The Doctor's Orders, page 9
Nick was too. He reached over with his good hand to rub his shoulder. They’d given him enough painkillers it was only slightly sore now, but he was glad he had some of the pain, another link to reality. “Is Jared all right? Have you heard anything about him?”
“He’s fine, as far as I know.” She hesitated, looking like she wanted to say something serious, but in the end all she said was, “Do you want to go see him? He’s next door.”
Nick’s heart skipped a beat. Yes, he did want to go, but…. “I don’t think I can move. I’m so exhausted.”
“I can let you sleep.”
“I want to keep talking, if that’s okay.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
I want to talk about Jared. How I feel about him. How I want to pursue something with him but don’t know how.
It wasn’t the first time he’d nearly come clean with Emmanuella. Not in high school, and not even in college. Sometime in his midtwenties, after his third attempt to date a woman and not being able to accept her invitation to go upstairs because he understood full well how he was cheating her—that’s when he’d started wanting to talk this out with his greatest confidant. He’d been too scared, though. He’d managed to distract himself with work for a long, long time.
What if he’d died without sharing this truth with her? Without living it for himself?
But if he was too exhausted to move, he was absolutely too spent to come out, even to Emmanuella. Soon. He’d tell her soon. “Talk to me about anything.”
“Want to talk about something silly, or do you want to talk about the accident?”
God, he wanted to tell her. It didn’t feel as terrifying right now. Because of the drugs they’d given him? Maybe he should use that. Or maybe he shouldn’t. He couldn’t decide.
A knock on the door preceded Simon Lane entering with a smile. “Hey. Am I interrupting?”
“No.” There. This Nick could answer. “Did you need to run more tests?”
“Nope, not yet. I actually am coming as a kind of intermediary. Jared wanted to come say hello to you, but he didn’t want to bother you if you were too tired. Are you up for visitors?”
Jared. Nick’s whole spirit soared, and his breath caught. “Yeah. Sounds fine.”
It’s more than fine. It’s freaking fantastic.
Simon’s smile widened. “I’ll bring him in, then. It’ll be a few minutes, because I have to transfer him to a wheelchair and get him mobile with his IV. However, I think Dr. Wu will probably let him take that out soon.”
As the door closed, Emmanuella raised an eyebrow at him. “Thought you were too tired?”
“Well. He’s coming to me. That’s different.”
A flutter of nerves made his chest tight. Was that saying too much? Had he sounded too excited? Two seconds ago you were ready to come out to her. Where’d that fire go, man? He couldn’t recapture it, though. Whether it was old habit or a sign he truly wasn’t ready, the thought of being found out filled him with as much fear as it always did. He shut his eyes.
She leaned over and ruffled his hair with her free hand. “All right. But not for long, you got that?”
“I got it.”
The door to the room opened, and Nick sat up, dizzy and out-of-body the way he had been ever since the elevator, but this time it was because Jared was coming into the room. Owen held the door as Simon wheeled him in.
It was almost strange to look at him. For hours they’d been in pitch darkness together, touching and talking, unable to see unless Nick’s phone lit things up, except for the end when the fire crew had sent the lantern down. Not that Nick didn’t know exactly what Jared looked like. Not that he hadn’t spent the evening studying him at the country club. But it was part of the dream state to see him now, draped in a hospital gown, full of IVs the same as Nick was, his skin paler than usual. Sallow, his weariness lifting up through his veins. But he was Jared, and Nick welcomed the sight of him.
Nick wondered how Jared saw him.
Jared’s smile was worn, slightly shy. “Hey. How are you doing?”
Freaked out. Exhausted. Confused. Strangely lonely. Agitated because of the elevator rides. Missing you. “Okay. You?”
“Good.”
Emmanuella rose, patting the bed. “I’m going to get myself some coffee from the vending machine. You boys take your time.”
Owen brightened. “No, let me get you some from the doctors’ lounge. We have a Keurig. It’s better, and it’s free. Come on.”
They left together, and after Simon parked Jared beside Nick, he followed them. “I’ll be at the nurses’ station. I’ll check back in a bit, but buzz me if you need me sooner.”
Once Simon shut the door, they were alone.
Jared spoke first. “How are you, really? Is your shoulder all right?”
Nick touched it reflexively. “It’s sore, but it’s fine. No fractures, just a lot of pulled tendons. Jack gave me the good drugs.” He pursed his lips, then added, “My bigger problem was the elevator ride to and from the CT scanner. I tripped out both times.”
Jared looked a little green. “I didn’t think about that. How awful. I don’t know that I could have done it. I damn well intend to walk down the stairs when they discharge me, no matter what the policy is about wheeling out patients.”
It felt so good to sit with him. Part of Nick wanted to address what they’d started in the elevator, but it felt so heavy. “Feels nice to be talking to you with the lights on, without the floor all tilted and death hovering over our heads.”
He regretted bringing up the last part. It was too much, ruining the light mood. Leave it to Jared to smooth over it. “Yes, but is it terrible I miss the way you held me?”
Nick couldn’t stop grinning. So bold. But Jared always was. He reached over and held his palm up, an invitation.
Jared took it, putting his hand in Nick’s. It was his hand with the IV line in, a reminder they were both patients.
The things Nick wanted to say came tumbling out. “I’m already tired, thinking of the work ahead of me because of this.”
Jared laced their fingers tighter together. “Can I make a suggestion?”
The mixture of boldness and hesitancy in Jared’s voice made things purr inside Nick. “Yeah? Let’s hear it.”
“As a doctor, I think you need to prioritize stress-relieving activities.”
Nick had to stifle a laugh. Jared had said something similar in the elevator, and it had definitely been a come-on. He raised an eyebrow at Jared. “As my doctor, huh?”
“As a doctor.” Jared blushed, and Nick realized this was less come-on now and more sincerity. “As your friend….” He looked away, then at Nick, his gaze bolder. “I think you need to be selfish and take care of yourself.”
Just won’t come out and say it, will he? Nick settled in to wait him out. “Hmm. How do you figure I should do that?”
Here it was, the stubborn sassiness that both pissed Nick off and drew him in. “I think you need a place where you can let go and be yourself. Someone you can be completely you with, in every way.” His chin went up a little. “I want to be that person. The way I used to be. Except this time I won’t screw it up.”
The hard double thump in Nick’s chest tripped his breath. He stopped playfully baiting Jared and waited for him to finish.
Jared threaded their fingers together, and despite his heavy-lidded gaze, he didn’t look away. “I’m sorry for the way I treated you when we were young, for the way we parted. It’s a long-overdue apology, but I owe it to you. I was wrong in every way. I wanted to help you be your full self to everyone so you could see they’d still love you, but I know now that wasn’t what you needed and certainly not the right way to support you. I behaved clumsily, and then when I realized how I’d messed it up, I let my shame keep me away. I wrapped it in bitterness and longing shellacked so hard I wasn’t sure anything could cut it—until you held me in the dark in the elevator shaft, protecting me, prioritizing me above yourself. I didn’t deserve that.”
“Love isn’t about deserve.”
Jared drew a sharp breath, and he stared, lips parted in surprise, at Nick.
It felt good to say it, Nick decided. He lifted his eyebrows and quirked his mouth in a half smile. “What, you’re surprised?”
But then it was Nick who was shocked when Jared ducked his head and wiped at his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was shaky. “Of course I am. Why would I expect that, after all this time? After the way I behaved?” He wiped his eyes again, then sighed raggedly and reached for a tissue from Nick’s tray. “I can’t believe you said that.” He blew his nose. “Actually yes I can. You haven’t changed.”
“Neither have you.”
Tossing his tissue into the trash can, Jared picked up Nick’s hand and drew it to his lips, meeting his gaze. “Nick, I want to be with you. I don’t care how it happens. I don’t care what your conditions are. I think it’s going to be almost impossible to hide a relationship with the lives we live now, but I’ll figure it out. And I won’t ever ask you to do something you’re not ready to do ever again.”
This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? To be with Jared. And not only had Jared apologized, he was promising to give Nick the space he needed to bring this part of his life into the open on his own terms.
Why, then, did this make him feel slightly nervous?
Pushing this strange feeling aside, Nick drew Jared to him and leaned forward as far as his shoulder would allow, meeting him for a brief, tender kiss.
“We’ll figure it out together,” he promised, and laced their hands.
Chapter Five
JARED FELL asleep in the wee hours of the morning, dizzy and quietly giddy.
I’m dating Nick.
Sort of.
They hadn’t called it that, but they’d agreed they would try to see each other, and they’d started texting before they’d gone to sleep that night, resuming as they woke up. It had been funny to do it from the hospital room next door and had made Jared feel like they truly were kids again.
That said, the carnal goodbye kiss Nick gave him before he was released was absolutely R-rated.
With Nick’s family waiting for him and Owen and Simon there to take Jared away, Nick said he had to talk to Jared alone, and instead of talking, he pushed him against the back of Jared’s hospital room door and kissed him until neither one of them could breathe. It wasn’t a long kiss, but it was intense and full of promise.
But all of this happened behind the door, and once they were in the hallway, they behaved as if they were close friends only.
The thing was, Owen and Simon knew about Jared and Nick, and of course the conundrum was whether Erin and Jack got to know too. It became a hot issue when Owen took Jared to his house to recover upon being released and Jared brought it up, because Owen didn’t want to keep a secret from his fiancé, but Jared didn’t want to betray Nick any more than he had.
“How is this betraying him? You were confessing your feelings to your friends,” Owen pointed out.
“Yes, but I just said I wouldn’t tell anyone, and you want me to break that on the first day? It’s bad enough I told you before I made my promise.”
In the end, Owen agreed to keep quiet until Jared had a chance to talk to Nick about it, and they’d regroup later.
“You’re okay with this being a secret, though?” Owen set the mug of coffee he’d made for Jared on the end table beside the recliner he lounged in beneath a woven blanket. “That seems like the hardest thing in the world for you.”
Jared sipped his drink. “I’m more concerned about the logistics. My place is out because I live alone, and so is his, because he lives with his family.”
“I’ve always wondered about that, to be honest. Why does the flipping CEO of the hospital live with his mother, grandmother, and sister? It’s not like he isn’t paid enough to get his own place.”
“Well.” Jared rubbed his neck. “This is conjecture, mind you. But from what I’ve heard, and weighing that against how bad things were when his father died, I think Nick has been shouldering a lot of his family’s debt. Remember, Collin Beckert’s business went on the skids after those asshats from the board thought they needed retribution. And of course once he passed away, Aniyah took it over. I imagine Erin has more intel here because he and Nick were tight in college, but I think Nick was always sending money home, from side jobs at school to the positions he took after graduation. He had a full ride at his university, but he worked his ass off making money any way he could.”
“How do you know all this? I thought you two were estranged?”
Jared waved a hand airily. “People talk. I listen.”
Owen laughed.
“Anyway. I think things have been more stable for a long time, with the Beckert family, but they’re so close. Maybe he moved in with them when he came back to Copper Point to save up for his own place, or maybe he just wanted the comfort of people who loved him while he had to deal with those dogs on the board. Maybe he’s just a homebody. All I know is his place is out of the question, and so is mine. People see his car parked in my drive overnight, and it’ll be all over Copper Point People before we’re under the sheets.”
“This takes me back to when we’d sneak Jack into the house when he was dating Simon.”
“It’s worse. There’s no buffer over there anymore. When Jack came to see Simon, people could write it off as him visiting all of us. Now it’s only me, which is too intimate. They’ll think we’re having sex.”
“Hopefully they’ll be right.” Shaking his head, Owen nestled into the couch. “I’ll never get over how small towns always turn into the background of a Georgette Heyer novel.”
Jared raised an eyebrow at him. “You read Heyer?”
“Oh, sure. I read a lot of romance novels in med school. Nothing else took me out of my head after a horrible day quite the way they did. I listen to some on audio while I work out on occasion.” He waggled his eyebrows. “They have ones for us now. Gay ones. I especially like the lesbian mystery romances. Kathryn recommends the good ones to me.”
Jared had no idea his friend had this side to him. “You’re a man of many facets, Owen Gagnon.”
The good news was the issue with Erin didn’t come up because Jared didn’t see him. With Nick gone, Erin was the de facto CEO, and the accident plus patient rerouting had given him plenty to do, even on a Sunday. Owen had to go in to help with a delivery in the evening, so Simon and Jack came over to sit with him.
Simon, it turned out, had spilled the beans to his fiancé, who had mostly pieced things together on his own from something Nick had said in the elevator. Jared probably should have been upset about it, but he couldn’t bring himself to reprimand Si, since it suited his purposes so well. While Jack made dinner, Jared grilled the two of them about how their relationship had been when they’d had to hide it because of the hospital’s former no-dating policy between staff members.
“It was rough,” Simon admitted. “All we wanted to do was let people know, but we couldn’t, and we had to second-guess our every move, every gesture, every look. It made me feel seedy.”
“It wasn’t my favorite thing either, but I think it was harder on Simon than it was on me.” Jack flipped the pasta in the pan. “At the time, I was getting to know people, and I’m a more private person by nature than he is. But from his perspective, I think it felt like lying to people he’d known and loved his whole life, doing something he’d never do.”
Simon nudged Jared with his foot. “Are you and Nick dating, then, and keeping it secret?”
Was it okay for him to talk about this? Jared decided there was no way he could keep their relationship so secret they didn’t share it with their closest friends. He’d have to convince Nick and apologize for jumping the gun. “Yes. And… yes.”
Simon’s mouth fell open, but Jack only smiled over his shoulder. “Congratulations. From the sounds of things, this is a long time coming.”
“Thanks.” Jared ran a hand through his hair. “I’m nervous about the secret aspect, but I’m determined to make it work. I don’t know how it will, but… well.”
“Have you been in contact with him today?” Jack asked.
“Some. He’s slept a lot, and his family understandably wants to spend time with him. I don’t want to interrupt that.”
They focused on their dinner instead, which was delicious, and when they were finished, they watched an episode of one of Simon’s new favorite Korean dramas on Netflix. There was first, of course, the standard ten-minute lament over the closure of his favorite Asian drama source, DramaFever, which had shut down without warning not long ago. Simon had shed literal tears for a week, often randomly remembering shows he’d never be able to see again or hadn’t been able to finish. He was still upset about it, but he was better now.
One episode in, Jared started to get tired, though the two of them didn’t leave, only encouraged him to go to bed. “We’ll wait until Owen or Erin comes back,” Simon said.
“Guys, I’m fine, honestly,” Jared insisted.
“Yes, but we’re not.” Jack waved him toward the stairs. “Go to sleep.”
Once he was in bed, Jared texted Nick.
Going to sleep. Hope you had a good day.
He was biting his lip, worrying that was a silly text, when he got a reply.
Can’t complain. Got spoiled rotten by three lovely women. You?
Spoiled by my friends. They won’t let me be alone.
Same. A pause. Are you going to work tomorrow?
No, but I’ll have to go Tuesday. You’re staying home too, aren’t you?
Mmm.
Jared gasped and typed furiously. You can’t seriously be thinking of going back to work already.
I’ve been working all day, except when they steal my phone and computer. I’ll do more from home again tomorrow, but I think I have put in an appearance by Tuesday.
Jared hesitated, typing several things before settling on, If you do go in, let me know. I’d like to at least say hello, if I’m free.
