CHAPTER 5

Mateo

I woke with a start the next day, something feeling instantly amiss. Dante, of course. Dante had had a heart attack yesterday and was still at the hospital. The hospital where I had travelled with him in the back of the ambulance. The ambulance where I had met Jamie, the sexy and kind paramedic who had taken me out to dinner last night.

Shit, Jamie.

I was alone but the sheets of my bed were twisted at my feet and the scent of sex hung in the air. My body ached deep inside in that familiar way I loved best as I recalled the hot and heavy night I'd shared with Jamie. Alarm filtered through me.

What had I been thinking? Inviting Jamie into my home? Kissing him on the front verandah steps like a wanton hussy where literally anyone could have seen us. It didn't matter that it was past two AM. Esperance was a small town and I knew better than to kiss a man in a public space. I knew better than inviting one back into my bed too.

And yet I'd done it with Jamie.

Yesterday I'd been a tangle of warring emotions and Jamie had kind of been in the right place at the right time. He was alluring, that was for sure, and I couldn't deny he had caught me in his net. He was hot and sexy as hell but also really kind. And that right there was the most dangerous combination in a man I could describe. Because that was a lot of Nick's attributes too and I knew I was a bit of a sucker for that kind of dynamic personality. And Jamie had it in spades.

I was just about to roll back over and try to catch another hour of sleep when I heard the sound of voices in the kitchen and I instantly went into panic mode. Oh fuck. Had Rob just discovered Jamie in the kitchen? I'd assumed he must have left already but there were definitely two male voices out there and one of them was not Nick's.

I shoved the sheet aside and moved swiftly to the door. I had just enough presence of mind to grab a pair of sweatpants from my drawers, sure Rob wouldn't appreciate the display of full nudity the way Nick might have done. In the past of course.

My fears proved to be correct as I moved down the hallway into the kitchen, finding Rob leaning up against the cabinet with a curious smile on his face as Jamie was bent in half, busily tying the laces of his boots.

"And how do you and Mateo know each other?" Rob was asking just as I bounded into the kitchen. He sent me the most knowing smirk and I felt my gut twinge deep inside.

"Um …" Jamie began before he looked up and saw me. Relief flooded his face as I took Rob's attention and saved him from the awkward answer. He looked as hot as he had yesterday when I'd had my brain snap and invited him into my house, him in that deep forest green paramedic uniform that showed off his muscular frame to perfection. His brown hair was swept back from his face and I didn't fail to notice the way his eyes traced down my half naked body, appreciation in his gaze.

"Sorry," he said to me, contrition in that same gaze. "I didn't mean to sneak out but I didn't want to wake you."

My eyes flicked to Rob, not missing the way he sipped on his cup of coffee while clearly enjoying my awkward morning after encounter.

"It's okay," I hurried to reassure him.

"It's not that I was sneaking out," Jamie rushed to add. "I was actually just writing you a note when your housemate found me." He pointed to the magnetic notepad that Rob and I kept on the fridge and I could see he'd left his name and phone number for me.

"Right. Thanks," I muttered. I had never experienced the awkward morning after encounter before and now I knew why I usually kept these things off site. Jamie seemed a little puzzled by the clear change in my demeanour but he had no idea how out of place I was feeling right then.

I mean, his car was parked out the front of my house and he would be leaving in broad daylight. What if my parents chose this morning to rock up and visit me? Sure, they'd never arrived here before ten before but there was always a first time for everything. Case in point right here before me.

But then the universe thought it would have another laugh at my expense, the day plunging from bad to worse when we heard a knock on the front door and Nick's cheery " hello " preceded his entry into the kitchen. He was dressed like Rob for their day on a building site and my eyes snagged on his familiar face. He took one look at the three of us standing there, eyes pinwheeling between Rob, Jamie and me before understanding dawned in his eyes and I had nowhere to hide.

I wanted to crawl under a rock right then, knowing my ex-lover was standing in the same small space as my last night's hookup.

"Hi, I'm Nick," he said affably to Jamie, holding his hand out for him to shake, not realising he was driving knives into my stomach. Because he wasn't at all upset about finding the guy I'd obviously just had sex with standing in our kitchen. He didn't care that I had found someone who wasn't him to spend a night with.

He didn't care, he didn't care, he didn't care.

"Jamie," he replied, polite smile on his face. "Well, I've got a shift to get ready for. It was nice to meet you all." He turned to face me, no doubt wondering if I was going to walk him to the front door but I could not have moved even if I'd wanted to. "Right, well, see you around, Mateo," he said instead.

I nodded at him, waiting with my lungs in suspension until he turned away and I heard the front door snick shut.

"Well, well, well," Rob quipped, that smirk on his face going nowhere. Nick, fortunately, seemed to have the presence of mind not to join in the teasing but I could see the smile on his face as my two best friends watched me.

I knew they expected a debrief. I knew they expected something really, anything to explain why I had brought a guy home for the very first time in my entire life. But I had no words to give them, none at all, so I turned on my heel and fled back to the safety of my bedroom, sinking back down onto my bed as I contemplated my life choices.

I mean, it was not that I regretted my encounter with Jamie last night. It had actually been kind of amazing. Really amazing in fact. Before Nick and I had started our relationship I'd only ever had cheap and dirty hookups, usually at the back of some club or cramped in the back seat of a car trading quick blowjobs.

I had never experienced ‘boyfriend' sex until Nick, and let me tell you, there was a vast difference between the two acts. It probably explained why I was feeling so cast adrift this morning because sex with Jamie had felt a lot more in the ‘boyfriend' category than the hookup category. For a start, he'd wanted to actually see my face and not just shove me up against the closest wall and claim me. That was the first big difference.

The other was that he'd been gentle and thoughtful, at least in prepping me, another thing I only associated with ‘boyfriend' sex. The gentleness had evaporated when he entered me but that was how it should be too. There was no doubt the sex had been good. Really good in fact. He was big in all the right ways, like Nick in that regard, and he had stretched me in the best way.

So why was I feeling so cast adrift? So out of place in my own skin? So lost, bereft and sad – but also just the slightest little smidge of happy?

I collected my Alfa Romeo from where I'd left it at the front of the office last night and then found myself back on the road to the hospital. It was a nice, calming drive and I found myself relaxing as I neared the bigger city.

I'd travelled this route twice yesterday, once there and once back, both times in an ambulance. My stomach clenched at those thoughts, the very different ways I had been feeling on the drive up compared to the drive back home, Jamie in the front seat beside me. I don't know what it was about him but he was such a calming, steadying presence. I felt it then even though he was nowhere to be seen.

I wondered if I would run into him again up at the hospital this morning. And how would I feel about that if I did? I hadn't been exactly warm to him this morning as I had let my panic of discovery take over. I guess I wouldn't even blame him if he didn't want to see me again. Though he had left me his phone number. I wondered if I would ever ring it.

My mind sure was an interesting place this morning, pleasant thoughts of my night with Jamie warring with Nick's complete lack of reaction after discovering that I had slept with another guy. That hurt way more than it should have. I'd had the last two months to try and deal with the fact Nick had been having lots of hot sex with Ajay.

Why didn't Nick care? Had our six months together really felt like nothing to him when to me they had been everything?

Those good feelings and nice endorphins soon seeped out of my system as I focused on Nick and where things had gone so wrong with us. About why he'd stopped looking back at me that day Ajay had stepped onto our beach.

I was feeling all sorts of glum when I finally found the room that Dante had been transferred to overnight. Giulia was there too, fussing around her husband as he rested propped up against the bedrest. But he was awake and talking and his skin looked a far healthier colour than it had when I'd left him here last night.

"There he is," Giulia cried, tears in her eyes as I knocked on the doorway. "Our very own hero, Mateo."

I chuffed at that claim. "I'm not the hero, zia ," I dismissed. "It was the paramedics who saved his life."

"No. If not for you our Dante would not be here at all," she returned sagely, pulling me into a surprisingly firm hug against her large and pillowy bosom. Something about that hug made me want to stay there a little longer, needing that bit of contact filled with love this morning.

"Thank you, my friend," Dante said to me, his expression serious as he looked at me over his wife's shoulder.

"Of course," I replied.

Giulia hustled me into the only seat beside Dante and I knew better than to fight her. She caught me up on what had happened overnight, the tests that had been done confirming a severe cardiac arrest but more tests were still being done to work out why.

"Looks like I'm going to be stuck here a while," Dante sighed.

"This is for the best," I returned, knowing how much Dante would hate being cooped up here.

"We'll have to get those blueprints for the Atlas project out by tomorrow," he continued. "And the Saint designs will need to be updated after yesterday's meeting."

"I'll take care of all of that," I assured him. "Don't worry yourself about work."

"Did you make it home okay last night, Mateo?" Giulia cut in as she smoothed Dante's hair from his forehead on the other side of the bed.

"Yeah, I did," I told her, shifting uncomfortably in my seat.

"Was Rob able to come and get you?"

"Ah, no," I hesitated, eyes darting to the wall. "One of the, um, paramedics gave me a lift home."

"Oh, which one? The handsome one?" Giulia gushed just as a nurse stepped into the room on her rounds.

"I don't know which you mean," I murmured, sure that flush was spreading along my cheeks.

"Oh what was his name? Jimmy? No, Jamie," she quipped, pleased at her recall. "He was quite the looker."

"Do you mind?" Dante huffed while his wife just laughed.

"Don't worry, darling. You'll always be my number one."

"Jamie is quite the favourite among the staff here," the nurse decided to helpfully cut in as she scribbled something on Dante's chart. "Has all the nurses in quite the flap over him. More's the pity he's gay. Broke quite a few hearts when that news came out."

I felt Dante's eyes on me, one artfully peaked eyebrow pointed skyward as I shuffled in my seat and hoped for the ground to open up beneath me.

"Oh that is a pity," Giulia said, shoulders deflating. "Do we know any gay men, Dante? Maybe we can set them up."

"How about we leave the handsome paramedic be," Dante returned, patting his wife's excited hand. "I'm sure he can arrange his own love life."

"No doubt when he looks like that," she agreed.

Fortunately that seemed to put an end to our discussions about the hot paramedic and his preference for men and I felt my heart rate start to moderate.

How ironic that of all the people in the room right then, it was my heart rhythm that was of most concern rather than patient currently hooked up to all the heart monitor machines. The irony was not lost on me one bit.