by T A. McKay
“Seriously, what’s the worst he can do? It’s not like he will bend you over and punish you. You’re not into receiving.” As much as I try not to learn much about Trey’s sex life, that is one thing I do know about him. Trey doesn’t bottom for anyone; it’s his one hard and fast rule.
And there’s that fucking blush again. The color spreads as he avoids looking at me and focuses on his watch. “Shit, look at the time. I really need to go if I want to get changed. Call me when you're next free.” He goes to stand up, and I grab him by the wrist.
“No fucking way. You bottomed!” Fuck, I might have said that a little louder than planned, and going by the look of horror on Trey’s face, I have a sneaking suspicion I'm right.
“Shut the fuck up.” The words are hissed quietly in my direction. I let go of his arm, knowing that I've probably pushed a little too far, especially in public.
“I'm sorry, man. Seriously.” I try to give him an innocent smile but I don’t think I would know what one of those looked like if my life depended on it.
Trey stands and sorts his tie, closing his jacket over the coffee stain on his shirt. “Call me.”
That’s all he says as he walks away, and I know I'm going to get my ass kicked in the ring soon. Fantastic, this day just keeps getting better.
“Grey, could you take a suture kit to room four-two-one please. A teen has a head lac. He’s been checked out and is fine, he just needs sewing up.”
I look at the clock on the wall and see I only have fifteen minutes until the end of shift. I smile at Chloe as I walk towards the supply room. It’s not her fault that I'm going to finish late again, she’s only trying to get people discharged, and I am technically still on shift. Isn’t it funny though, that everyone else has suddenly disappeared? I swear they all hide out somewhere when the clock starts counting down.
After grabbing everything I need I go to the room, knocking quietly before entering. I see the guy on the bed, texting away and not even looking up as I approach. He has a gauze bandage on his head but it’s not stemming the blood that’s running down his head. “I'm Nurse Green, I'm here to sew up your head.” I barely get a grunt from him before he goes back to texting. Got to love the youth of today.
I quietly go to work, explaining every step before I do it, but I'm pretty sure he isn’t listening at all. He’s just lying there and letting me do my thing. I should be happy at his quietness since the job is completed within ten minutes, and there’s a good chance I will still get out of here on time.
I know I've tempted fate when my pager goes off. I look down and see the message ‘911 ER’ scroll across the top screen. Shit, maybe I won’t be going home just yet. I cover the stitches quickly and give him the usual aftercare information. I wash my hands in the little sink in the room and leaving him with all the paperwork he needs before I practically run from the room. I rush to the arrival area in time to meet two ambulances as they arrive at breakneck speed. The back doors fly open and a screaming woman is wheeled through the door.
Yeah, it’s going to be a late night.
I close the front door behind me with my foot. I don't even have the energy to use my arms to reach out and do it. I lift my shoulder bag over my head and just drop it. I pray that I don’t have anything breakable in it but at the moment I really don’t care. I toe my shoes off on the way to the kitchen where I grab the half empty bottle of wine from the fridge. I know that it will just make me more tired, but after the last patient I had tonight, I need something to make me feel numb.
It was a two-car road smash and the woman was seven months pregnant. We tried for hours to save her life and thankfully when I left tonight, she was still hanging in there. It doesn’t take away the feeling of dread that’s in the pit of my stomach and refuses to leave. I get that a lot, a constant churning when I think of the people I've not been able to completely help, the ones who are still in the hospital, or on the worst of days, the morgue.
I've been told I take too much on, that I'm a brilliant nurse but at the end of the day the doctors make the decisions. Unfortunately that doesn’t help me feel any better when I lose a patient. I feel that people come to me for help and I should be able to fix them so we can send them home to their families.
I feel the burn in my eyes as tears start to build. I take a deep breath and blink rapidly, trying to get them to disappear. I raise the bottle to my lips, not even bothering to get a glass, and take a large drink as I look around my very empty apartment.
I’m so happy that Roman has found the man of his dreams. I think their story resembles something from one of the romance novels that sit around in the staffroom at the hospital, but it hurt when he moved out. I thought we were a team; both happy with the way things were between us. I can’t blame Roman for wanting to live with Trey instead of me. He’s found the love of his life, his other half, and I'm just the best friend. I'm the one that’s easy to leave behind.
I feel the tears start to burn again and I push off the kitchen unit, bottle still in hand, and make my way to the shower. If I'm going to break it will be in my safe place. It’s a habit I developed when I moved in with Roman, and is one I can’t seem to stop. When the world gets too much I hide and let the hot water mask my tears as I try to purge the pain inside. I know everyone thinks I'm the happy one, the fun loving guy who can be relied on to make you smile, but sometimes people forget that I have feelings as well.
My school days weren’t useful for many things, but they did teach me how to hide my pain deep down where no one could see it. No matter what I was going through, I could put on that smile and make sure no one saw how close I was to falling apart.
I turn on the shower and take another large drink as the water heats up. The burning feeling in my stomach reminds me that I haven’t eaten since breakfast and now that it’s past midnight I won’t be eating anytime soon. I can never eat after a late finish, well unless I was stealing Roman’s ice cream, that was acceptable.
I strip down and get under the warm water, adjusting the temperature until it’s nearly at burning point. I put my hands against the tiled wall and drop my head, letting the water pound against the back of my neck and shoulders. I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, letting the tension drain from my muscles.
As my body relaxes, the control I normally have over myself vanishes. All the emotions I keep in at work flow freely and I let them, needing them out before they eat me alive. The first tears are accompanied by a sob that wracks through my body and I need to lock my knees so I don’t collapse to the floor.
I try to breathe through the pain, but I have so many mixed emotions flooding through me, I don't know which one to focus on. The anger at Roman for leaving me here alone. The fear that I won’t find someone to love me. The shame of what Nathan witnessed the other night. The hopelessness of being alone and knowing that I might be like this forever.
Breaking through all the emotions, my mind focuses on Nathan and the confusion that surrounds the situation with him. I don’t know what to do when it comes to him. I don’t understand how I can want to kiss someone so badly in one breath and then in the next I want to beat his head in with a rock. The things he says to me, I swear it’s giving me whiplash. I never know what Nathan I'm going to get, the guy who whispers naughty things into my ear, or the one who pushes my buttons to get a reaction.
I know we can’t do anything, not only would it be an epic shit storm if it went wrong between us, there’s also the fact that I'm not sure he is actually gay. There are times I would bet all my savings on the fact that he only likes women, especially since he never seems that interested in other men, but then he's offering to show me a good time.
I raise my head into the stream of water and notice that thinking of Nathan has calmed me down. My stomach no longer feels like I need to be sick, and even though my throat hurts from the crying, I feel lighter again, like there’s some light finally shining through the clouds in my mind.
That’s another
thing that Nathan does. Thoughts of him settle me, centering me in a way I've never had before. Even when he's making my blood boil, there is a calmness that takes over my body. When he turned up in the alcove on Friday night I was mortified that he saw me in that condition, but relief quickly spread through me because I knew I was safe.
Shit. I need to stop thinking about Nathan this way. Even though I like the chase of a closeted gay man, I'm not sure that’s what he is. I think that’s what confuses me the most. I have no fucking idea who shares a bed with Nathan, and I care about the answer more than I should.
Chapter 4
I groan as I lean back in my chair and try to stretch the kink out of my neck. Mr. Donaldson called me yesterday and said that if I could redo his website by the end of next month he would add ten percent to the total quote. As much as I would have loved to say no to him, I couldn’t turn down that sort of money. So here I am, for the thirteenth hour running, trying to finish up the project I'm currently working on so I can move on to his website. If I'm honest, it will be a win/win scenario because my current client will be happy I finished early, and I’ll also get Mr. Donaldson out of my hair sooner than expected.
The only problem is I now have a sore head and my ass is kind of numb. I'm also struggling to see straight after countless hours staring at the multiple computer screens in front of me. I know if I have any hope of finishing this job without making a mistake I need to catch a few hours sleep, and then possibly leave the house to get some fresh air. As much as I hate to break the roll I'm on, I know I need to walk away for a minute. Clearing my head is something I need to do periodically or I stop seeing the overall picture.
I’m lucky that I found my talent early on in life, discovering in high school that I could read code really easily. Where some people struggle to grasp the concept, I picked it up quickly. It’s like a second language to me and I’m fucking good at what I do. I haven’t met many programmers as good as me. I may come over as a prick to some people when I tell them that I'm the best, but my business is important to me, and I don’t fuck about when it comes to my company.
I stand and stretch again, feeling the pressure in my spine where it needs to pop. The relief I get when it finally cracks makes my body slightly weak. I look at the clock and see it’s just after three in the morning. A groan leaves me when I know I only have a few hours before the sun comes up. I was going to go visit Trey at his office today and see if he maybe wanted to grab some lunch with me. It would be my treat since I kind of owe him after embarrassing him last week when we met for coffee. I didn’t mean to shout out about him bottoming, but I’d been shocked that he’d done it. And no, I suppose the whole café didn’t need to know, but he should have thought about that before he told me. Okay, he didn’t really tell me, but that’s not the point. The point is, I owe him lunch.
I giggle to myself as I climb between my sheets, not even bothering to take off my t-shirt in my tired state. When I get comfortable I realize that I didn’t set the alarm on my phone but I just don’t have the energy to move so I make a mental note to wake up early.
As I slip off to sleep I'm not feeling hopeful that that’s going to happen.
I tap my foot impatiently as I wait for the elevator to get to Trey’s floor. I slept in this morning, like I knew I would, but if I can get to his office quickly I might not miss lunch with him. I know it would’ve been easier to text him but I'm using this as an excuse to get out of the office and away from sitting in front of the computer. If I didn’t I would have just gone straight back to it this morning when I finally dragged myself out of bed. I also think a face-to-face apology is better than some texted words. I don't usually worry if Trey is angry with me, because it doesn’t happen often, but I think I might’ve pushed him to his limit the other day in the café.
The bell pinging lets me know that I've reached my destination, and I'm squeezing through the doors before they are even open fully, eager to get to Trey’s office. I look towards Roman’s desk but his seat is empty. I know it’s his week to get in office training, and it makes me wonder if I should maybe I should give in and text Trey to see if he's alone before I go storming in. I grab my cell from my pocket just as I look up to see Roman through the glass wall of the room where the coffee machine is. I don't know the actual function of the room because it’s full of a lot of equipment, but I do know I can make an amazing latte with that machine.
I put my phone back in my pocket, knowing that there’s no risk of walking into Trey’s office and catching him fucking his little dancer. That isn’t a mistake I want to make more than once. I love Trey, he's the brother I never had, but I swear I saw more of him that day in his kitchen than I ever needed to see.
I bang once on his office door before throwing it open and walking inside. I hear Roman shouting but I don’t pay attention to him as I call out to Trey. “Right, fucker. Get your jacket, you’ve pulled!” My voice falters as I focus on the people sitting in his office with their eyes wide as they look at me. Three sets of eyes all looking at me, not just the one set I expect.
“Hi, Nathan.”
Holy shit. “Bryce?”
I stand there, looking like an idiot while Trey tries to recover from my interruption. He glares at me as he stands, his fists clenching as he walks around the desk towards me. This is going to take more than lunch to make it up to him.
“You remember my best friend? My soon to be dead and buried friend.” Thankfully Trey’s words make Bryce laugh and he stands to shake hands with me. Unfortunately that still doesn’t make the glare disappear from Trey’s face.
I turn and look at his closed blinds, and his constant warning that if his blinds are closed I shouldn’t enter, creeps into my mind. He's going to beat the shit out of me for this.
“I remember, Nathan. I'm not sure anyone could forget him.” Bryce’s smile is warm, and as I look at him I don’t think I have ever seen him look so happy. “This is my husband, Zeke.”
For the first time since I entered the office I remember that there is someone else here with us. I turn to be greeted by the biggest fucking dude I've ever seen. This must be the MMA fighter that Trey told me about. The fucker towers above me, and I swear I couldn’t get my arms around his chest if I tried.
I’ve mentioned before that I love Trey, and the guy isn’t the slightest bit unattractive. I would say he’s actually closer to the gorgeous side of the scale, but if Trey thought he was going to win Bryce’s heart over this guy, then I need to give my best friend a reality check. Wide shoulders, tattoo’s peeking out of the collar of his shirt, and that just fucked looking hair completes the look that probably stars in many wet dreams. I always thought Bryce was attractive, even before the liking guys revelation, but this guy has an edge to him that just sings to my balls.
Shame he's married.
I reach out and shake hands with Zeke. His smile is as warm as Bryce’s, and if you ignore the fact that he looks like he could kill you with one hand, he’s not what I expected an MMA fighter to look like. He’s more relaxed than I thought he would be and doesn’t look at everyone like he wants to rip their limbs off.
“Nice to meet you, Nathan.”
His voice is deep and rough, and I imagine what he would sound like when he orgasms. I'm pulled from my musings when Trey shoves my shoulder, making me stumble. The only thing that holds me up is the fact I still have a tight hold on Zeke’s hand. Oh, maybe that’s the point he's trying to make. I quickly release it and turn to see Bryce trying not to laugh.
“It’s okay, I don’t want to stop touching him either.”
I don’t know why, and I'm a little ashamed that it happens, but I feel heat spreading over my cheeks and I know that I'm fucking blushing. Nathan Cooper doesn’t do embarrassed, but Bryce’s words have left me with nothing to say.
Trey decides to talk before the silence becomes too awkward. He tries to sound happy but I can hear the restrained growl under his tone. “What can I do for you, Nathan?”
/> “I came to ask you to lunch. I was trying to make up for the fact that I told the whole café that you bottomed, and I thought lunch might do it.”
Sudden laughter explodes from Zeke and Bryce and I don’t know why. I go over what I just said, my eyes widening when I work out what’s so funny. I look at Trey who looks torn between beating the fuck out of me and running away, but as the seconds slip by I’m pretty sure the beating me option is winning out.
“Shit. Fuck. I am sooooo sorry. Fuck. I'm going. Zeke, Bryce, nice to see you. Trey, I’ll give you a call … in like a year. Fuck.” I don’t even wait for anyone to say anything before I make a hasty retreat out of the office.
As I exit I come face to face with an exasperated Roman.
“What did you do?”
I would love to plead my innocence, but I just can’t do it. I know revealing his secret to a room full of strangers was bad, but to announce it to his ex and his husband, well that shit he isn’t going to forgive anytime soon.
“I may, but I refuse to confirm the fact, have mentioned the fact that he bottomed in front of Bryce and Mr. Bryce.”
Roman groans and runs his hands through his perfectly styled hair, messing it up until he looks like his alter ego, Romeo.
“Do you not have a filter, Nathan?”
I tilt my head to the side, not believing that he asked that after knowing me for a while now. “Have you only just met me? I come with many attributes, Roman. Great hair, abs for miles, and an ass to die for, but a filter is not on my list of greatness.”
I hear Trey shout Roman’s name, and Roman turns to look into the still open door. I use it as the distraction I need to get the hell out of here just incase Trey decides to leave his office. I take off down the hall, trying to look as calm as possible while I race to the elevator. As I reach the end of the short corridor, I hear Roman shouting after me which makes me smile.