“It’s just up the road,” Andi replied with a studied casualness. “But let’s be clear: You fucked up super bad, and I’m under strict instructions to make you feel super bad about how super bad you fucked up.”
“No,” I said, decisively. “That’s great.Super badfeels achieved. Let’s move.”
After a short, super-bad-feeling walk, we reached the truck. Priya was leaning against the back bumper, arms folded, looking at me like I’d shat on her pet budgie.
“Say the word,” she told Bridge, “and I’ll have Andi sling him in the river. Though she be but little, she is fierce.”
“I lift,” Andi added.
“No,” protested Bridge. “Nobody’s slinging Luc in the river. He’s beentherefor me in myhour of need.”
“That he caused,” said Priya.
“Technically,” I pointed out, “Tom caused it.”
There was a crashing silence, in which I immediately regretted everything I’d ever done. “Shall I just get in the river?” I asked.
Priya sighed. “No, you should get in the truck. Everybody should get in the truck.”
We all got in the truck. It took a while. Seats had to be moved. A giant metal spike had to be secured into the flatbed. And probably a lot of consideration had to be given to exactly how to most safely and comfortably transport a woman who was going into active labour on the Millennium Bridge for reasons that were only a little bit completely my fault. I didn’t actually have much sense of what those considerations were other thanCheck she’s okay, but I hoped more competent people would be considering them for me.
“Okay,” said Priya, drumming her fingers on the wheel. “Where to?”
I jumped on the opportunity to pass the buck to someone else. “Hospital?”
Priya passed it right back. “Whichhospital?”
“The nearest?”
“Luc, we aren’t trying to find a kebab van. Not all hospitals have maternity wards.”
Bridge, who was sitting beside me in the back seat, looked up from her phone. “I think St. Thomas’s would be best?”
“On it.” Leaning forward, Priya fired up Google Maps and got us going. “Be about ten minutes, maybe a quarter of an hour.”
“Okay,” said Bridge, with slightly too much cheeriness.
“Are you all right?” I asked her.
She grimaced. “This isn’t the most comfortable I’ve ever been. But…but I’m sure I could be less comfortable.”
“Just,” I suggested, “try to…rest?”
“How am I supposed to rest in the back of a truck when my cervix is dilating?”
“Yeah, Luc?” Priya’s eyes flicked to mine in the rearview mirror. “Howisshe supposed to rest in the back of a truck when her cervix is dilating?”
One of Priya’s favourite games was forcing me to treat rhetorical questions like they weren’t rhetorical. “Um. We could play a game? Does anyone fancy a round of”—I reached out and grabbed the first thing that brushed my mental fingertips—“fuck, marry, kill?”
“I marry Bridge,” said Priya, without a second’s hesitation, “fuck Andi, and kill you.”
“Oh”—Bridge sounded thrilled—“you want to marry me.”
“Out of the three people here right now,” Priya clarified firmly.
“We’re not the marrying kinds,” added Andi. “And for what it’s worth, I think I’d also marry Bridge, fuck Priya, and kill Luc.”
At least Bridge gave the matter some thought. “This is hard because I don’t want to hurt any of my friends. But since Priya wants to marry me, I should probably marry her. And since you’re gay, Luc, you probably wouldn’t want me to fuck you either. So I think I’m also going to fuck Andi and kill you.” She made heart hands. “Sorry.”
