by P. W. Davies
Table of Contents
Prologue
Epilogue
Author’s Mailing List Sign Up
Quote
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Leave a Review
Also by P.W. Davies
P.W. Davies Mailing List
Follow Us
End
Follow Him Home
P.W. Davies
Edited by
J.R. Wesley
Digital Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, then please visit crimsonmelodies.com to find out where you can purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Crimson Melodies Ebook
Digital Edition
Copyright © 2017 by P.W. Davies
Edited by J.R. Wesley
All rights reserved, including the right to
reproduce this book or portions thereof in
any form whatsoever, without permission
in writing from the publisher.
www.crimsonmelodies.com
[email protected]
Front Cover Design © 2017 by Crimson Melodies Publishing
Front Cover Illustration by Lyssa Dering
http://www.lyssadering.com/
Contents
Author’s Mailing List Sign Up
Quote
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Leave a Review
Also by P.W. Davies
P.W. Davies Mailing List
Follow Us
End
Author’s Mailing List Sign Up
There’s an easy way to get an extra taste of goodies from P.W. Davies.
Go online and sign up for the email list to receive the latest book news, exclusive content, invitations to author appearances, and more.
writerofstuff.com/pw-davies/
Quote
“If I had followed my better judgment always, my life would have been a very dull one.”
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Prologue
Victor had fallen into a deep sleep, making him look like the picture of serenity as he rested. Despite the curtains having been drawn before they fell into bed, Christian could still trace the outline of his face in the darkness; hear the shallow, rhythmic breaths he took. His head nestled in the crook of Victor’s arm, Christian had pointed his face to watch his lover, in part to ignore the bout of insomnia that had him still awake.
Not that late nights spent watching the sun rise were anything unusual. He’d spent more than his share of mornings either drinking with the dawn, or smoking a cigarette while staring at the horizon. Chaos defined his life from the time he rose until the time he settled in and even then, the certainty of passing out came only after he’d contemplated something in the dark for a while. Like the sound of Victor’s pulse or the fact that they’d been dating for how many years now?
Three. He answered the question without needing to count. Three years ago, the cocksure lawyer had met Christian while he stood by his motorcycle, waiting outside a dive bar for one of its patrons to emerge. Instead of seeing his vigil on to its fruition, he let himself get caught up with drinks and one of the best nights of sex he’d ever experienced. At this point in their relationship, he had no secrets left to keep from the slumbering man.
Except for where his work had taken him next.
Christian nestled closer. While the movement caused Victor to shift, the other man failed to rouse completely. He settled back into a different rhythm and Christian mused that, over three years, some things remained consistent. His restlessness went undetected, for one, and for two, he would normally find some way to fall asleep before Victor had to wake for work. He would tuck the comforter around Christian and leave a coffee mug on the counter for when his lover woke. Even though Christian came and went like a stray cat, Victor remained an unshakable foundation.
‘You still resist accepting stability, though,’ Christian thought to himself. No matter how many times his quivering breaths and roaming fingers communicated it, he had yet to utter the ‘L’ word, even after all this time. Whatever he’d managed to say to Victor in his silence, he’d left the other man unable to say it himself, even if the gaps in conversation carried everything unspoken. He didn’t want to be shackled, even if he’d already let himself get attached; resisted domestication even if this had become his home. The layers of dust in his apartment and steady transference of clothing from one abode to the other told a story of a man who wanted to settle down.
So, why did he still live with one foot constantly out the door?
The answer came quickly enough. As Christian shifted his focus from the sleeping man to the opposite wall, he reminded himself of the phone call he’d received only a few days ago with his next assignment. The target themselves weren’t the problem. It’s what he’d found while surveilling them that brought his past back in a rush, reminding him that he’d never shake it. No matter how many times he let himself get wrapped up in this fantasy life, he would never reciprocate the same stability for Victor that the other man offered him. ‘It’s been too long since you’ve had someone else in your life,’ he thought, both at himself and directed toward the man sleeping beneath him.
‘Who would you suggest?’ he imagined Victor countering.
‘I don’t know. I only know you have a heart that could hold multitudes and you need someone who could help you cultivate that.’
He didn’t bother to pause in recognition of how much of that remained true to himself. Instead, his fingertips swept over the line where the sheets met Victor’s chest, caressing the warm skin peeking out from the linen. His thumb brushed across Victor’s neck, and as he imagined the heat of their kisses, he wondered if after this job, he might finally put the past to bed enough for that little word to come slipping past his tongue. A future of honesty scared him more than he dared imagine, but they both needed a whirlwind to sweep through and disrupt the status quo. ‘Maybe,’ he thought, ‘I’ll figure out what that looks like when all is said and done.’
Until then, he felt a tingle racing up his spine, brought about by the simplicity of touching Victor’s skin. His lips followed some tacit order to skim his lover as well and before he knew it, his restle
ssness had determined to rouse the sleeping man. Soft touches turned into deliberate kisses and slowly, Christian disappeared beneath the sheets, humming against Victor’s stomach once he had become fully engulfed within linen. The body beneath him squirmed, but it took wrapping his mouth around Victor’s shaft for the other man to moan with approval.
It didn’t take long for hips to buck. For the once-sleeping man to wake and undulate, encouraging his mischievous partner. When Christian refused to finish him off, Victor twisted their bodies and dove into the sheets after him. After a lurid round of love-making, both men settled in again.
“What brought that on?” Victor asked, his voice a whisper as he spooned with Christian.
Christian only shut his eyes and nestled against other man. “You did,” he muttered cryptically, allowing sleep to take him under. He wouldn’t be there the next night. He already knew that. And heaven only knew what the next few weeks would bring, but for now, he wanted to surrender to conformity. Inside the throes of bliss, he fancied deep down inside, there might exist the kind of person more willing to embrace a stable life, here with the man who had patiently tolerated him for three years.
They only needed the right catalyst.
One
The pile of unopened mail had been sitting on his table for several days, spared passing glances during what few moments Peter spent at home. Most of the time, he was on his way to the shower or to collapse in bed, and while the pile never dwindled, it inevitably got added onto whenever he visited the mailbox in the foyer of his apartment building. One of these days, he told himself, he’d use one of his days off to tidy the place up. Especially considering, one of these days, he was going to have to decide what he was doing once he finished his residency.
He passed it again while looking for where he’d left his cell phone, almost spinning in circles when something resembling the dark-cased iPhone caught his peripheral vision. Searching for it had become near nightly ritual, along with his reluctance to lay out his prospects and write out a list of pros and cons, so he could respond to the myriad of offers – literally – on the table. While bills and junk mail made up a portion of the collection, several had been generated in response the applications he’d sent out weeks ago, seeking to become an attending physician at a slew of different hospitals.
In that moment, however, he was Dr. Peter Dawes, senior resident at Temple University Hospital.
And he was in danger of being late for work.
One last pivot revealed his phone, sitting on the kitchen counter beside the keys which had likewise been missing since he stumbled home that morning. Slipping it in one pocket, he jammed his keys in another and dashed for where he’d left his backpack before slinging it over his shoulders. It took a brisk jog down the stairs and a mad dash for the subway entrance for him to make the right train, but once the doors closed behind him, he took a deep breath. Another long shift awaited.
The train lurched and Peter braced himself while the subway sped into motion. For the past eleven years, he’d been living in Philadelphia, working up to the moment when he’d begin what would be the rest of his life. As he freed his earbuds and secured them into place, he studied the collection of people situated around him. Two couples resumed whatever discussions they’d started before taking their seats and as one of the women laughed, a wistful smile traced across his lips. Relationships. Maybe he’d have the luxury to indulge one of those soon. He just needed to survive the next couple of months.
By the time the fourth song had begun streaming through his headphones, the automatic doors leading into the hospital emergency room slid open, allowing Peter through. He freed his phone to stop the music and pocketed both it and his headphones, bypassing the collection of medical personnel both leaving and arriving into the locker area. He and the day shift’s Chief Resident exchanged a glance and although the other man tensed, Peter summoned a polite smile. It lasted until the awkward encounter ended.
“One reason not to stay here,” Peter muttered, tossing his backpack into his locker and securing it closed. Within another minute, he was clocked in and dressed in his scrubs, exiting from the private area devoted to hospital staff and onto the floor. Tossing his stethoscope over his shoulders, he peered around at the familiar cast of faces. When the head night shift nurse caught his eye, he smiled at her and strode over to where she stood.
Chloe Poole – a middle-aged spitfire the residents all regarded as their in-house agony aunt – mirrored his expression. “Well, look who’s chipper tonight,” she said. “You have an extra scoop of sugar in your corn flakes this evening?”
Peter snorted. Strolling up to the white board where their current patients’ information had been jotted down, he lifted his hand and rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t even have enough time to get coffee,” he said. “Spent long enough looking for where half-asleep me had left my things.”
“Well, just think. In a couple of months, this hell on Earth can be voluntary.” She chuckled. Walking up beside him, she shifted her weight from one hip to the other, tilting her head like she didn’t already know what had been written on the board. “Speaking of… Henderson says you haven’t decided whether you’re staying here or moving on to greener pastures.”
“Yeah, I haven’t.” Peter sighed. Taking a moment to do more than stare at the words written on the board, he skim-read them and turned away once he’d briefed himself on the current state of the ER. “I don’t know if I’m staying in Philly or not. Granted, it would be the path of least resistance, but I don’t have anything tying me here.”
“No cute boys making a bid on your heart?”
“What, with all this free time I have?” Peter exchanged a grin with Chloe. Walking toward the nurse’s station with her, he sighed, his thoughts returning to his encounter with the Chief Resident. “If I stay here and take a job as attending physician, I’d have to work with Ed, and he’s still giving me that look.”
Chloe snorted. “You mean the one where he thinks you’re going to bend him over a desk?”
“All I did was tell him that his jeans made his ass look good. Once.” Peter lifted a finger. “Just once. I don’t know if he knows this, but I don’t keep hitting on guys that aren’t interested.”
“He’s afraid you might be contagious.” Letting out an exaggerated sigh, Chloe lifted a hand to pat Peter’s back. “The more things change, the more they stay the same. You’re going to deal with ignorant people all your life. Better to ignore them and do what makes you happy.”
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that. As soon as I know what that looks like.”
Laughter floated from Chloe’s lips as she strode over to a stack of waiting paperwork. Peter chuckled and shook his head, eyes focusing on the doors leading toward the waiting room until a steadying breath sobered him. “Alright,” he said. “Let’s see what will be first up on the hit parade.”
Chloe glanced up at him and winked before resuming her paperwork. Within a few minutes, she’d settled back in and Peter had waded into the current, taking on a walk-in patient complaining of stomach pains. The ink on the discharge papers hadn’t had a chance to dry yet when it happened – the moment that would disrupt the entire rest of the evening.
“Motorcycle accident on Erie,” one of the other nurses called out. “ETA, ten minutes.”
Peter perked up, glancing around at the melee surrounding him. The other attending doctors and residents paused what they were doing, but somehow, he was the first one to shout, “I’ve got it.” Rodrigo Perez, the head doctor on duty, shot him a questioning look the moment Peter spoke, causing his confidence to waver. “I can handle it, Rod,” he said, claiming it back in pieces.
“Chloe, you’re on this with Peter,” Perez said, addressing the nurse first before resuming what he’d been doing before the interruption. Chloe nodded and Peter saluted, hustling to finish writing up the report generated by his last patient. When the ambulance pulled up, Peter dashed outside with Chloe to meet it, vital signs be
ing barked at them by one of the EMTs the moment the doors opened. At first, all Peter saw was a man in a similar state as dozens of others who had been wheeled in before him.
When he saw his face, though, a wholly other thought entered Peter’s mind.
“Let’s get him in,” Peter said before he let himself get distracted.
He strode swiftly beside the EMTs and close to Chloe. As he listened to one of the technicians drone on in the background, he gave their patient another look and confirmed it; he’d seen this man before, and in a much more upright state of consciousness. His eyes were closed now, but they had been one of the first things Peter had noticed when the strange man had first walked into the Emergency Room.
Or, more accurate, when he broke into it.
It was impossible to completely forget a first encounter like that. Several days prior, the man now laid out on a gurney had sauntered in with a balled-up t-shirt pressed against his cheek, ignoring everyone who tried to stop him as he strode past the waiting area. “Just seeing myself in,” he had said, his voice deep and bearing the faint vestiges of an English accent. “Tell me, which one of you should I be speaking to about having stitches put in?”
“Sir, you need to check in with Admissions first,” a nurse had petitioned, and if Peter hadn’t been trapped admiring the audacity of the other man, he might have lent a hand. Instead, his gaze shifted from the short, brown hair and penetrating blue eyes to the thin, sculpted frame visible beneath the leather jacket he wore. It hung open, the lack of shirt suggesting that it now served as the makeshift compress, and his dirty, designer jeans indicated he’d gotten into an outdoor brawl, though Peter couldn’t be completely sure about that. Before he had a chance to decipher the riddle, Peter felt the would-be patient looking at him, forcing them to make eye contact.