by Willa Okati
Evan plucked the bit of greenery free, looked at it, shrugged, and tucked it behind his ear. “I’m starting a new trend.”
“Why not? Stranger things have happened.” Darry gave him an air-five as he saw himself out.
Evan chuckled quietly once the door had closed. Who needed sudoku? Darry’s antics kept St. Hawk’s Medical plenty lively. He didn’t mind seeing a replacement doctor, either. It’d given him something to think about, after all, and interesting beat waiting any time, any place.
He slipped his phone out of his pocket and fired off a quick text message.
Feel like doing me a favor?
* * * *
“You’re still here? Excellent. Wait. What are you still doing here?”
Brendan splashed a double handful of cool water, soft and smelling faintly of minerals, on his face before he checked up in the mirror above the sink. He’d felt a shadow fall across him when he’d had his head down, and only one guy he’d met so far at St. Hawk’s had quite the same sort of presence. “I could ask you the same thing,” he said, tired enough for a hint of the Hebridean accent he’d had as a boy to slip through and soften his vowels. “Any towels left on the rack?”
Darry had a grin as wide as a slice of sweet orange, and muscles the size of bowling balls. Wherever he came from, they must grow their native sons with extra fertilizer and double-strength sunshine. He tossed Brendan a clean washcloth still in its sterile laundry wrapping. “I thought you worked second shift yesterday.”
“Ahh, you know how it is. One thing leads to another and in the end it was easier to crash here for an hour or two.” Brendan gestured in the general direction of the lounge and its couches, deeper and softer than most of their ilk. Hospitals didn’t often cater for comfort, but St. Hawk’s Medical Center prided itself on marching to the beat of a different drummer.
“God knows I’ve been there and done that,” Darry said with a yawn and a brisk, efficient stretch. “As long as you’re not planning to jet in the next half hour, feel like doing me a solid? I’ll pay you in back rubs. I give a mean massage.”
Brendan couldn’t help shaking his head, amused. “We’ll see about that. What have you got?”
“Double bookings. I’m wanted down in the pediatric emergency department, but I’ve been covering Dr. Kelly’s calendar too. Would you mind?”
Brendan didn’t, but… “It’s been a long time since I did my cardiology rotation,” he warned.
“It’s just follow-up appointments, I checked. Taking vitals and making referrals if need be, and—”
“Enough, already. You don’t have to sell me on the deal,” Brendan chided, taking the patient file from Darry and dealing him a light swat on the shoulder. “I— huh.”
“Problem?”
“No, no,” Brendan said. He turned pages with his fingertips. All their charts included a photo for visual patient ID. “I think I know this one. I’ve seen him around town.”
“Not a problem, then?” Darry asked. He was already raring to go. Brendan knew the signs.
He waved Darry off, losing himself in the chart again. “I’m fine.” More than, actually. He might finally get the chance to say more than hello to the quiet beauty from the night of the festival. That’d go quite a bit further than a splash of water for waking him up.
Familiar faces lifted their chins in greeting as Brendan passed them by on his way to the exam room. Nurses, doctors, physician’s assistants, midwives, lab technicians, all of them sporting crisp coats and badges and a sense of purpose. Most of them happy to be there, even.
Unusual? God, yes, endlessly so.
And fascinating.
Maybe he could—maybe he should—try to learn from that. Figure out how to change his ways before it was too late. Maybe this would be where he could start.
Exam Room Seven, here we are. Brendan tucked the patient chart under his arm, rapped his knuckles quickly on the door and let himself in, eager in his curiosity—
And, for once, rewarded.
Waiting for him on the exam table, leaned back as casually and comfortably as if in his own home, was the answer to his wish. Eyes alight as he, too, recognized Brendan. “I know you, don’t I? The doctor from the steps.”
“Evan Alders,” Brendan said, pleased. “Nice to have a name for you too, to match to the face.” And a pretty face it was. Sweet and finely-featured, framed in bronze curls. He wore small copper rings in both ears, and he’d stuck a sprig of fennel behind his ear the way an absentminded writer would stow a pen. “How have you been?”
“I’ve been well.” Evan looked honestly pleased to see Brendan. Relaxed and happy, too. It’d been a long, long time since that’d happened for Brendan. “Are you covering for Dr. Kelly? A resident came back a few minutes ago and I think she’s already taken care of almost everything.”
Damn. Had they? A quick flip through the chart showed the proof of Evan’s claim. Under other circumstances, Brendan would have been grateful. “I’ll just take a quick look. No troubles to report? Immunosuppressants doing their job?”
Evan patted lightly over the finely healed scar Brendan had caught a glimpse of before. “No problems. Good as new.”
“Glad to hear it.” Brendan hooked the rolling stool with one foot and pulled it into place behind him, then unwound the stethoscope from around his neck. “Incoming, and fair warning—it’s cold. Guard yourself.”
Evan chuckled quietly. “Not my first rodeo. I’ll live.”
Brendan liked the look of Evan up close even better than he had from afar. Bits and pieces of him invited deeper consideration, which Brendan far preferred to blatant beauty. Those smile lines at the sides of his eyes, for one. He’d spent more time pleased than angry, and that was a kind gift for life to have given him. He smelled like honey and herbs, and was gentle when he nudged Brendan’s knee with the tip of his sandal.
“See? Ticking away like a gold watch.”
“Your surgeon did good work. If I didn’t have your patient chart in hand, I doubt I’d be able to guess just from looking at you that you’d had a transplant. I wish all patients recovered so well.” He sat back to check Evan’s ankles for any signs of swelling. “How long has it been since your surgery?”
“Almost five years. Dr. Kelly says I’ll be good for fifteen to twenty more, for a start.”
Brendan would believe it. Evan’s smooth skin glowed with good health as much as his open, friendly face did with excellent humor. “Amazing,” he murmured under his breath. He’d seen far too many patients in worse condition for infinitely less worthy reasons. “Honestly, I think there must be something in the water around here. You should bottle it. You’d make a fortune.”
Evan laughed. “Nah. I don’t need a fortune. I’ve got just about everything I could want. It’s a good town for that. Lots of live and let live, a really good farmer’s market, and then there’s all the walking trails I could ever want.”
The firm springiness of his calf muscles told its own tale. Brendan would bet he walked five miles or more on a regular basis. A wisp of daydream floated across his mind—an image of Evan fresh from a ramble, skin honey-warm from the sun, hair clinging to the back of his neck with clean sweat, and smiling. He’d rarely met anyone who seemed so contented with their life. Brendan let go of his leg and turned to make a note in the chart. “And here my first guess would have been yoga.”
“I just like the pants.” Evan flexed his ankle. “I never sit still if I don’t have to. Life is too short to waste by lazing around, don’t you think?”
“I do,” Brendan said, hands falling still as he looked up at the man. He had a fine, full fan of lashes as dark as soot that turned his plain hazel eyes into something amazing when he looked at a man that way. “Very much, I do.”
Evan beamed at him, warm as the dawn, and— Well. Why not?
“Come for a walk with me?” Brendan asked, the words slipping in a rush over his tongue and past his lips. “Will you?”
Uh-oh, Evan tho
ught.
“That didn’t come out quite right.” Brendan made a rueful face, nose crinkled, smile unpracticed but genuine. His hands were warm, and gentle, and his manner suddenly hesitant. Less professional, more personal, not crossing any lines, but rich with hope—and he hadn’t seen it coming. “I’m overdue for a break, and I’d like to get to know you better. May I?”
When Griff heard about this, he’d tease for weeks. “Brendan, I need to tell you—”
A brief staccato rap sounded on the door half a second before the knob turned.
“Tea boy,” Griff announced himself as he jostled the door open with one hip and stepped inside, juggling two tall paper cups that gave off the rich scent of jasmine and pekoe. “Hotter than hell and twice as sweet as the sins that’d send you there.” He tossed his head to settle his long, dark-russet braid neatly down the middle of his back, away from the spiky tribal tattoos that curled around the nape of his neck, and flashed Evan one of the devil-may-care winks that’d made him fall in love with the man, way back when.
The kind of smile Evan couldn’t help returning, and meaning with all his patchwork heart.
Even when Griff had a shit-eating grin the size of Texas dawning on his lips. Let no man call him slow on the draw. He saw the situation and comprehended it fully in point-five seconds as he passed the tea off to Evan. “Oh, babe. Caught another one, did you?”
“Not on purpose!” Evan said.
“Uh-huh. Accident, then. You need a keeper, darlin’.” Griff didn’t so much offer his hand as take Brendan’s without asking. Callused and dry and strong, he had the sort of greeting shake that Evan saw made Brendan’s fingers automatically close around his without second-guessing. He saw, too, how the cheeky twinkle ever present in Griff’s eye, like the points of light in a glass of good brandy, invited the world at large and Brendan as well to come and play. “My name should be on his paperwork as next of kin, but everyone who knows me calls me Griff. You are?”
“Brendan,” Evan said with an internal hands-up of surrender because that was mostly the only way to roll during times of trial. “This is Jack Griffiths. My partner.”
“That I am, by the grace of God,” Griff said, settling himself into a comfortable lean on the exam table. He cocked his head to get a better gander at the new doc. “I’ve seen you around, haven’t I?”
“I…” The doctor—Brendan, was it?—gave his head a good sharp shake and blinked twice, like a man coming awake without much warning. Griff guessed he must have thrown the guy for a good and proper loop-de-loop. He saw it now, that indefinable something that’d made Evan peg him right away as lonely. Lonely and proud and stubborn. Huh. Damn shame.
On the other hand, the man did have a good face. A kind mouth.
“On Main Street. You were leading that gang with the fireworks,” Brendan said, lifting his chin in a way that underlined Griff’s first impression of stubborn. He had the faintest hint of an accent that only came out now, with a roll of ‘R’ across his tongue. “I ended up with your hat. I’d have brought it back if I hadn’t been on duty.”
“Is that what happened to it? Damn,” Griff said with a pang of regret. Took months to get a Stetson worn in just right.
A grin cracked the grim stoicism of Brendan’s face, and did all kinds of wonders for the looks of him. Made him seem younger, more approachable, downright human, and like a human Griff thought he might like to get to know.
“Don’t worry. I saved the hat. As far as I know it’s on a shelf in the back of the lost and found closet. I’ll bring it down for you later, if you’d like.” He cleared his throat. Faint hints of red crossed his cheeks. “Look, before this gets awkward I’ll go ahead and say I’m sorry. If I’d known you were together, I wouldn’t have trespassed.”
Evan tucked the corners of his mouth in something between sympathy and a frown. He had a heart as big as the great outdoors. Almost as much heart as Griff had mouth. “No, don’t do that. How were you to know?”
“Hell, it’s not a problem,” Griff said. He rested one hand at the small of Evan’s back and grinned at the good doctor. He couldn’t go for long without teasing Evan, or anyone else for that matter. God must have been in a puckish mood the day he’d set his mind to creating him. “It’s happened before. He’s bad at figuring out when people are interested. I damn near had to tackle him and sit on his face before he put the pieces together.”
“True,” Evan said, patting the back of Griff’s head in his affectionate way. “But I’m only bad at telling when people are interested in me, while you’re an all around hell-raiser with no manners, so that makes us just about even.”
“Blackjack, no take back,” Griff fired off with a crinkle of his nose. He returned his full interest to Brendan, studying him from stem to stern before making up his mind in the confidence that Evan would back his play. “Now, he’s going to tell me to apologize for yanking your chain, so I’ll go ahead and get that out of the way. Forgive and forget?”
He could tell Brendan’s nature made him want to resist, but that he had enough gumption to push past that first instinct. Griff liked that. Liked it just fine.
“Don’t mention it,” the doc said, polite as could be. Drawing back, putting a safe distance between them. It didn’t suit him. “It’s in the past, now.”
Evan nudged his shoulder against Griff’s. Pleased with him, Griff thought, which spurred him on. “I’ll tell you what, though. You’re new around here, yeah? Not had a chance to get out and find your feet yet? Trust me, after a few years with this one and all his time in and out of St. Hawk’s Medical, I know doctors. Too busy to tie your shoes most days, and hell, it’s not easy for anyone, starting off alone.”
Brendan frowned again, a hair deeper this time, but he didn’t interrupt. Good.
Griff spread his hands open— there you go. “Friday night,” he said. “Mark it on your day planner, Doc. Seven p.m.”
Evan picked right up on Griff’s train of thought. Good man. “Barbecue?” he asked Griff.
“Too cold out. Better to range out,” Griff replied. “Chicken or steak?”
“Both,” Evan said. “Or neither. I’m thinking Cajun. Palomino?”
Griff brought his hands together in a sharp clap. “That’ll do.”
Meanwhile, Brendan’s eyebrows had shot toward his hairline. “What—? Come again?”
Griff manfully bit down on the joke that wanted to pop out. If Brendan could behave, so could he. “Friday night. There’s a good place up on the hilltop, and we like company. You’re either coming with us, or meeting us there.” Bless his heart, he looked so flummoxed by the mere notion it only made Griff want to do this all the more. “Peace offering, and I won’t hear ‘no’ as an answer.”
Beside him, one of Evan’s sweet smiles curved his lips. “Please.”
Griff’s own grin went wide. When Evan pulled out that particular big gun, it’d take a harder man than either of them to say no. Call it a done deal already.
And so it was.
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About the Author
Willa Okati can most often be found muttering to herself over a keyboard, plugged into her iPod and breaking between paragraphs to play air drums. In her spare time (the odd ten minutes or so per day she’s not writing) she’s teaching herself to play the pennywhistle.
Willa has forty-plus separate tattoos and yearns for a full body suit of ink. She walks around in a haze of story ideas, dreaming of tales yet to be told. She drinks an alarming amount of coffee for someone generally perceived to be mellow.
Willa lov
es to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website details and author profile page at https://www.pride-publishing.com
