When we finally step from the shower, he wraps me inside a towel and slowly pats my skin dry. He works on my hair for longer and, once he’s cleared the worst of it, he takes a wide-tooth comb and draws it through the tangles.
Dry, he wraps me back in the towel to take me through into his room, sitting me on the bed while he rummages through his drawers, finding something for me to wear.
“Oh, these are yours, right?”
I glance over to see the clothes I wore on the night of the party. The ones that disappeared after Tandi stripped them from me.
“Sorry, your underwear’s missing.” Lachlan has a rueful smile. “Guess the laundry service didn’t think they were mine.”
“But a paisley blouse? Obviously, that’d be yours.”
He winks, making my smile grow wider. “I guess. Maybe I should expand my horizons. They’ll do for tomorrow. Take these for tonight.”
The sweatpants and t-shirt he thrusts at me are clean, sweet-smelling, and at least twice my size. Even when I roll the pants legs up, they trail on the floor. The tee swims on me so if I lean forward, everyone gets a flash of my tits for free.
They’re also comforting. It’s like being snuggled inside an enormous blanket. A sensation that doubles when I hug myself.The gesture makes my shoulder throb, sending a numb twinge along my arm to my fingertips.
“You’re hurt?”
There’s a low fury in Lachlan’s voice that startles me. His jaw is clenched when I turn to him.
“Just a bruise. You said there was a phone?”
He pulls a smartphone out of his top drawer, and I stare at it, wide-eyed. It’s last year’s premium model. Far out of my price range, even secondhand.
When I don’t immediately take it, he jiggles his hand, then pushes the phone into mine. “What’s wrong? It’s not that old. Never got around to trading it in.” When I take it with my numb fingers, he snags his jacket and pulls the broken pieces of mine from its inside pocket. “And here’s yours.”
I fumble taking the back off until Lachlan takes it from me, easily swapping in the SIM and tossing the wreckage of mine into the bin. When I reach for it, my shoulder twinges again and I wince.
“Can I see your shoulder?”
“You just did. It hasn’t changed in the few minutes since the shower.”
Ignoring me, he perches behind me on the bed, pulling the neck of my t-shirt aside to expose the skin. It feels hot, puffy, but there’s no real discoloration yet. Just shadows where the bleed will take a few days to work its way up to the surface.
Lachlan holds his palm against it, the heat exponentially increasing at his touch. When he gently prods his thumb at the worst of the swelling, I suck in a breath, and he stops.
“He hit you with the bat?”
“I… he swung. I’m not sure he meant to hit me or Dad, but we were moving, and…” My voice disappears. I don’t know why I’m trying to absolve the debt collector of responsibility.
The phone needs charging. There are a few percentage points left on the battery but not enough to phone my father. Not enough to accept a call.
“The charger’s the same,” Lachlan says, moving over to his table. I hand the phone back to him and he plugs it in. “Ninety minutes to full.”
“Good. I want to speak to him again tonight if I can. Otherwise, I don’t think I’ll sleep.”
He sits beside me, rubbing my back. “Everything can wait until tomorrow. He’ll be on the move. There’ll be a ton of things to arrange. You mightn’t hear from him for days and he mightn’t be in a place where he can have his phone on or keep it charged.”
I want to argue every word, but I know he’s right. It might be days. It might be longer.
You might never hear from him again.
If I knew he was safe, I think that might be my favourite answer.
Lachlan leaves me alone to fetch some food from the cafeteria, then watches me like a hawk until I finish every bite. He even insists I finish up my soda, the sweetness cloying from halfway through so getting to the bottom is a struggle.
By the time I finish, exhaustion has its claws in me. My blinks come slower, my words slurring even when I try to enunciate.
