This Ain't No Gay Romance by Avice Sasha

Author:Avice, Sasha [Avice, Sasha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-01-02T18:30:00+00:00

The hospital carpark was a hospital carpark—plain, bitumen, parking metres no doubt so overpriced that if you were a person living on the edge of your finances, this would be the tipping point. Rollins crossed it quickly, eyes taking in the ugly brick building in front of him. After much haggling with the woman who lived next door to Jay’s mum, he found out ‘the family’ were likely here. What family?

It didn’t matter. His tiredness was receding under his desperate rage to see Jay and hit him.

He saw Nola first.

She was sitting at a woman’s feet out the front of the hospital. And she was wearing some kind of jacket. The woman was smoking, eyes on the carpark. She shifted her gaze as Rollins approached, narrowed her eyes, but otherwise continued to smoke as he held his line straight for her.

Nola saw him and stood, her whole body wriggling, tail wagging.

The woman took a drag, but didn’t move.

“That’s my dog,” he said as he came up to them.

Nola was leaping up, hew paws landing on his thighs, and he held her head in his palms and scratched behind her ears.

“So it is,” the woman said.

Rollins straightened. “Where’s Jay?”

“Why’re you looking for him?”

“Because he took my dog,” he thought that was pretty obvious.

The woman shook her head slightly, tilted her face down to look at Nola. She would’ve been pretty once—cute—but she looked old, probably older than she was. Her dark roots were visible against the bleached blonde strands, her wrinkles prominent in her tan skin. Even her clothes looked tired—faded jeans and a flannelette shirt.

But her eyes were shrewd and eerily calm. “He’s been taking good care of her, no need to rush all the way here from Port Hedland.”

“Who are you?”

“Friend,” she looked up and met his eyes, “of the family,” she finished after a pause.

“Okay, is Jay inside?”

She dragged on the butt of her cigarette, blew the smoke in his face—which he thought was really unnecessary—and dropped it and crushed it under her boot.

“Yeah, but he’s with her now and she’s dying so I wouldn’t bother him if I were you.”

“Who?”

“His mum.”

Rollins sucked in a breath. She was watching him carefully.

The sliding doors opened behind them and Jay came out. He was holding his glasses and wiping his eyes and Rollins suddenly wished he’d stayed home and trusted Jay with Nola like he knew he should’ve in the first place.

“Rollins?” Jay asked as he walked over. He was surprised. Obviously he was surprised.

“Came to see his dog,” the woman said, looking at Jay. “How’s your mum? I told him she’s dying.”

Jay stared at her. He’d put his glasses back on and his red-rimmed eyes blinked slowly. Rollins had a horrible thought that maybe she’d just died and here he was, right in time for it with his bullshit excuse and no idea what to do if that happened.

“She’s sleeping,” Jay replied after a moment. “You wanna go up?”

“Yeah,” she said and handed Jay Nola’s leash. She squeezed his shoulder roughly, pressed a firm kiss to the top of his head.

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