Consult (10/14)
“You won’t like my answer,” Damian said. “I hired someone to - ”
“Follow me?” Luke asked, crossing his arms.
Damian shook his head. “Dr. Oliver. I wanted to make sure he was the best person to treat your mother. And I didn’t trust him with you. You’re impressionable, Luciano, and - ”
“Yeah, well,” Luke argued, still fighting his embarrassment, “you don’t have to worry. Nothing happened. Dr. Oliver was a ‘perfect gentleman’ last night.”
“Just with you,” Damian said significantly.
“What?” Luke asked, raising his head, his voice barely above a whisper.
Damian sighed, the expression on his face somewhere between uncomfortable and apologetic. He stood and walked to the desk, picking up a file folder. He brought it back and handed it to Luke. Luke looked warily at Damian and then opened it, his heart beating wildly as he wondered what he was about to see.
The pictures were relatively harmless at first glance. Reid was sitting at the bar in Metro, a beer in front of him. He was apparently talking to the bartender.
“I don’t get it,” Luke said.
“Dr. Oliver and that bartender…disappeared shortly after this picture was taken. The private investigator tells me they were in a back room for quite some time. And this wasn’t the first evening he’s spent there when that man was working.”
Luke swallowed, feeling ill.
Damian stepped closer, resting a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “I know you think you had feelings for the man, Luciano, but trust me, it was just a crush and those are fleeting. And he wasn’t ever interested in you either. It’s alright, though. You have plenty of time to find the person you should be with. I doubt it will be a man. Like this.”
Luke didn’t notice Damian’s slip of the tongue as he closed the file and handed it back to him. “It’s no big deal. I went over there because I was drunk. I never really liked him anyway.”
Damian smiled and gave him a small nod. “You know what I think you need?”
“What?”
“To get out of town for a while, meet some new people.”
Luke forced a grin. “I’ll go pack up my stuff.”
**
On one hand, it was convenient to find out from his grandma that Holden was at the hospital. Luke could say goodbye to both his parents at the same time. But that meant he had to go to the hospital. He walked down the hall quickly, terrified that he was going to run into Dr. Oliver.
Someone was looking out for Luke that day, though, as he arrived at the room unspotted. He peeked inside cautiously and then entered.
“Hi Dad,” he greeted Holden.
Holden turned to him and stood immediately. He walked over to hug Luke. Luke closed his eyes and breathed in, trying to commit the feel and smell of his dad to memory.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Holden said as he pulled away.
Luke swallowed. “I came to say goodbye. We’re - we’re leaving tonight.”
“What? Luke!”
Luke shook his head. “Dad, I have to. I have to take care of Damian, and…I just want to get out of Oakdale for a while.”
Holden shook his head. “Luke, listen to me. Damian can’t be trusted.”
Luke sighed. “Can we please just have a nice goodbye?” he begged.
Holden cut himself off. Looking at Luke, he eventually sighed and nodded. Luke smiled at him in thanks and then walked over to Lily’s bed. He placed his hand over hers, bending down to kiss her cheek.
“Mom, I’m - I’m going to be going away for a little while. Everything’s OK, though. I’m going to miss you, and I promise to think of you and pray for you. I love you.”
He stepped back and looked at Holden again. They didn’t say anything for a long time, and then Luke walked out of the room. Holden reached into his coat pocket and took out his cell phone. He dialed a number quickly and waited impatiently for the person on the other end.
“Jack? It’s Holden. I need some way to stop a plane.”
**
“Business acquaintance? Guy sounds like he’s in a bad remake of The Godfather.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me what’s happening.”
“Hey, get your hands off me!”
“Dad? What are you doing here? Jack - ”
“No one move, or the boy dies.”
“Your inheritance, Luke. They wanted everything that Damian had, including the money he was going to give you.”
“You’re sick, right? You wouldn’t lie to me about something like that?”
“Of course I love him. Love him enough to want to undo the damage you’ve done, Holden. If I had raised Luke, he would have grown into a man to be proud of. A true man, Holden; I wouldn’t have allowed anything less.”
“Help me! Help me what? Not be gay? Send me to some camp for the hetero-challenged?”
“The real reason you didn’t want me going to that hospital was because you were terrified that my mom would wake up and tell the truth.”
“You are a Grimaldi, Luke. Don’t you ever forget that!”
“You were going to take me away, knowing full well that my mother could die and I would never get a chance to say that I’m sorry or that I love her, all because you needed my time and you wanted my money to save your own worthless life, you stupid, lying son of a bitch.”
“If Damian goes back to Malta, we can just pretend he never existed. Hell, I’m already there.”
“No, no, that is not who I am. Not now. Not ever.”
“I don’t want my future paved with his blood money. I don’t want any part of the Grimaldi fortune.”
“I’m a Snyder. That’s all I’ve ever been, and it’s all I want to be.”
“I was going to be on the next plane right behind you.”
Flashes of memories from the last hour kept popping into Luke’s head as he stared out the passenger window of his dad’s car. Luke fought tears, trying to go back and figure out all the times Damian had lied to him over the last few weeks. Had any of it been real? He couldn’t even begin to think about all the pain he had caused his dad, just because of the things Damian made him believe.
He shifted, grunting slightly at the resulting pain in his arm. He sensed his dad looking at him briefly before turning back to the road.
“We should go to the hospital,” Holden said quietly.
“I’m fine,” Luke replied, his voice creaky from disuse and emotion.
Holden faced him again. “He wrenched your arm pretty good. Humor me.”
Luke didn’t respond, and a few moments later, he felt the car turn towards the hospital. They parked and Holden put a hand on Luke’s back, guiding him inside.
**
Reid cracked his neck as he handed the file back to the desk nurse. He was going on 20 hours at the hospital, but it felt good to be working. Getting his hands dirty and focusing on medicine. Once he was done with his own rounds, he even went down to volunteer at Urgent Care. The nurse handed him the next file.
“Possible sprained shoulder in Two.”
Reid took the file with a nod and stepped away. He opened the door to the exam room, just as he opened the file.
“OK...” Reid looked up quickly as soon as he read the name in the file. Luke was staring back at him in surprise.
Reid swallowed, ducking his head and nodding a few times to get back into control. He looked up again, relieved that Holden didn’t seem to pick up on anything off between the other two occupants of the room. Rather surprising, since Luke’s face was now about 15 shades of deep red.
“What happened?” Reid asked, upset with himself when he wasn’t able to entirely hide his concern.
“I…I - it, uh,” Luke stuttered.
Holden glanced at him, brow furrowed, and then talked for him. “His arm got twisted behind him pretty hard. It’s giving him problems.”
“Can you move it at all?” Reid turned back to Luke.
Luke nodded, not quite meeting Reid’s eyes.
“Show me.”
**
Luke lifted his arm slowly, trying not to grimace at the shooting pain. He rotated his arm around his shoulder carefully, but when he got halfway around, he couldn’t move anymore.
“Ow, ow, ow,” he said, dropping his arm.
“OK,” Reid said, quickly walking over and placing the file on the exam bed next to Luke.
He reached up, hesitating for a beat before placing his hands on Luke’s shoulder. His palms burned through the paper-thin fabric of the hospital gown. Luke closed his eyes and swallowed thickly, feeling his heart rate increase impossibly faster. Reid started pressing his fingers into Luke’s skin, half-massage, half-exploration. Despite the pain and discomfort of his injury, it was like there was a direct current from his shoulder sending bolts of pleasure to his lower body.
Dad’s right next to you! And Reid doesn’t want you. He doesn’t. He’s after that bartender, Luke reminded himself. And then a small voice in the back of his head chimed in, Damian lied about a lot of things. What did that picture really prove?
Reid removed his hands quickly, stepping away. Luke exhaled, opening his eyes and staring straight ahead at the door to the room.
“It’s not dislocated,” Reid said, alternating his comments between Holden and Luke. (Which annoyed Luke, as he wasn’t a child.) “Probably a sprain. I’ll give him a prescription for an anti-inflammatory. Try not to use that arm too much in the next few days; you might even ask the nurse for a sling. If it doesn’t get any better, bring him in for X-rays.”
“OK,” Holden said, just as his phone buzzed. He took it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. Turning to Luke, he said, “It’s Jack. I’ll be right back.”
He answered the phone, stepping out into the hall. Reid looked after him and then glanced at Luke. They made eye contact briefly before Luke turned away, blushing again.
**
“So what happened?” Reid asked again, desperate to fill the uncomfortable silence.
It didn’t really make things any less tense, however, as Luke’s expression twisted rather nastily.
“I was held hostage in the airport.”
“What?”
“My biological father’s business acquaintance held a gun to my head.”
Reid felt his stomach drop, fear coursing through his veins as he imagined a million worse outcomes than a sore shoulder.
“I - uh, I guess that explains why you’re here with Holden,” was the first thing he managed to say.
“Yeah,” Luke replied tersely.
“I take it you’re not leaving the country, after all.”
Luke looked up at him. “No.”
Reid nodded, turning his back on Luke as he wrote in his file. Luke stared at him for a moment, and then he cleared his throat.
“About last night…”
Reid’s shoulders bunched up and he lifted his head, but he didn’t turn to face Luke. The room suddenly felt like it was electrically charged.
Continued