by Layla Reyne
Miller sensed a question in there, but when he didn’t bite, Clancy moved on to another.
“How long is the flight time?”
“Now you’re smartening up. About two and a half hours.”
Contemplating, Clancy rubbed his hand over the bit of scruff growing in along his jawline.
Miller asked another question before the unwelcome stirrings started again. “Why didn’t you leave LA for undergrad or med school?”
“Los Angeles gets shit on a lot, and I concede, it’s not perfect, by a long shot. The traffic is terrible, there’s too much emphasis on appearance, and too much disparity of wealth. But it’s my home. One that’s relatively diverse, where the beach is only a traffic jam away, and where a foodie can get decent fine dining or a killer fish taco.”
Good. Very good. Clancy would appreciate some of the more unexpected stops on this tour. “And staying in LA kept you close to your dad.”
“Is that one of your questions?”
Miller nodded.
“Like I mentioned, it took Dad a while to bounce back after Mom moved to Chicago. I wasn’t going to leave him in LA all by himself.”
But what of that cringe last night? When Miller had asked him about going into practice with his father. Clancy clearly loved his parents—he’d gone out of his way to be there for his father when he’d needed him—but some puzzle piece no longer fit. Before Miller could decide how to ask the question delicately, Clancy spoke.
“Why are we going to this next stop?”
Easy answer. “It’s my favorite view while dining.”
“Is it in a building with a giant needle on top?”
Miller chucked the napkin back at him. “Cheater. That’s as good as asking if we’re going to Seattle.”
He shrugged, not looking the least bit chastened. “Are we?”
“No, and no more questions for you.”
“You got any more for me?”
Yes, but those could wait. “Are you enjoying yourself so far?” Miller asked instead.
Clancy snatched an entire cupcake and reclined in his seat, kicking his Chucks up on the table as he bit through the banana caramel decadence, humming contentedly.
Miller laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Chapter Four
Miller’s only tour obligation was to attend each dinner. He’d blown right through that boundary yesterday with the impromptu picnic. And he’d known he’d do it again when they’d stepped off the plane last night in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The LA boy beside him had glimpsed the snow-covered Tetons and begun bouncing on his toes. By the time Miller had returned to the hotel lobby from accompanying the luggage valet to their two-bedroom suite, he’d found Clancy at the lobby bar with a stack of activity brochures. There was a winter wonderland to see and experience in and around Grand Teton National Park. Miller remembered that sense of wonder, that excitement from the first time he’d visited here. It was unlike any place he’d ever seen, and he’d wanted to see it again, one last time. And Miller wanted to be there with Clancy as he experienced it the first time.
The day went as they’d planned for Clancy, Miller made sure of it. For himself, it was a roller coaster of sightseeing and ducking out of view to heave. When he’d warned Clancy to go easy, in case of altitude sickness, Miller hadn’t thought he’d be the one affected. It’d never given him fits before at higher-elevations, but he’d been perfectly healthy those other times. Not so much anymore. But he’d soldiered through, doubling up on pain meds and cursing the anti-nausea pills that did little to settle his roiling stomach. Brief moments of reprieve had come in the form of Clancy-induced distraction—the surgeon’s full-body shiver each time a wolf howled, his bushy brow furrowing as he observed a master craftsman carve a bear out of wood, his laughter as their sleigh sped among giant elk in the Park’s National Elk Refuge.
By the time they returned to the hotel, however, not even Clancy’s babbling recount of the day to his dad on the phone was enough to distract Miller from the world swaying around him. Sweat had gathered at his temples under his plaid skullcap, pots and pans clashed in his head, and his stomach was knotted worse than that time he’d eaten bad oysters. Take Clancy’s hungover state from yesterday and multiply it by a hundred and Miller suspected that’s about where he was right now.
He ditched his gloves in the hallway, dug his room key out of his pocket, and swiped it over the electronic lock. He pushed open the door and had to catch himself on the jamb to keep from falling through into the room.
Clancy’s voice echoed from the far end of a darkening tunnel. “Dad, I gotta go.” The next instant, he was there next to Miller, shoving a shoulder under his and throwing an arm around his waist.
“Hey, big guy. I got you. Steady now.”
Clancy shifted them off the door, and it slammed shut, the sound a tower of plates crashing in Miller’s head.
“I’ve been fighting all day not to go into doctor mode,” Clancy said. “But if I ignore this any longer, I’ll be compromising my oath.”
“Bathroom,” Miller croaked.
Clancy didn’t question, just hustled them through Miller’s bedroom to the attached en-suite bathroom. Miller’s knees hit the marble floor a second before his stomach went for the final KO. He clutched the sides of the toilet bowl, heaving nothing but bile. The pain that shot through his throat made him retch more. Clancy was moving around him, and Miller didn’t bother shooing him off, especially not when the nausea eased and he fell back into a body strong enough to hold his up. Clancy helped him out of his jacket and cap, and Miller craved the cool marble floor, despite his teeth-chattering. Clancy wrapped a robe around him first before laying him down, a rolled towel tucked under his head.
“Fuck, Miller. Do I need to call—”
“You are a doctor. It’s just altitude sickness.”
Soothed by Clancy’s long fingers combing through his damp hair, he closed his eyes. He tried to blink them open again when the soft touch disappeared, but his lids were too heavy. The toilet flushed, water ran, and a cool, wet towel was laid against his neck.
Heaven.
A shadow fell over his face, a hand brushing back his hair that was too long in the front. He opened his eyes and looked up at Clancy.
No, not Clancy. Dr. Rhodes.
Hell.
“I like the fanboy better.”
Dr. Rhodes ignored him, shoving his sunglasses on top of his head and peering at him close-up. “This has happened before?”
No. “Yes.”
“Are you telling me the truth?”
Nausea threatened again, but Miller didn’t have the energy to force himself upright. He swallowed it down, wincing as razors of acid lanced this throat. “Some bedside manner,” he said once he had his insides under control, relatively.
“There’s really no time to dick around with my patients.”
“In plastic surgery?”
Clancy’s hand drifted from Miller’s hair to his cheek. “Not exactly.”
Miller closed his eyes against the assessing green gaze.
“You gonna be okay for a minute?” Clancy asked.
Miller wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Yeah, Doc.”
Clancy’s soothing touch disappeared, as did the bright vanity lights, thank fuck. The kitchen in Miller’s head quieted, enough that he could hear Clancy on the phone in the main room.
“Ms. Thatcher, please.”
Sloan.
Panic seized Miller. Maybe this wasn’t just altitude sickness. He was supposed to have more time, but supposed to didn’t mean much when there was a death sentence hanging over his head. If this was the end, he needed to talk to his best friend, one last time. Needed to beg for her forgiveness. Needed to tell her that he loved her, to be happy, and for fuck’s sake, don’t name the cannoli after him.
<
br /> He tried to push himself up, but he was so weak, so tired.
“Please,” he croaked, barely a whisper.
Darkness answered.
* * *
Clancy hung up with Sloan and tossed his phone on the dining table. He shucked off his outerwear, swapped his sunglasses out for his regular frames, and circled the dining bar into the kitchen to fill a glass with water. He wasn’t completely buying her or Miller’s claims that this was just altitude sickness, or that it’d happened before. Granted, all of Miller’s symptoms were consistent with acute mountain sickness, but something was tickling Clancy’s Spidey-senses.
On the flight out yesterday, Miller had intimated that Clancy was the one likely to get sick, cautioning him against eating too much. Miller hadn’t spoken like he expected to get sick. Then again, maybe he’d been cautioning Clancy because of his own experience. And maybe Clancy’s guilt was talking, making him think this was worse than simple altitude sickness.
He’d noticed something was wrong. He should have brought Miller back to the room instead of keeping them out all day. But Miller had insisted they keep going, and Grand Teton National Park had been like nothing Clancy had ever seen. Yes, he’d trudged through snow before in Chicago, but it was banked and blackened with sludge by sunup. Not fluffy and white, untouched in its natural habitat. And never had he seen elk roam, heard wolves howl, or seen a wrinkled old man, likewise in his natural habitat, use similar skills as Clancy’s—a sculptor with a knife—to create art out of wood.
Clancy patted his pants pocket, feeling the carved block in one and the uncarved piece in the other. He dropped both off on the table, next to his phone, before heading back to Miller’s bathroom with the glass of water. He quickened his pace when he heard the toilet flush and spied a big shadow straightening.
Miller was staggering around, tossing back a pill and leaning heavily on the vanity, struggling to hold himself up, when Clancy entered. “Hey, big guy, just a second.” He set the glass on the vanity and scooted under Miller’s shoulder. He flipped on the vanity light, needing to get a better look at his patient now that he had his glasses on. The sunglasses were prescription but shade, in this case, was not his friend. Neither was the sickly pallor and clammy feel of Miller’s skin.
“Your wife says you’re a big baby in the altitude,” he said, trying to distract Miller from his cursory examination.
“Best friend,” Miller said, voice barely a whisper. “Can’t keep calling her my wife.”
“But she is.”
Miller winced and shot out an arm, slapping off the light. “Not anymore.” He swayed, eyes fluttering, and gave Clancy more of his weight. “She loves Tyler. They’re good together. Made a cannoli.”
With his free hand, Clancy snatched the two pill bottles off the vanity and carried them with him into the bedroom where the curtains were open, letting in the waning rays of orange and red. He read the labels. A mild painkiller and an anti-nausea med frequently prescribed for motion sickness. Disorientation wasn’t usually a side effect of either, but every patient’s drug interaction profile was different.
He pocketed the bottles and shuffled Miller toward the bed. “Sit, Chef.” Clancy regretted the slip immediately, his professional demeanor on overdrive, but Miller didn’t seem to notice, plopping onto the bed without comment. Clancy fetched the water and handed it to him with an order to drink, then knelt to pull off Miller’s boots and socks.
“I’m gonna miss her,” Miller murmured above him.
“Because you’re in love with her.”
“No, I’m gay.”
Clancy’s hands froze where they were on Miller’s calf, checking to see if his pant leg was dry. Clancy had suspected Miller was bi, like him—he hadn’t missed the sparks between them, and he hadn’t been able to shake the conversation with his mother—but he’d figured Miller and Sloan’s relationship was more like his parents, once in love if not now. It seemed he’d figured wrong, not that he could or would ask Miller to clear things up in his current state.
Especially not when Miller sing-songed, “But she was mine, and I was hers,” above him.
Pants confirmed dry, Clancy stood and yanked the covers back for Miller to crawl in. “That’s from Game of Thrones.”
“Our favorite books.” Shivering, Miller handed off the half-empty glass and stretched out, pulling the covers up and closing his eyes. “Doesn’t matter now anyway. I’ll be gone.”
Gone from her life, Miller must mean, but surely not. They were best friends, for a long time Clancy was coming to understand. He didn’t think that would change. Married or not, surely Sloan would always be in Miller’s life. Clancy should get her back on the phone and have her tell Miller that so he’d feel better. If Clancy was going to do that, he needed to do it fast, before Miller fell sound asleep. He moved to stand, and Miller flailed a hand his direction. Clancy grabbed hold of it. He looked back at Miller, whose eyes were open and lucid. More so than they’d been since returning to the room. “I don’t think I can eat tonight.”
“It’s fine, Miller.”
“I’m sorry.” He pushed up on one elbow. “Not what you paid for.”
Clancy lowered Miller back down and brushed the hair off his forehead, a few strands of silver peeking through in the fractured light of dusk. “I heard wolves, saw elk, rode in a fucking sleigh as the snow fell. That’s more than this LA boy could have hoped for.”
Miller shook off his hand and turned his face away. “Not the point.”
Clancy smiled, even as Miller’s eyes closed and his breathing evened out in sleep. “It kinda is.”
* * *
Miller woke and wondered where the Mack truck was that had hit him. Flattened was the only way to describe the pancaked feeling of his head and body, the utter heaviness of his limbs, and the lack of energy to peel himself off the superfine sheets.
Superfine sheets.
In his hotel room.
In Wyoming.
With Clancy. Who’d had to take care of him when a day of thin air had wreaked havoc on his already weak—dying—body.
Oh, there was the Mack truck.
He opened his eyes to darkness, shot through with moonlight, and he’d never been so happy to see a fucking ceiling fan in his life. The last thing he remembered was lying on the bathroom floor, afraid the darkness would be forever. No, wait, he remembered Clancy sitting on the side of the bed. Remembered apologizing for not being able to make tonight’s meal.
Shit.
Miller twisted his head, checking the digital clock on the bedside table. 10:30 p.m. Way past their seven o’clock reservation. He glanced toward the door that was ajar to the living area. From the other side, a dim firelight flickered, casting wavering shadows on the walls, out of sync with a steady scraping sound Miller couldn’t place. Clancy was still awake out there.
Miller needed to get up. Go apologize again for missing dinner, and go make sure his cover story was intact. It was just altitude sickness. Clancy didn’t need to know it’d hit him harder because his body was preoccupied losing the battle to the cancer in his throat. The doctor might overreact; the stranger might tell someone. Neither was an acceptable outcome.
He pushed himself up, biting his lip against a grunt, and moved as quietly as he could to the bathroom. He didn’t want to draw Clancy’s attention just yet. The awful taste in his mouth and the pressure on his bladder demanded a few minutes of privacy first. The latter handled, he flipped on the vanity light to take care of the former and recoiled at his reflection in the mirror. He looked like he’d been hit by a Mack truck—pale skin, bags under his eyes, and the hair atop his head a curly tangled mess. He cursed Sloan again for talking him into buzzing only the sides and leaving the top long.
Sloan. He’d wanted to tell her...
He hurried through the rest of his washup, changed into a clean pair of sweats and
a tee, and snagged his phone from the charger where Clancy must have plugged it in. He expected a phone full of messages but there was only one, from Sloan. Text me when you’re awake. Clancy must have kept her updated.
Awake, he texted her.
Are you okay? came right back.
I’m good.
Doc didn’t seem to think so.
Exactly how much had Clancy told her? Altitude got ahold of me.
That’s new.
Even over text, he could sense the litigator setting her trap. We’re old now, dear.
The middle finger emoji appeared. He returned the sentiment with the poop one.
When she didn’t immediately respond, he second-guessed his sarcastic tone. She was worried about him, and before, when he’d thought he wouldn’t get a chance to say a proper goodbye, he’d felt regret like never before. Love you, he texted back. And I feel better, promise.
No delay this time. Love you too. Text me tomorrow.
Yes, Mom. He couldn’t help it.
Fuck you. And neither could she. It’s how they’d always been.
He smiled, turning the phone over and leaving it facedown on the dresser. A cold draft tickled his ankles and arms, and he backtracked to his luggage for a sweatshirt and grabbed his skullcap off the dresser, yanking it down over his ridiculous hair. By the time he got back to the door, he heard murmured voices outside, the distinctive clink of plates and cutlery, and then the suite door clicking shut. The breeze was no longer just cold. On it traveled the aromas of fresh bread and soup, and Miller’s stomach unexpectedly rumbled.
He stepped into the living area and found it rearranged—the bigger pieces of furniture pushed back, a rolling dining table set up in front of the fireplace, and two dining chairs situated catty-corner so they both had a view out the open patio doors. “What’s this?”
Clancy spun where he stood, barefoot, leaning against the patio doorjamb. “We’re a few floors above the restaurant. Same view, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Miller answered, but his eyes quickly strayed from the moonlit view of the Tetons and the Valley floor to the stunning young doctor, dressed down in his jeans from yesterday and an LA Rams hoodie, his hands fidgeting with something in the front pocket. What was he nervous about? Something Miller had said? Going into doctor mode? Missing the dinner? The initial awkwardness from before their first meal began to creep back in, and Miller, tired and increasingly hungry, swatted it away with sarcasm. Since he was on a roll with that tonight. “Were you even born before the Rams left LA?”