.
Then he laughed, short and embarrassed, and that was somehow worse.
Noah got up.
His shorts were wet with Coke down one side.
He put Damian's arm back over his shoulders without asking this time.
They went out into the corridor.
It was so quiet Noah could hear the fridge humming in the kitchenette at the far end.
Every door along the corridor was shut.
There were name cards still stuck to some of them.
They passed Bec's door, with her hand-drawn cactus on it.
They passed the noticeboard with the football fixtures pinned to it.
Damian hopped, and Noah walked, and neither of them said a word.
Damian's hip kept bumping his.
The bathroom was white tiles and steel partitions and the smell of bleach.
There was a plastic shower chair in the corner from when somebody on their floor broke a leg in first semester.
Noah dragged it into the end stall.
He turned the water on and held his hand under it.
"It doesn't get cold," he said. "Not in summer. The pipes go across the roof."
"Great."
Damian lowered himself onto the chair.
His jaw was tight.
"You right from here?" Noah said.
"Yeah."
"I'll be outside."
"You don't have to wait."
"I'll be outside."
Noah pulled the curtain across and walked out of the bathroom.
He sat down on the floor of the corridor with his back to the wall.
He could hear the water.
He could hear Damian breathing when it hurt.
Noah put his face in his hands.
He'd had nine months of not looking at Damian.
Nine months of facing the wall when Damian got changed.
Nine months of putting his headphones in when Damian came back from training and stripped off his shirt in the middle of the room.
And in one afternoon he'd ruined it with a chip packet.
The water stopped.
"Noah."
Noah got up.
Damian was sitting on the chair with the towel back around his hips and his hair dripping.
He looked at Noah for a long second.
Then he held his arm out.
They went back to the room the same way they came.
Noah helped him onto his bed.
Damian lay down and put his arm over his eyes again.
Noah picked up the rubbish off the floor and put it in the GET WELL SOON SKIP bag.
He wiped up the Coke with a handful of tissues.
He sat on his bed and opened his laptop.
Neither of them said anything for the rest of the afternoon.
The sun went down orange behind the smoke.
Noah made two cups of instant noodles in the kitchenette and put one on Damian's desk.
"Thanks," Damian said.
That was the only word he said all evening.
At ten Noah turned off the light.
The fan ticked.
Out the window the sky over the hills east of town was a dull red, even in the dark.
Noah lay on his side facing the wall.
He could tell Damian wasn't asleep.
He was breathing.
"Noah."
"Yeah."
"Why are you still here?"
Noah kept his eyes on the wall.
"I told you. I missed the coach."
"Your coach was at quarter past seven."
"I overslept."
"You never oversleep. Your alarm goes at six every day. Even Saturdays."
Noah hadn't known Damian knew that.
"I overslept on Sunday," he said.
The bed creaked as Damian turned over.
Noah could feel him looking at the back of his head across the room.
"They gave me a bed in the hallway at the hospital," Damian said. "Because it was full."
"I know."
"The nurse came round at four to tell me I could go."
Noah shut his eyes.
"She said, 'Your boyfriend's been out in the waiting room the whole time, love. I'll tell him he can take you home.'"
Noah's heart was hammering so loud he thought Damian would hear it.
"I didn't have a boyfriend in the waiting room," Damian said quietly.
"I had you."
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