The Italian Word for Kisses

Chapter 2: “It was just a stupid accident.”-2

Tav hated hospitals.

It wasn’t anything big. It wasn’t like he knew anyone who’d died in them—except Grandma Tavistock, but she’d been a horrible old witch and they hadn’t even gone to the hag’s funeral. But he hated them all the same. The way all the nurses looked harried, and everyone ignored you if you weren’t bleeding everywhere. The way they wouldn’t tell him anything, even though he’d come in the ambulance with Luca. The way he wasn’t family, so he wasn’t good enough.

How wasn’t he good enough? How wasn’t he family?

“Tav!”

The voice washed out of the melee and Tav’s head jerked up. His stepfather had arrived. Saturday mornings were Mam-and-Becky time down at the football pitches, Mam watching Becky’s matches and then taking her for ice cream after. The mobile had gone straight to voicemail, so Tav had had no other choice.

And when Ian just sank into the empty seat next to him and squeezed his shoulder, Tav found he didn’t much mind having to call on him.

“What happened?”

Tav returned his gaze to the double doors that they’d whisked Luca off through. They’d said Tav couldn’t go with him anymore after that, and then there’d been nothing. An hour and a half he’d been in there. What was taking them an hour and a half?

“Tav?”

“David jumped in the pool and landed on Luca’s head,” he whispered numbly.

Ian groaned. “Oh hell.”

“There was blood everywhere. He banged his head on the tiles.”

“Well, all them Jensen kids have hard heads, I’m sure―”

“He wasn’t breathing, Ian. One of the other kids had to do CPR.”

Ian hissed through his teeth, and one of those thick, rough hands tightened on Tav’s shoulder. Ian was a gardener. That was how he’d met Mam, clearing the bramble-infested garden for fifty quid and a cup of strong tea. Tav had been ten years old—and that was why he’d called Ian because he had to, but he wanted Mam. Ian wasn’t his dad. He was Ian. And in lieu of a dad, Tav wanted his mam.

“It’s been ages.”

“Hospitals take time.”

“Yeah, but they won’t tell me anything,” Tav protested. “Said I’m not family. Where’s―”

The double doors crashed open, and Tav nearly bit his tongue, but it wasn’t Luca. It was a nurse, leading a stocky, broad-shouldered man with a dark, Mediterranean complexion and a shaved head across the foyer. His stride was very heavy, thick Timbaland boots clomping on the tiles, and even though Tav knew the swagger to be show, he instinctively shrank back a fraction before jumping up.

“Antonio!”

That dark head turned, and Antonio’s nod was stiff and closed before he disappeared around a corner with the nurse. Tav’s guts turned to water, and then Ian was guiding him back into the seat, hands tight on Tav’s shoulders. Why was Antonio here? Why wasn’t it just Luca’s mam or dad? Why Antonio? Were they gathering everyone? Why would they do that? What if—oh God, what if—

“Tav, breathe.”

“What’s happening?” Tav begged nobody in particular. “Why’s it Antonio? Why would they call his brother?”

Luca’s eldest brother, Antonio was almost never around these days. He lived just off Abbeydale Road with his girlfriend and their new baby, last Tav knew. Why the hell had they called Antonio?

“Tav. Easy.”

Ian’s hand was gentle on the back of Tav’s, and Tav loosened his grip on his own jeans. His knuckles hurt. They were still tinged pink from the pool, and he swallowed. “Why’s Antonio here?”

“Maybe he was the only one answering his phone,” Ian said calmly. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

Tav bit his lip, staring back at the double doors like he could see through them. He wanted to be with Luca. Why wasn’t he allowed to go? And why were they calling his brother? Were they calling all the family? If they were, it was—it was beyond bad, and if it was that bad, Tav needed to go, too.

“Tav.”

He loosened his grip again and blinked frantically against the blurring and burning in his eyes.

“Hey.” Ian’s voice was very gentle, and Tav desperately wanted his mam for a minute. Ian was nice and all, but…he wanted his mam. He wanted Mam to come and hug him and kick off at a nurse for not letting him go with Luca. He was family. Luca was everything, why couldn’t Tav just go?

“I want Mam,” he croaked.

Ian’s hand squeezed at Tav’s shoulders. “She’ll be here as soon as she can, Tav, you know that.”

“Yeah. But―”

Antonio’s voice rang out clear and deep, and then he was striding back across the foyer with the same nurse, signing papers on the clipboard. “You,” he snapped his fingers at Tav. “C’mon. If you can stand up, you’ve gone a right funny colour.”

Fuck funny colours. Tav forced himself to his feet. “How’s Luca?” he blurted out, and Antonio frowned.

“What? He’s fine. High as a kite, but fine. Nobody told you nothing?”

“No.”

“f**k’s sake,” Antonio grumbled, and grabbed Tav’s shoulder roughly to push him through the double doors. A long corridor stretched out ahead of them, filled with open doors and waiting hospital beds. Nurses scuttled in and out cartoonishly fast, but Tav ignored it all. His shoes squeaked on the tiles, and he wondered absently why there were so many tiles to get to Luca.

Then he was shoved into a bay filled with blue curtains and caught his breath as one was ripped aside.

“Oi, twassock. Your girlfriend’s here.”

“Luca,” Tav breathed, the name feeling delicate on his tongue.

Luca smiled. He looked thin and small, flat on his back under thin white sheets in a too-wide hospital bed. His hair was still plastered to his head, matted and lumpy. There was a gash disappearing into his hairline, the faintest edge of stitches visible. He was dressed in a hospital gown, and the right side of his face looked swollen and puffy, red gently darkening to black and purple. The smile didn’t twitch on that side, but lit up the left like a sunbeam.

He was beautiful, and Tav could have cried.

But Antonio and Ian were there, so he caught the hand Luca lifted towards him and squeezed it tightly instead. “Hello,” he mumbled stupidly.

“Hey,” Luca murmured. His eyes—that rich, dark, near-black brown—were entirely black now. His fingers were limp, but a warm, relaxed kind of limp. Not the dead kind of limp they’d been at the pool. “My head hurts.”

“No s**t,” Antonio said. “You ready for the orderlies to move you? You not gonna pitch a fit this time?”

“It makes me dizzy,” Luca complained. His voice was vaguely slurred, and Tav rubbed his thumb over those warm knuckles.

“Well get your princess there to hold your hand,” Antonio said. “Once they move you, I can tell Mamma which ward you’re in, and the more time she has to chill out. So do you want to move, or do you want Mamma to finish off what that daft kid started?”

“C’mon,” Tav mumbled, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand and trying desperately not to cry. “I need a hug, and I’m not hugging you in front of the entire A&E and your older brother.”

“Please, I’ve walked in on you two doing worse than a bit of hugging.”

“When?” Luca asked blearily.

“All I’m saying is shut your goddamn bedroom door, you little slag.”

An orderly started chortling as he took the brake off the bed. Luca groaned and clung to Tav’s fingers when the mattress shuddered and the frame lurched, and Tav gave in and kissed his knuckles. “Okay?”

“I might throw up. Tonio? Why’m I going to a ward? Can we go home when Mamma gets here?”

“I doubt it,” Antonio snorted.

“But―”

“Luca, shut up,” Tav pleaded quietly. “You stopped breathing, okay? You need to be here.”

“I what?”

Tav bit his lip. He was having to walk quickly to keep pace with the bed as the orderlies barrelled it down the corridor, and it was a struggle not to stop dead at Luca’s wide-eyed confusion.

“Tav? What d’you mean?”

“I mean…I mean, when that new kid pulled you out—Jack or John or whatever…”

“Jack.”

“Yeah, well, he pulled you out, and you weren’t breathing, and he gave you the kiss of life.”

Luca blinked. “What?”

“Hey, it’s cool, you rebooted,” Antonio said, lightly ruffling Luca’s matted hair. Luca grimaced and shook him off. “But you’re staying in for twenty-four hours. Just in case, you know? Sometimes lungs go crazy a bit later, and if they stop again and you’re up in your room having a nap, nobody would know until morning. You get it?”

“I…wait, Jack Collins’s kissed me?” Luca blurted out as he was wheeled into a ward. The orderlies started to turn the bed to fit it into the empty bay, and Luca snapped his eyes shut. Tav squeezed his knuckles and made a soothing noise.

“Kissing Jack, kissing Tav, what’s the diff?” Antonio asked idly.

“Oh shut your face,” Luca mumbled. He was going an odd whitish-green colour. “Kissing Alison, kissing Katie, what’s the difference? And I’m gonna throw up.”

“Point taken,” Antonio said as a nurse produced a kidney dish and folded Luca’s hand around it.

“In there, dear.”

As the bed was settled and the orderlies disappeared, the nurse fussing around for a little longer, the colour slowly faded and Luca closed his eyes. For a minute, Tav thought he must have drifted off, but when he tried to extract his hand, Luca’s tightened.

“No.”

“Hey, okay. Still here.”

“Jack kissed me.”

“CPR is hardly a kiss.”

“Yeah, but if I, like, stop breathing and die tonight, he’ll be my last kiss.”

“Don’t say that,” Tav snapped angrily. “That’s not f*****g funny!”

“But it’s true,” Luca mumbled. He balanced the kidney dish on his chest and waved his other hand blindly in Antonio’s direction. “I want to sit up. Sit me up? My head’s pounding again.”

“It’ll do that for about a week, judging by your bruises,” Antonio grumbled, but fumbled under the bed for the button anyway. “Lucky you didn’t fracture your skull.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t die!” Tav snapped. He let go of Luca’s hand as the head of the bed started rising, and folded his arms. “You weren’t breathing, Luca. I—I held your hand and you weren’t breathing. Your fingers were going blue!”

A ringtone started chiming, and Antonio sighed. “That’ll be Mamma. I’ll go and get her. You two gonna be alright for ten minutes?”

“Uh-huh,” Luca said. He was reaching out, but Tav sidestepped his hands. “Tav…”

“You nearly died,” Tav insisted as Antonio disappeared and the curtain was pulled shut again. “It’s not funny. You can’t make jokes about it.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” Luca said, and reached again. He left his hand hovering in the air, fingers outstretched. “I don’t remember, Tav. I was just swimming, and then everything hurt and I was in the ambulance. I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well, now you do.” Tav hunched his shoulders and swallowed. “It was f*****g horrible, Luca.”

“I’m sorry,” Luca said, and opened and closed his hand so fast it clapped. “Hey. C’mere. You said you needed a hug, right?”

Tav swallowed, then took the hand and perched on the very edge of the bed to gingerly slide his arms around Luca’s shoulders. He was slightly too cool, and Tav was too afraid to grip hard, but…but it was a hug all the time, one of Luca’s hands gripping the back of Tav’s neck tightly. He had stopped breathing, but he was breathing now, and Tav closed his eyes and felt the rise and fall.

“M’okay.”

“Yeah,” Tav mumbled, and twisted his face to kiss the hospital gown over Luca’s shoulder.

“Can I get that on my face?”

“Your massively bruised face?”

“My massively bruised face that got molested by Jack Collins,” Luca pointed out. “I mean, I like the guy and all, he’s pretty cool, and it sounds like I seriously owe him one, but he’s not someone I would pick to suck face with, you know?”

Tav laughed—too high and breathy—but sat back all the same and gingerly cupped Luca’s jaw in both hands to kiss him. It was probably the most chaste kiss they’d ever had, but when it ended, Tav stayed right where he was, eyes closed and nose brushing Luca’s cheek. He could feel the heat in Luca’s skin. He could feel Luca breathing.

“You scared me.”

“M’sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you actually told anyone at swimming I’m not dead?”

“I’ll text Aaron later,” Tav promised.

“And my bag’s still in my locker.”

“Aaron’s got your stuff. Shut up, Luca.”

Luca kissed him again and shut up, sighing lightly against Tav’s cheek and twisting his fingers into Tav’s T-shirt.

“I don’t want to stay overnight.”

“Tough shit.”

He wasn’t going f*****g anywhere.