Just Good Friends?

Chapter 30 - Truth unfolding

Joe

---JOE--- Where are you? Need to hear what happened from you. Apparently you were there?!?! X

---HARRY--- Yeah, I was. I'll meet you at yours in half hour if you're ready to listen? xx

---JOE--- im ready. You seen Nate? Xxx

---HARRY--- Yeah xxxx

....

I don't f*****g believe it. I've let my best mate down when all he was doing was getting Bex to safety and trying to protect Mike. He read the situation as soon as the table went over apparently, and he read it good. He protected Cals future, and he protected Bex from seeing a blood bath, and he stopped Mike from dyeing on a pub floor. I f****d up. I swore I'd always have his back, always stand by him no matter what, but I didn't. I'm such a s**t friend.

I sit there with my head in my hands whilst Harry and Cal sit opposite me, staring.

"Why did you go back?" Cal asks Harry.

"I had to. When I saw you come out the door, I knew Nate had sent you out for a reason, so I went back to help. It was f*****g chaos, and it had only just started. I dragged Mike out of the way and shouted to the barmaid to ring an ambulance and sit with him, then jumped in with Nate. We had to keep those fuckers away from Mike, they were gunning for him" Harry tells us the rest, every single detail, and we sit in silence after. I've got to see Nate.

I stand up and grab my keys from the counter.

"What are you doing?" Cal asks

"I'm hoping to see my mate. I need to apologise" I head for the door, but the others follow me. Looks like I'm not going alone.

....

"Is there any change" Nate asks once I've said my bit, and he's apologised for the 10th time about not protecting Mike better.

"No, it's not looking good" Harry tells him "Bex said to head back whenever you like, but I'm on strict orders to make sure you rest first" I look at Harry then Nate.

"You've been there? To the hospital?" I ask.

"He went there straight from custody dude, fuckers been there by Mike's side with Bex half the f*****g night and all day!" I'm so ashamed of myself right now. How could I ever doubt Nate.

My phone beeps then so I pull it out of my pocket quickly incase it's news.

---DAD--- Come back to the house. All of you X

---JOE--- On our way. Is there news? Xx

Dad has picked up on the whole x xx xxx thing too.

---DAD--- Nothing to worry about xxx

"My dad wants us all back at the house. Nothing to worry about apparently" I tell them, putting my phone back in my pocket.

"Let's go then. I'm driving, you lot aren't in any fit state" Cal grabs my keys out of my hand and for the first time in my life, I don't resist. Under normal circumstances nobody drives my escalade.

......

The drive was silent, all of us thinking about what's to come.

"Dad?" I call as soon as we walk through the door. Mia appears around the corner and points to the kitchen. She looks like she's been crying, so I give her a hug and kiss her cheek, then head to the kitchen with the others following.

"Sit down boys. Nate, Harry, how are you 2 holding up?" Dad pats them both on the back as they walk past and drop on to stools around the counter.

"Fine, few scratches, nothing to write home about" Nate is playing it down. He's had 34 stitches in his side where doctors say he was slashed with something, broken bottle probably, and he's also got another 15 on his cheek where the same thing happened. Another 2 cm out and he would of lost his eye.

"Mike is still in a coma, doctors want to keep him that way for a little while longer. But, swelling on his brain is going down, and there's signs of brain activity, so it's positive" there's a collective sigh of relief around us.

"Thats awesome Big D!" Harry jumps up and hugs Dad.

"He's still got a long way to go, but I say, if it wasn't for Nate here, he'd be a gonner. You put yourself in a really dangerous situation Nate, saved my girl and probably Mike's life too, but you could of got yourself killed. Harry, you too. You didn't have to go back, you were away from it, but you went to help your friends. What you lot have, is true friendship, don't ever let anything come between that ok" he looks pointedly at me now, and I know I f****d up.

"We won't let that happen Big D. Some of us act like dickheads sometimes, but we work it out, right dudes" Harry's looking at me with a big grin, that fucker, but I can't help but grin back.

"Yeah, I was a complete c**k, but we're good now right Nate" I hope we are anyway.

"We're good dude... but you owe me big time, bbiiig time!" And him and Harry fist bump whilst Cal just shakes his head in amusement.

....

"I really am sorry Nate. I just got it in my head that you were trying it on with Bex" me and Nate are having a chilled night. Cal went home and Harry went to the hospital to keep Bex company and make sure she eats something.

"It's all cool dude. I wouldn't do that though. Bex was trying to get it out of me about Anna, but I didn't want to get in to it, so I did a me thing and fooled around. But you know, I still love Bex, always will. Nobody will ever come close to her. And if I ever did have a chance with her, then I'd like to think you'd be OK with that. Don't worry, I'm not getting ideas, it's just a metaphorical thing. I'd like to think you always want me to do what makes me happy, same if it was you, I'd want you to be happy Joe" Nate can be so serious sometimes.

"I know dude. And yeah, I would be happy for you, I just wouldn't want anything to go wrong as I'd be stuck in the middle of my best mate and my twin, that s**t would be awkward" I grab beers and pass one over to him " so what's happened with Anna?" I take a swig and look at him. He's looking really uncomfortable now.

"She told me she was f*****g pregnant, straight after I told her I didn't want things to carry on between us. She accused me of cheating and using her, then told me I couldn't leave her as she was pregnant." He has his head in his hands now.

"f**k dude! That's some heavy s**t! What the f**k are you going to do?" I lean forward in my seat, not quite sure what to do. Bex would be so much better at this than me, so I get why he went to her. I'm just not sure why he didn't end up telling her about it.

"Nothing. She's not pregnant, and if she is, its not mine, she's lieing, trying to trap me. We've had s*x once, and I was careful, I've never not used a condom ever in my life, so it's not like we've been having s*x all the time and me not remembering if we'd been protected every time" Nate just looks totally worn out. I can't believe that b***h did that to him! Bex will hit the f*****g roof when she finds out. She encouraged Nate to go out with her, she'll regret that now I'm sure of it.

"Thats f*****g low man. Has she said anything since? I didn't really notice, but now I think about it, she hasn't been here this last week" I lean back again and take another swig of beer. Nate winces as he moves, and puts a hand to his side.

"You OK dude? You look like s**t" I smirk at him.

"Nice dude, caring till the end with you" but he's smiling so I know he's not pissed at me.

"You're not going to get the girls looking like that, put it that way" I laugh at him.

"Think I'm off the female race for a while dude" He takes some painkillers from his pocket and heads to the kitchen for water.

"Unless it's Bex yeah?" I say, only half joking.

"Don't go there dude, you know I won't. Plus that's in really bad taste considering where her boyfriend is right now. What was up with him anyway? That was no way just about me, he was really pissed about something, and it wasn't me loving Bex, that was just something to let loose about" He swollows 2 tablets with water and heads back to the sofa.

"Should you be drinking beer whilst taking them"? Nate is left to his own devices a lot of the time, his parents both work really hard, too hard actually, but he seems to like it that way. He's always been independent and likes his own company, but it also means there's nobody to watch out for him in times like this, so that's my job.

"It's all cool Joe, doc said I can drink with these, no harm done. Now, back to Mike" he looks at me expectantly.

"Don't know dude, but you're right, there was something else on his mind" I hear the front door open then, and Harry's voice travel down the hall. A few seconds later, him and Bex walk in. Bex looks worse than Nate.

I get my phone out and order pizza, everyone needs to eat, especially Nate and Bex, but I know nobody wants to cook, and I sent Mia home. She was quite upset about Mike so I told her to go and spend some time with her family for a few days.

Bex heads in to the den and plonks herself down next to Nate. She reaches over and pulls his t-shirt up slightly to look at his dressing.

"Good, no blood, that means you've actually been taking it easy" she leans back and he puts his arm over her shoulder and pulls her to him then kisses her head.

"I'm fine Bex, no need to worry about me, you've got enough on your mind" everyone must be blind if they don't see how in love with my sister he is. And then it hits me... Bex wasn't surprised at all earlier when I blurted out about Nates feelings for her. I need to talk to her.

"Bex, Dad will want to see you, make sure you're OK. I'll come up with you. I've ordered pizza, keep an ear out for it guys" Bex stands up and we leave the room. When we're out of ear shot, I turn to her.

"You know, don't you? About Nate? How? Did he tell you?" I ask incredulously.

"No Joe, he didn't tell me, but I've know for years. He hides it well, and he'd never act on it, and he's never treated me differently because of it. He makes it easy to be around him" She carries on to dad's study.

"Don't tell him that you know Bex, he'd be shattered"