CHAPTER 2

Mateo

I arrived home from work to an empty house. I'd been stewing on Dante's words all afternoon and I sighed when I stepped into the little beach cottage I shared with Rob and found myself alone. I wouldn't have minded a bit of company to help me get out of my head for a bit. And Rob was always great for that.

I couldn't exactly blame him though. It was not as though I'd given him even the barest of hints that I was not doing okay . That I maybe could have done with a bit of his support and friendship. Especially since the person I had turned to for the last nearly ten years of my life was no longer an option.

But Rob had been obsessing over Kat ever since high school and I couldn't begrudge him that he finally seemed to have caught her attention.

Not begrudging was one thing. Being happy for him was another thing entirely and I admit I didn't quite have it in me to be delighted at the prospect of seeing another of my friends blissfully in love.

Just a ball of sunshine I was these days.

Maybe it was time I headed up to Sydney again. Find myself a new gay club I hadn't been to yet. Though the prospects of that had been fast dwindling. Especially after that last time I'd found myself in a voyeurism club by accident, the one with that interesting octangular back room. But I had stayed for a while so maybe I shouldn't rule out another visit altogether. That sure had been … interesting.

The only problem was that I couldn't get excited about it. Not even the thought of being pressed up underneath a hot, warm body could get my blood pumping. No, my blood seemed to pump for one person only and he was about to spend the coming weekend in the big city having loads of hot and sweet boyfriend sex with Ajay. I wondered what they looked like together, whether Ajay was a match for Nick's voracious libido.

I don't know why I did that to myself, pictured them together like that. But I did. I spent hours on end imagining Nick in bed with Ajay, what they would do there, whether they were as adventurous as Nick and I had been. Whether Ajay knew how to make Nick come as easily as I had. Whether Ajay had found that spot. Whether Nick held Ajay to his heart afterwards, softly stroking his warm skin.

And that right there was where my thoughts snagged the most. The image that broke my heart the hardest. Not the hot and heavy sex but the sweetness afterwards, the holding and the cuddling. The kisses and the whispers.

Fuck. How I missed him.

It was only after I had allowed myself to mope for half an hour in my depressing thoughts that I realised I had left my phone at work. Honestly, I was such a headcase these days it was a wonder I still remembered to complete my nightly skincare routine.

I also knew I wanted to Uber in for dinner tonight especially if Rob wasn't going to be around. It was only a short drive from our cottage back to the little office just off the high street of Esperance where Dante ran his architect firm.

Fortunately, the tourist season was over so I was able to find a park right out the front of the building. It was one of those new arty builds with lots of black cladding and exposed red bricks, kind of indicative of Dante's design style really.

The front door was cracked open and I felt a momentary stab of panic that I had forgotten to lock up when I had left earlier. It wouldn't have exactly surprised me given the state of my mind but I felt a welling of anxiety. Dante kept a whole heap of expensive equipment in the building and I would hate myself if I was the cause of anything being stolen.

I pushed through the front door, eyes scanning the space to ensure everything was where it was meant to be. The high-tech computers were still on their desks and the heliographic copiers and 3D printer were right where they were meant to be. I felt my heartrate settle when I couldn't see anything amiss but I did another slower check just to make sure.

I'd just cast my eyes over the kitchen at the back of the building when I heard it, a soft wheezing sound that had me stopping to cock my ear. I heard it again, just the slightest wheeze but so out of place in the quiet office. I stepped further into the kitchen, eyes pitching to the floor before my heart plummeted to the ground.

"Dante!" I cried, instantly at the older man's side where he was hunched on the floor, clutching his arm as he wheezed out a sequence of short breaths. His skin was pale and clammy, a sheen of sweat on his brow. "I'm here," I told him, clutching onto his shoulders.

"Mat…teo," he wheezed, a shaky hand reaching out to clasp mine.

"I'm calling an ambulance. Wait here," I told him, leaning him back gently against the fridge.

"No. I'm … fine."

"The hell you are, uncle," I said, panic clawing at my chest. I rushed back out to my desk, grabbed my phone and thanked the universe for my absence of mind for being the reason I was here at all as I dialled emergency.

"You have dialled emergency triple zero. Your call is being connected." I waited a breathless moment before the line clicked and I was connected to an operator. "Police, fire or ambulance?"

"Ambulance," I all but shouted down the line.

"Where are you calling from?"

"Esperance, South Coast."

"What is the problem? Can you tell me exactly what happened?"

"I think my uncle is having a heart attack."

"Is your uncle conscious and breathing normally?"

"He's mostly conscious but he's struggling to breathe." The operator kept barraging me with questions while I made my way back into the kitchen, putting the phone on speaker as I knelt back beside my boss. My friend. My famiglia . I clutched onto his hand, his grasp weaker than it had been only moments before.

"It sounds like your uncle may be having a cardiac arrest," the operator told me. "I have a team dispatched to your address but in the meantime, I'm going to walk you through the steps for CPR."

"I did a first aid course last year," I told her. Not that I had ever expected to put into practice what I had learned.

"That's excellent. Can you roll your uncle onto his side to open his airway?" I did what she asked and then rolled Dante onto his back. "Okay, I need you to start chest compressions now. Thirty hard and fast compressions. Count them out loud for me."

I did as the operator told me, completely forgetting my first aid training as I just listened to her voice as she talked me through the cycles, thirty compressions, two rescue breaths, her calm tone keeping the panic at bay.

"You need to hurry," I told her, trying to remain calm for Dante's sake but knowing I was close to panicking. His eyelids were flickering shut and I could see he was close to losing consciousness as I kept him settled as best I could. "He's losing consciousness."

"The team should be there very soon. Stay calm now and I'll stay with you on the phone until the paramedics arrive. Keep doing those compressions with me. Let's keep counting." I didn't know who this person was but I loved her right then, this calm, steady voice talking me through and keeping me from spiralling.

It felt like a painfully long time before I heard the wail of sirens and then the flash of blue and red lights filled the building. I continued administering CPR at Dante's side as the paramedics arrived, two of them stepping into the room. Instantly the loneliness of my situation faded as the comforting presence of these experts who knew exactly what to do enveloped me.

One of the men came up beside us, kneeling right alongside me as the other paramedic placed an oxygen mask over Dante's face.

"You're doing a great job for your friend," he said as he took over the CPR for me, his words so kind I almost sobbed into his broad shoulders.

"Dante," I told them, nodding in his direction. "His name's Dante." He looked so small and weak lying there on the kitchen floor, his usual larger than life personality minimised into almost nothing.

"We're going to do everything to make sure he's okay," the paramedic told me. "And that's thanks to you."

That was when the tear slipped from my eye, this warm comfort from this kind man. I nodded and then shifted out of the way as the two of them knelt beside Dante, taking over when I had nothing left to give.

"Do we need the defibrillator?" the other paramedic asked as he placed the machine beside them.

"Yes, he's in cardiac arrest. Can you charge it up?" The paramedics were moving in synchronisation, shifting Dante on his back and clearing the area. They popped open the buttons on his shirt and placed electrode pads on his chest as I watched helplessly in the background. "No pacemaker. You're good to go, Bill."

"3-2-1 clear," Bill called.

"Again."

They shocked Dante three times until the machine indicated a steady heart rhythm and I breathed a sigh of relief, my heart racing, hands shaking. The paramedics continued their work efficiently and methodically, manoeuvring Dante onto the ambulance cot. Then they were strapping him in, the two of them working like a well-oiled machine as I hovered uselessly in the background. Dante's eyes flickered open then, landing on me and I stepped forward, instantly at his side again.

"Mateo," he rasped.

"You're going to be fine, zietto ," I told him.

"That's right. We're going to get you to the hospital now," the kind paramedic said. I followed behind them as they wheeled him out to the waiting ambulance, the metal frame sliding easily onto the bed of the vehicle.

I stood on the pavement, arms wrapped around myself as I thought of Dante's wife, Giulia, and how worried she would be. Would I have to be the one to tell her about her husband?

"Do you want to come with your friend to the hospital?" I glanced up at those words, the kind paramedic looking down at me from the back of the ambulance. The kind paramedic who was also insanely hot. I hadn't even noticed while we were back in the kitchen and really it was not the time or the place to be noticing now. But his jaw was square cut like what you see on superhero comics and he had the sexiest dimple I'd ever seen. Add in the windswept, short brown hair, kind blue eyes and a ripping bod, and well, he really was quite nice to look at.

He was also waiting for my answer, eyebrow peaked in the sexiest way.

"Ah, yeah, I will," I said, dashing over to lock the office door before I was back at his side. I climbed into the ambulance, the first time I'd ever seen anything like this up close.

"Strap in," he said to me, chin pointing to the seat and its adjoining seatbelt. I did as he asked, my hands still notably shaky before I managed to clasp the two ends. Dante had closed his eyes again, whether from unconsciousness or tiredness I couldn't tell. I took hold of his hand, squeezing to let him know I was there.

"Is he …" I asked, unsure how to voice my concerns.

"He's asleep," the paramedic told me. He was still busy settling Dante in, fiddling with wires that linked to machines that were busy beeping at us. I knew enough from binging on episodes of Grey's Anatomy what the heartrate line looked like and I grimaced at the elevated waves I could see showing up on the EKG machine.

"He's one lucky man," the paramedic said, eyes on the machine.

"I should … I should call his wife," I admitted, swallowing roughly at the thought of what I would say to my zietta .

"I think she would appreciate that," he said to me, his calm presence trying to transfer itself onto me.

"What should I tell her?"

"You should tell her Dante has suffered likely cardiac arrest. We'll have to run tests at the hospital to confirm but from my experience this looks like a textbook case."

I could hear the other paramedic talking on the radio as he drove with wailing sirens in the direction of the regional hospital.

"Looks like we're going to have to get up to Wollongong," he called back. "The facilities nearby have no capacity."

"Shit," I cursed. That was a good hour and a half from Esperance and I felt myself start to panic again.

"It's okay," my calm paramedic told me. "He's in great hands here. His heartrate is steadying and I've got him all monitored. The Wollongong hospital is the best one around to treat him."

I blew out a breath, trying to borrow some of the hot paramedic's calmness.

"He's important to me," I said on a sigh. I glanced up, the paramedic's blue eyes on me, a kindness in them that I wasn't used to seeing.

"I can see that," he nodded at me. "I promise we're taking the absolute best care of your friend. I'm Jamie by the way."

"Mateo," I replied, sharing the briefest of smiles with him. Jamie. He looked like a Jamie. Whatever that meant. But the name suited him and I liked that I had something to call him other than hot paramedic. I'd been objectified all my life so I should know better.

"Okay. I'm going to call his wife," I said, steeling my nerves with a deep breath.

"You'll be fine," Jamie smiled at me. That smile gave me the courage I needed to pull out my phone and dial Dante's home number with still shaking hands.

"Mateo, mio tesoro, come stai ?" came the lovely voice of his wife down the line.

" Sto bene, zietta Giulia," I replied with a sigh. I kept the conversation in Italian and told her the news, keeping my voice calm and steady the way Jamie had done with me as I explained what had happened to her beloved husband. Giulia cried but was quick to move into action, thanking me for being with her husband and promising to meet us at the hospital. She also promised to tell my parents and I was glad as I didn't particularly want to make that call myself and then I hung up the phone.

"See?" Jamie smiled at me, his eyes gentle as he looked over the equipment. "You did fine."

"Yeah. I guess so," I agreed, leaning my head back against the cool metal of the ambulance as tiredness swept over me.

Was I fine? I wasn't sure about that and I wasn't sure if I'd ever be fine again.