“We are—ow!—a long way—oh—from normal!” I gritted my teeth over the last couple of feet of rock, my phone held out like a shield, and sighed when I got to the grass. “Get back!” I shifted my phone up, pointing it at him like a gun. It had many uses, all of the current ones imaginary. Thankfully, Edgar complied easily, his hands still raised as if he were the innocent victim of a hold up.
I placed two fingers on the neck of the half-naked man, his skin clammy and chilled. A pulse throbbed back, strong and sure.
“What’s going on here?”
Relief washed over me. I turned in my crouch to find Niamh near the opened gate, her hands on her hips and her one breast hanging low in her loose shirt.
Before I could tattle on Edgar, she continued, “Edgar, what are you doing with my date? And for the love of the gods, what happened to my rocks?”
“Your date?” I asked.
“Your rocks?” Edgar asked.
“Trespasser,” Mr. Tom shouted.
“Yes. Your date.” Edgar reached down and picked up the man’s ankle again. “I was just bringing him—”
“Getting a Band-Aid,” Mr. Tom said, repeating the ludicrous story.
“Yes, yes.” Edgar blinked like all this was starting to be too much. I was in the exact same boat. “I was just walking him to get a Band-Aid because he…he fell down the stairs. And started bleeding. But then I was going to return him to you. Since…he’s your date.”
“Who took the rocks?” Mr. Tom nodded at me, like I should play along.
“Your date?” I asked again, standing slowly. “From last night? He’s…” I looked down at the twenty-some-odd kid, remembering the two younger guys sitting in the corner of the bar. They’d seemed somewhat lacking in both looks and brains, judging on a few snippets of conversation I’d overheard, and I could imagine they’d be desperate. Alcohol would probably have softened Niamh’s intense scowl. As far as the extreme age gap…well, who was I to judge? If a woman wanted to experience a younger buck, no matter how ridiculous, who was I to say boo? I didn’t like being judged, and so I wouldn’t judge anyone else. Of course, that explained nothing else about our current situation.
“A little green?” Niamh finished for me. “True, but they have more stamina. Harder—”
“Good lord, woman,” Mr. Tom said, aghast.
Her eyebrows shot up. “Secret is out, old bones. And when I say bones, I really mean—”
“No.” I held up my hand. “No, never mind. But…why is he here, being dragged across the grass by Edgar?”
“He said he was handy, so I sent him over to Edgar’s to fix the…thing while I cooked breakfast for the poor wee lad. But it’s time he headed home, Edgar. Quit monopolizing his time.” She stomped forward, peering hard at the decorative rocks under her rain boots as she went.
I wasn’t going to ask about her choice of shoes on a sunny morning. It was just one odd detail too many.
“This doesn’t sound right,” I said as Niamh grabbed the man’s ankle out of Edgar’s hand. “Why would he go to Edgar’s with his shirt off?”
“Oh no. I removed that because of the bite—the blood! When he hurt himself. On the stairs.”
I stared at Edgar helplessly. Niamh dragged the guy toward the rocks.
“At least pick him up. He’ll get all scratched up,” I said listlessly.
“It’s his penance for all the crap he was talkin’,” Niamh said, not heeding my words. “An absolute wanker.”
So it was one of those guys from the corner. That part of the story checked out, at least. I’d left her with them last night.
I tried to glimpse his neck, but she was hightailing it. Mr. Tom had grabbed the guy’s arms and his back was barely skimming the ground. Before I could get a good look, they were heading through the gate and I was left barefoot in the grass, worried about hurting my feet on the way back.
“Hurt his neck falling down the stairs… We should call the ambulance,” I realized belatedly, palming my still throbbing head. And they certainly shouldn’t have moved him. I would have said as much earlier, but I wasn’t thinking clearly.
“Oh no, he’s fine. It was just three steps,” Edgar said. “He’s okay. When he wakes up in a couple of hours, he’ll be tired, maybe a little hungover, but nothing serious.”
He said it with absolute confidence, like this wasn’t the first time he’d removed a man’s shirt and dragged him out of the yard by the ankle after he fell down three steps and somehow started bleeding from the neck.
“I can’t.” I shook my head, utterly defeated. “I can’t with any of this.”
“Totally understandable. I get what you mean,” Edgar said, walking with me across the rocks.
“I don’t think you do.”
“No, I don’t, but I wanted to provide a united front.”