Luckily, it arrives at my floor and I stumble out of it, knocking into the door as I leave and dropping the tequila bottle. The corridor seems to stretch ahead of me and move like something fromThe Shining. If I hear a tricycle coming, I’m getting the fuck out of here.
I fumble in my pocket, looking for the other key card. It seems to take a long time as my fingers appear to be three times their normal size, but eventually I find it.
“Honey, I’m home,” I say as I come into the expensive suite. The only answer I get is a chorus of groans. I come round the corner and grin as I look at the couple writhing on the bed. I admire the long lines of their naked bodies against the pale gold of the sheets.
The other man in particular holds my attention. Fred? Ed? Whatever his fucking name is. He’s slim and has an arse you could bounce pennies on. I smile slowly as my cock finally gets with the programme and plumps up. I suddenly have plans for that arse that don’t involve coinage. His dark hair and tanned body contrasts beautifully with Christian’s blond hair and pale skin. They look like a wet dream come to life.
The gorgeous image is slightly ruined by Christian rolling over and saying in a querulous voice, “Are you getting involved tonight, or have you actually died and no one has noticed yet?”
I shake my head at him. “Let’s hope I haven’t died or who on earth will pay the expensive hotel bill?” I say acerbically. He pouts and I relent because otherwise I won’t get laid. “Just coming.”
“No, that’ll be Fred in a second.”
“Hey!” the man says indignantly. “My name is Teddy.”
“Of course it is,” I say with a laugh as I strip my clothes off, staggering slightly as I do. However, the laugh catches in the back of my throat, and with a sense of trepidation I feel my chest heave and tighten and my breath hitch.Shit! Not again. These coughing jags have got worse and worse lately, and last night I’d struggled to even catch my breath. My vision had gone dark and I’d got a red-hot pain in my chest. It had frightened me, but then it had passed and I’d smoked a spliff to calm my nerves and never thought about it again. Until now.
I attempt to breathe slowly in through the mouth and out through the nose while my bed partners grow bored of waiting and turn back to each other, but it’s no good and I start to cough again. It’s a hacking cough that steals my breath and makes my eyes water, and I bend double for a second. In a break between the spasms I swallow hard and grimace at the foul taste in my mouth.
Spying the brandy left on the table, I stagger over to it to the soundtrack of breathy moans and grunts coming from the bed as they both completely ignore me hacking up a lung in the corner of the very expensive hotel suite in Italy.
I grab the brandy and take a big gulp, but a cough launches mid-sip, and I splutter and cough up most of it. The coke lying in neat rows on the table like a ploughed field scatters and blows all over the floor. I look down at the white powder sinking into the expensive oriental rug and then watch as the brown-gold liquid of the brandy runs in funnels down my naked body and I feel a wave of heat run through me. At first I relax and settle into the burn, enjoying the respite from the coughing, but then I get hotter and hotter until it feels like my whole body is glowing.What the fuck is wrong with me?
Covered in sweat, I spy a nearby armchair and collapse into it. The floor seems to be roiling under my feet like I’m walking on water, and I wonder if I’ve finally achieved sainthood. If I have, somebody hasn’t been listening to my many critics. I hear myself start to laugh in the distance but then I start to cough again. And cough. And cough.
Christian sits upright to a protesting whine from Freddy or Eddie. “Gideon, you’re really fucking spoiling my flow. Will you bloody shut up, for Christ’s sake?”
“I’msosorry,” I wheeze, waving a hand. “I do apologise if my coughing up a lung is spoiling your penis’s enjoyment of the evening. I’ll try to do better and be quiet when I die.”
He frowns at me and I take another swig of the brandy, but the heat suddenly goes as a cold icy wave runs over me, making the sweat dry up, and I watch as goose bumps break out on my arms.
My harsh breaths sound loud in the room. For a split second I almost seem to be echoing the action on the bed, but then reality kicks in with a reminder that actually I sound more like I’m giving a death rattle.
The thought that I could be dying runs through my head in a dreamy sort of way that strangely doesn’t scare me. The flu really knocked me on the arse, but I didn’t have time to be ill so I just carried on. I know I should have done as my brother Milo said and got a doctor at the time, but I was too busy shooting a bloody film to bother. I wonder whether the film will stand as my shining epitaph and try to be more bothered that it won’t. The cast was terrible and the director a twat. My subsequent bad mood and wild behaviour has probably ensured that I won’t be getting any glowing eulogies from that direction, either.
I start to cough again and a sharp pain runs through my chest while the rest of me starts to shake with the cold.Shit, this is serious,I think hazily. My next thought is woozy and predominantly seems to be full of concern that I didn’t clear my browser history, and I hear myself laughing. Then there’s nothing but the sound of my breaths sawing in and out of my chest as the room seems to warp around me.
I sway forwards as if gravity is pulling me, and the carpet seems to rush at my face as I fall into it. I just have time to wish profoundly that I wasn’t naked and destined to be on the front page ofThe Daily Starbefore everything goes dark.
Chapter
One
Hallmark doesn’t have anything to rhyme with ‘you’re behaving like a total wanker’
Gideon
I come awake slowly, becoming aware of beeping sounds and the low hum of voices. At first I wonder whether I’ve died, but when I inhale I smell the scent of antiseptic and relax. I’m fairly sure heaven won’t smell of Dettol. I stir, trying to open my eyes, and someone’s hand comes down on mine, the skin so hot it makes me aware of how cold I am and that my teeth are chattering.
“So c-cold,” I mutter.
“It’s okay,” the voice says. “You’re alright, Gid. I’m here.”
I want to smile because that halting but warm voice belongs to my baby brother, Milo, but sleep beckons me again and I fall into its welcoming arms.
The next time I wake up it’s easier. My eyes flutter open and I wince against the brightness of the light. “Fuck,” I mutter, and a low chuckle sounds from somewhere near me.
“I see your vocabulary hasn’t been improved by your brush with death.”
