As they disappeared around a corner, Simon heard Beckert say, “Your car still hasn’t arrived, has it? Let me give you a ride home, Jack.”
Too late, Simon. You’re too late.
After he collected his coat, Simon roamed the halls, searching for Owen and Jared. He couldn’t find them. He couldn’t find anyone. The doctors and administrators must have taken Hong-Wei to some conference area. No way Simon was going in there.
Feeling weary and heavy with regret, he fired off a text to Owen. I’ll be in the locker room whenever you’re ready to go.
Simon pushed open the door and sat on one of the benches between the lockers, draping his coat beside him before cradling his face in his hands. If it wasn’t so late and they didn’t live quite so far, he’d walk home. He wanted to get to his bed so he could have a good, hard cry. He wanted to put this day behind him, to not have to stay here a second longer and think about how he screwed up, how he’d hurt Hong-Wei, how he’d turned away, quite possibly, a chance at the relationship he’d always dreamed of. It was probably proper penance, though, that he had to sit here alone and wallow in his mistake. Hong-Wei shouldn’t be the only one to suffer. Simon deserved this, and so much more.
When the door to the locker room opened, Simon sat up and gathered himself as best he could. Either this was Owen come to collect him, or some other staff member, and in any event, he didn’t want them seeing him in this state. He lifted his head to offer a friendly smile as best he could, tucking away his misery.
His smile fell away, replaced by shock. Hong-Wei stood at the edge of the lockers, wearing his lab coat. He looked so worn out he could barely function, but he was also lit by some kind of low-banked fire, and the flame, though weak, was aimed at Simon.
Hong-Wei leaned on the lockers, supporting his weight against his shoulder, his breath uneven as if he had rushed to arrive. He stared at Simon with a fevered intensity. “I know you told me you don’t want me to disturb your peace. I’m trying not to. The problem is, I don’t back down well, tonight being exhibit A. You turning me away led me to finding Mr. Zhang in time to save him, which I’m grateful for, but working beside you tonight, the way you knew just when to support me without being told, without words, the way you were the single person who never questioned me—I’m more inside out than I was when you walked away.” His hands bunched into fists at his sides, his face a picture of misery. “I’m not going to lie when I say I want you—I want you so much I burn with it—but I’m willing to accept anything. How can they fire us for being close friends? My point is there are ways around this, and I want to find them, Simo—”
The rest of his sentence was lost as Simon rose, closed the distance between them, and stopped him with a kiss.
Simon threaded his fingers into Hong-Wei’s hair, anchoring himself. A second chance. This is my second chance. I can’t waste it. He opened his mouth over Hong-Wei’s, pressed his body in close, telling himself, Let go, just let go and give in to this, stop letting fear drive you, but he couldn’t stop shaking. The smell and taste of Hong-Wei enveloped him, filling his senses, but he couldn’t escape his terror.
Hong-Wei broke the kiss, cradling Simon’s face. “You don’t have to do this. I told you, I’ll do whatever you want.”
“I do want this.” Simon clung to Hong-Wei’s shoulders, resting his forehead against Hong-Wei’s. “I’m so afraid. It’s not only the hospital policy. It’s everything. I’m so ridiculous. I’m sorry. I can’t—”
“I can.” Hong-Wei stroked Simon’s face, brushed his lips across Simon’s in a gentle kiss. “You don’t have to be strong, Simon. Let me be strong for you. Let me protect you. Let me take care of you and cherish you.”
Simon felt weak in the knees. He swayed on his feet. “Hong-Wei.”
“I can keep you safe. I promise.” Hong-Wei kissed Simon’s eyebrow, breath tickling Simon’s skin. “Just stay with me. I’ll do everything else. Only say you’ll keep me from feeling so alone.”
Simon knew Hong-Wei’s promise to keep him safe wasn’t possible, however much he might yearn for it. Even if it were possible, he couldn’t ask that of anyone, not with the kind of burden it would bring. That last plea, though, made him ache. Simon touched Hong-Wei’s face, wishing he could draw his lover’s loneliness out with his fingertips. The memory of how isolated Hong-Wei had looked in his command of the ER came back to Simon, filling him with a need to protect the man in his arms.
“You can’t keep me safe. It’s not what I need.” Simon turned his face toward Hong-Wei’s. “I’ll keep you from feeling alone, though. Anytime that you want.”
Hong-Wei cradled Simon’s cheeks for a moment, then took him by the hand and led him through the locker room, past the toilets and sinks and around the corner into the separate room housing the showers, where Hong-Wei shut and locked the door.
“I don’t want anyone to find us.” He ran a hand over Simon’s hair. “Or should we leave?”
They should leave, yes. They’d waited this long. What was a little longer? That was the proper reply Simon should give, the responsible one.
Except he absolutely didn’t feel like being responsible.
I’m tired of being afraid.
He lifted his arms and looped his hands around Hong-Wei’s neck, linking them to hide his trembling. “I don’t want to wait.”
Hong-Wei caught Simon’s trembling wrist, stilling it gently. “Are you sure?”
Drawing a deep breath, Simon nodded. “The door is locked. It’s fine.” His thumb grazed Hong-Wei’s hairline. “I want to leave with you too. But first….”
Don’t be afraid.
He slid his fingers into Hong-Wei’s hair.
Inside, in the damp and dark with the faint echo of faucets dripping around them, Hong-Wei pressed Simon to the tile with his body, opened his mouth over Simon’s, and devoured him.
Simon moaned under the assault, and Hong-Wei plunged deeper, teasing his tongue alongside Simon’s as he pinned his hands above his head. Shivering, Simon arched into Hong-Wei’s grip as his fingers traveled down Simon’s sides, mapping his ribs and muscles through his shirt, sliding to the small of his back where his fingers kneaded gently, coaxing Simon.
“Give yourself to me.” Hong-Wei drew Simon’s hands down so they rested on Hong-Wei’s shoulders. He nuzzled Simon’s nose and brushed his lips and cheeks with tender kisses, trailing nibbles along the evening stubble growing along his jaw. His knee nudged Simon’s legs apart, urging him to sit on Hong-Wei’s thigh as Simon’s appendages turned to jelly. “Let go, Simon. Give me everything.”
Let go. Simon wanted to. He wanted it to be like TV, where he didn’t have to think, where the plot swept him away with a slight dramatic twist to a happy ever after. He couldn’t trust that, though.
Could he trust Hong-Wei?
Simon gasped as Hong-Wei’s mouth closed over his jugular, sucking lightly at the pulse. “I…I—” He shut his eyes and arched his back as Hong-Wei’s hands settled on his sides, pinky grazing his rib, thumb finding Simon’s nipple through his scrubs, languidly teasing it into an aching peak. The hands that had worked so hard to save Mr. Zhang now wrung pleasure from Simon with the same deliberation and confidence he had in the operating room.
Yes. I should be able to trust this.
Still, Simon struggled to surrender. They were in the locker room, in the hospital, where anyone could hear them. His coat was on the bench. People had seen Hong-Wei come in. What if they—?
Hong-Wei nipped at Simon’s collarbone. “Stop panicking. I can feel your pulse rate rising.”
A love affair with a surgeon is tricky. “I’m sorry. I’m trying. I really am.”
Hong-Wei drew his index finger down to Simon’s solar plexus. “Forget everything but me. Trust that I’ll protect you.”
“But you can’t promise something like that. You can’t keep another person safe. No one can keep anyone safe.”
Hong-Wei lifted his head to gaze into Simon’s eyes as he strok
ed his face. “You can’t begin to imagine how much effort I’ll make to protect you. From rumors, from the administration, from your own fears, if I can manage it. You’re right, I can’t guarantee anything. But if there’s one thing I know I can do, it’s work hard.” He kissed Simon’s chin. “I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe. For now, though, Simon, don’t worry. Focus on me, give yourself to me, and let go.”
The door opening in the locker room startled Simon, but Hong-Wei’s stare held him captive. Simon gazed back at Hong-Wei, barely able to breathe.
“Someone saw Wu come in here, but I don’t see him.”
Hong-Wei’s thumb grazed Simon’s bottom lip, which was still swollen from his kiss.
“There’s a coat here,” another voice said.
“Not his, I don’t think.” It sounded like one of the board members.
Was this it? Were they about to get caught? Were they over before they began? Simon didn’t know what to think. He was tired of trying to guess. Tired of being afraid. Tired—and a little angry—that every time he had a moment with Hong-Wei, some kind of signal went off and the administration came to stop them.
Focus on me.
“We should check the shower—maybe he’s cleaning up.”
Fear punched at Simon’s gut.
Hong-Wei drew Simon closer. Trust that I’ll protect you.
Simon shuddered, yearning to give in, certain he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t be able to embrace something that made him feel so wonderful. He couldn’t really trust this. It couldn’t be real. He should… he should….
I don’t want to do anything but be with him.
The footsteps came closer to the door. Simon scarcely heard them. The only sound he was aware of was the beating of his heart, too fast, too irregular. He didn’t need medicine to be cured, though.
He needed Hong-Wei.
Give yourself to me.
Simon shut his eyes.
When Hong-Wei’s mouth crashed over his own, this time it carried him away on a warm, perfect sea, and he knew nothing else—only the warmth of his lover’s touch and the safety of his embrace.
Chapter Eight
HONG-WEI WASN’T letting Simon change his mind.
Breaking the kiss for a moment, he kept one arm around Simon as he reached over the half wall to the showerhead next door, standing on tiptoe to turn the spray on full blast. Then he resumed kissing Simon, touching his face, running his hands over his body, pressing his knee between his legs to feel both the surrender of his muscles and the delicious heaviness of his desire.
In the other room, the footsteps stopped and the knob rattled. “Ah. Oh well. I suppose we’ll catch him on Monday.”
Hong-Wei took Simon’s face in both hands, drawing slow, drugging kisses from his lips until they heard the door to the locker room close once more.
Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to stay here after all. Simon had relaxed, had stopped fighting this—that was enough. He didn’t really want to make love to Simon in a shower anyway. Pulling away far enough to press a kiss to Simon’s nose, Hong-Wei stretched once again over the wall to turn off the water, then unlocked the door to the showers. “Come home with me.”
He loved the way Simon clung absently to him. “How do we get out of the hospital? How do we leave the locker rooms?”
“You go first. Walk to the parking lot, then wait on the far side of the tall hedges. I’ll come out in a few minutes.”
Simon nodded, still leaning on him. “I need to tell Owen and Jared where I’m going. They think I’m waiting for a ride.”
Smiling, Hong-Wei brushed his lips against Simon’s ear. “Who do you think told me where you were?”
He worried Simon would fret, but it seemed when Simon let go, he let go. After one last kiss at the door, Simon exited the locker room without looking back, moving down the halls toward the parking lot. Once he was gone, Hong-Wei waited.
It was like being in school, though he’d never lingered for a lovers’ tryst. He’d hidden in the locker room to escape his fellow students. When he’d first arrived from Taiwan, the bullying had been subtle but scary since he hadn’t known anyone, and his English had been so poor. They goaded him into saying things they knew he’d pronounce incorrectly, and several boys had made a game of teaching him dirty or crude usage to get him in trouble. They’d laughed at the way he called his instructors “teacher” instead of Mr. or Mrs. So-and-So, even though that was the way it was done in Taiwan.
Hong-Wei had learned to pick up on when his fellow students meant to lead him into trouble—“Jack, Jack, where are you, Jack? We want to talk to you…”—and he’d hide in the bathroom, or the locker room, or the janitor’s closet. He went through a phase where he’d skip whole periods, copying the assignment from the board, taking his homework with him, sneaking back to turn it in. He’d steal out from his hiding spaces and erase his name from the attendance slips in the hall, then seek refuge in his private kingdom and work in peace. In his mind, it was the best solution for everyone. Unfortunately one teacher paid enough attention to notice she always marked him absent, yet somehow he was doing homework. Hong-Wei’s parents were called in, which meant they had to take off of work, since his grandparents didn’t speak enough English at that point to carry out the duty.
Oh, how he had been punished for his antics. Worse, he had to start attending class again. His grades took a downturn because he had to tune out the taunts and keep up with the pace the teacher set, not his own, and his parents became angrier.
He hadn’t thought about it before, but it was probably then he’d begun to close off.
The old memories lingered as he left the locker room and wandered through the clinic, heading upstairs one last time to check on Mr. Zhang in the ICU. He couldn’t remember most of it anymore, the coming over from Taiwan. He knew objectively it had been tough and had altered him irrevocably, but at the same time it felt far away and frothy when he thought about it, as if he had smoothed everything out until even the worst of it wasn’t anything at all. He could imagine the ring of ten-year-olds staring at him as if he were a strange fish, remembered feeling terror and a deep yearning to leave, to go home to Taiwan, and yet it was so distant, as if it had happened to someone else, or as if it were simply a movie and wasn’t real.
He had buried his feelings in his music, his outlet, his constant, his joy. When his father tried to take that away too, he feared the sucking void would be too much. Hong-Su had promised him he could come to love medicine the way he loved music. He’d learned to tolerate it, had mastered it, but he’d never found passion.
Not until tonight. Not until he’d been in the heat of the terror of not having what he needed, of giving aid to someone no one else could help, of being the only person who could do what needed to be done… and of having Simon and Owen and the others there to assist him.
Now he had Simon with him in other ways as well. Unless fear had gotten the better of him. Hong-Wei’s heart seized at the thought, too raw from the day, too weary.
Please be there, Simon. Please don’t have changed your mind.
Simon was at the hedge, waiting.
Clearly some of his nerves had returned, a few of his doubts, but he remained, and the sight of Hong-Wei apparently settled him, which didn’t hurt Hong-Wei’s ego in the slightest. Better still, when Hong-Wei closed the distance between them and ran a welcoming hand down his back, leaning in to press a kiss on the side of Simon’s head, Simon didn’t pull away or remark about anyone seeing.
That seemed odd, given how upset he’d been about it earlier. “Are you worried about people seeing us?”
Simon shrugged and kept his gaze focused straight ahead as they walked. “I am, but I don’t want to be afraid. Besides, I decided I’ve either got to trust you to know how to hide us, or not.”
Hong-Wei felt both the pride and weight of the flattery. “I have a lot of practice keeping secrets.”
“Oh? When did you come out? Or is Owen right, that
you didn’t?”
He considered how to answer. “I didn’t ever formally come out. In high school I was too terrified. In college I was too angry. In med school I was too busy. At some point my family stopped asking if I had a girlfriend and didn’t offer to introduce me to nice girls any longer. I suspect my sister had a conversation with them, but maybe they figured it out another way.”
“You did date, though, yes?”
“Date? No. Hooked up? Yes. Not often. In college I was still trying to avoid it, as if it were something I could put a lid on, and then in med school I was legitimately too busy. Plus I was always angry. Not really boyfriend material.” He grimaced. “If you ask my sister, my broodiness made all the girls and some of the guys swoon over me. I didn’t ask for that, and I didn’t try to encourage it. I honestly didn’t know it was going on. I was a mess.”
“You sound like Jared before Owen got ahold of him.” Simon smiled wistfully. “This was in middle school. Owen was our ringleader. Jared was one of the cool kids, angry and emo, but he says mostly he was terrified because he knew he was gay and wasn’t sure how to come out. I was decidedly not cool, picked on and called gay even when I wasn’t yet sure if I was. I was shorter then, and skinnier, and more concerned about whether or not my pimples would ever go away than who I wanted to ask me out. Anyway, one day the bullying was pretty bad, and I kind of freaked out. Then out of nowhere came Owen.”
Hong-Wei could see it. “Was he all snarls and venom the same as now?”
“Oh, worse. He’s calmed a lot. His home life was rough, and everyone was scared of him. He was a real thug. At first I thought he was going to beat me up. Imagine my surprise when he defended me instead, came out in front of the whole school, and said if they wanted to pick on a queer kid, they had to start with him.”
The Doctor's Secret (Copper Point Medical Book 1) Page 15