by Leta Blake
“Yep. Word is Dr. Anderson cracked up today. Finally. Money is exchanging hands all over the place. Apparently, there had been an ongoing pool over whether or not you were even human,” Dennis said.
Grant rolled his eyes. “If you cut me, do I not bleed?”
“We weren’t sure. Not that I condone that kind of thing. Hold on a second.” Muffled, as though talking to someone beside him, he went on, “No, give me two twenties and two fives, and I’ll give you three ones, and we’re good. Huh? Sure. Okay, I’m back.”
“Not that you condone that kind of thing,” Grant repeated.
“So, you lost a patient today. Take a break. Work it out. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
Grant hung up on Dennis before anything else could be said.
It wasn’t about the patient. Well, it was, but it was the cafeteria that had really been too much for him. It certainly wasn’t seeing Leo that’d driven him out of the place. Sure, it was obnoxious running into his ex like that, but he’d endured the last four Christmas encounters just fine.
It wasn’t as though he’d been in love with the guy. So far, his heart was pure in that regard. There’d never been any disturbing taint of unregulated affection. But, if he were honest with himself, which he was admittedly reluctant to be, with Leo it had been a very close thing.
If Curtis Banks had never returned to Blountville, North Carolina, in order to beg Leo to leave for Los Angeles with him, using their history as high school sweethearts to persuade him, and promising Leo a bright future as the boyfriend of a brand-new TV star? Well, God only knew if Grant could have fallen down that terrifying rabbit hole known as love.
He shuddered.
Thankfully that hadn’t happened. Truth be told, Grant didn’t want to even think about where he could have ended up. He’d never been a fan of heartbreak. He didn’t find it romantic, or charming, or sexy. He preferred clean relationships of casual friendship and good sex, uncomplicated by that painful affection he’d nearly had a taste of, and then so luckily been denied.
So, no, Leo was not the reason he’d left the hospital. It was a cumulative effect of unwelcome things. Grant turned the television back on and clicked through the channels again. Once again, there was nothing good on. He paused on the soap opera and rolled his eyes, groaning when the soap-opera-gay kissed one of the guys pining after him, while the other watched from around the corner with a broken-hearted face.
“Loser,” Grant muttered, putting the empty beer bottle on the coffee table and leaning back in hopes of falling asleep. “I’d never be a loser like that.”
The melodramatic swells of the soap-opera’s love theme followed him into his dreams.
Chapter Two
A couple of days later, Grant’s life had slowed down from the jam-packed insanity of making up for all of the things he’d walked out on after he’d found the cafeteria closed. Dennis McGraw, in all his blue-eyed, blond handsomeness, cornered Grant in the hallway, though, and congratulated him for taking time for self-care after his loss on Monday.
“It’s always hard when we lose a patient, and I’m glad you did the right thing by giving yourself a break.”
Grant stared at him, saying sarcastically, “Thanks for your permission, friend.”
Dennis narrowed his eyes, sensing the challenge. “Alec sends his love.” It was his way of reminding Grant of one important reason why they shouldn’t fight.
“Of course he does.”
Dennis sighed. “Do you have to be this way? I know you think I’m not good enough for him, but Alec is happy.”
“There’s happy and then there’s happy.”
“Let’s not get into this again.”
“You started it.”
Just then some nurses came by and they both went their separate ways. They’d agreed that fighting in front of the staff over every ridiculous thing might cause a drop in morale, and while Grant didn’t care about morale, so long as patients weren’t dying and people were getting well, Dennis had convinced him with some not too disputable statistics that the two were related.
And it wasn’t that Dennis wasn’t good enough for Alec, it was that he really wasn’t good enough for Alec. He’d started their relationship while still married to a woman, and then dragged the divorce out for over a year, torturing Alec’s heart along the way. How was Grant supposed to forgive that, just because Dennis had chosen Alec in the end and then married him? Being best man had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done, but he’d at least managed to keep his mouth shut when the minister asked if anyone knew of any reason the couple shouldn’t be joined together.
Plus, Dennis had stolen the chief of staff position from him. He’d had it in the bag until Dennis threw his name in the hat. Or so he liked to believe. Alec said he was delusional, but Grant knew he was leadership material.
Shoving those thoughts aside, Grant resolved to be nicer to Dennis the next time he saw him, for the staff’s sake, and for Alec’s. Maybe he’d even manage a semi-genuine smile. That’d make Alec happy at least. And, weirdly, Grant liked to make Alec happy. Their friendship was one of the only important relationships in his life.
The day passed quite nicely after that. Grant’s patients weren’t too weepy and their families weren’t too pushy, for a change. The nurses skedaddled as soon as they saw him coming, just the way he liked. And the cafeteria was serving three-cheese lasagna, which was his absolute favorite, even if they were a little skimpy on the sauce at times.
He was still rolling the flavor around in his mouth, cheerfully enjoying the heavy, fatty feeling in his tummy, when he walked around the corner to see Leo Garner standing at the nurses’ station again, laughing and smiling.
Just what the hell was he doing here? Didn’t he have a life? In California? Last time Grant checked, that had been the case.
“Grant!” Leo called out as Grant tried to pass the station with his face buried in a chart, hoping to avoid any kind of interaction.
Grant stopped, turned slowly, and said, “Dr. Anderson to you, Leo. And what an unpleasant surprise to see you here on this fine autumn day. To what do we owe the honor?”
The nurse looked down at her forms uncomfortably, and Leo laughed. “You don’t change at all, do you, Dr. Anderson? You’re just as charming as ever.” Leo smiled like he was happy to see Grant and tilted his head in a way that Grant was reluctant to admit was attractive.
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“I just mean it’s good to see you.” Leo’s smile turned sweet, which made Grant’s chest feel tight. “Seriously,” Leo went on, touching his arm, fingers gripping Grant’s white lab coat. “You’re looking great. How’s life treating you?”
Grant’s eyes narrowed. “It’s treating me the way it always treats me. Like a busy surgeon. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go be a surgeon.” Grant tapped his watch. “Time’s a wastin’.”
Leo’s gray eyes twinkled with amusement as Grant stalked quickly away.
His heart hammering and sweat popping out on his forehead, Grant hoped that whatever was bringing Leo to the hospital would end soon, so that Grant could go back to his happy little bubble of work, more work, beer, occasional hookups, and more work.
Leo Garner had a very unpleasant record of messing up Grant’s well-ordered life. And in that regard, Grant didn’t want to see history repeat itself.
Chapter Three
“I heard Leo Garner is back in town,” Alec said over the rim of his wineglass, his kohl-lined eyes all-knowing and wide.
Grant still wasn’t sure how his best friend in Blountville had turned out to be the town’s most flamboyant queer, but the fact remained that he was.
Still, Alec was worth all the double-takes and outright stares when they went out on the town together. His honesty, loyalty, and determination to be Grant’s friend, even when Grant wasn’t very nice to him, were priceless. Plus, he was pretty, and sweet, and deserved only good things for having endured growing up so incredibly, obviously gay in cons
ervative Blountville, North Carolina.
Alec leaned closer, shrinking the distance between them on Grant’s comfortable leather sofa. The spaghetti Alec had whipped up like a magic man when he first arrived was now balanced on their knees in large, half-full bowls. “Leo Garner,” Alec repeated with a raised brow. “Back. In. Town.”
“And?” Grant said, putting as much disdain into the word as possible. He shoved a bunch of spaghetti into his mouth, slurping up the noodles, hoping that being gross would distract Alec from this line of questioning.
“Well, aren’t you even curious about why?” Alec asked. His lashes blinked long and slow, revealing the glitter eye shadow he insisted on wearing basically everywhere.
Grant rolled his eyes.
As a matter of fact, after seeing Leo at the hospital again on Saturday, he had indeed been very curious about why. So he’d checked the patient rosters looking for one of Leo’s relatives, assuming that someone in the extended clan must be pretty sick for Leo to have come all the way from Los Angeles to visit them.
But what he’d found was something else entirely.
In fact, what he’d uncovered had now relentlessly occupied his thoughts for days. Beer didn’t fix it, the hand job from the Grindr hookup a few towns over didn’t fix it, and the two surgeries he’d been lead on since he’d found out the truth hadn’t driven it from his mind.
The facts were: Leo had undergone a heart replacement three years earlier in Los Angeles due to massive damage from myocarditis, and he now suffered from transplant-related kidney failure. Dialysis. Three times a week. Indefinitely. And Leo couldn’t be added to the transplant list due to the prior heart transplant making him a bad risk. Grant had looked that up as well. It was a rough situation.
Why he was in Blountville instead of Los Angeles dealing with it was beyond Grant’s understanding, though. That was a mystery he had as yet to unravel. Alec probably knew the answer to it because he was a notorious gossip who knew everything about everyone, plus he bought every single gossip rag with their hometown superstar, Curtis Banks, on the cover. But if Grant asked Alec, then he’d have to admit to caring one way or another about Leo Garner. And he wasn’t about to do that.
Grant cleared his throat. “I don’t know why you think I’d be curious about him.”
“He’s sick,” Alec said, keeping his tone gentle and watching Grant’s reaction closely.
Grant forced his face into a stony blankness, and then decided even that might be too revealing, so he stuck out his lower lip and tried to play it off. “Too bad, so sad.”
“Don’t be a jerk,” Alec said, putting his wineglass down and shifting his unfinished spaghetti to the coffee table. “I know you care about him.”
“Cared about him,” Grant clarified. “Past tense.”
“Right,” Alec said, raising a brow. “And that would explain why your face twitches every time someone says his name, and why his annual Christmas visits are near the top of your rather long list of why you hate the season.”
Grant gaped at him.
Alec shook a finger at him. “Yes, I saw that list, idiot. You tacked it up over your toilet last year. I suppose it was to remind yourself every time you took a leak? Though, really, I can’t see how you’d forget to be a Grinch. You’re practically a professional at it.”
“That was private.”
“I take pisses here, you realize. And I can read, you know.”
“Congratulations, you made it past first grade.” Grant shoved more food in, hoping they could move past this topic but blanking on any other to distract Alec with and secretly curious as hell about why Leo wasn’t in Los Angeles for treatment. Lord knows California’s options for hospitals and treatment were far superior to Blountsville’s tiny little regional facility, especially with the Leo’s super-rich, super-famous actor-boyfriend’s money to back him up.
Alec sighed. “Grant, he’s quite sick. I think you should, you know, admit that you care and see if you can help him.”
“I’m a cardiothoracic surgeon. He’s in renal failure. It’s not possible for me to help him.”
Alec smirked. “You already knew all of this, didn’t you? Oh, I get it. You don’t care, but you spent hours researching and investigating what’s going on with him, I bet.” Alec sipped his wine with a gleeful grin. “I see how it is.”
Grant stood up, grimacing. He collected Alec’s plate from the coffee table and headed toward the kitchen. His open-plan apartment was sparsely decorated with furniture he’d collected since graduating from med school, and Alec was always on him about leveling it up. He didn’t see a reason for that, though. Who would it be for? He didn’t bring men home to fuck, and he didn’t exactly need to impress himself, now did he?
Dinner with Alec was something he’d looked forward to all week. He missed his best friend now that Alec was so busy making a life with Dennis. Grant had been happy to think they’d spend a few hours alone together tonight. But now, Grant thought maybe he’d just tell him to go home. This line of discussion was ruining his appetite and his fun.
“Oh, come on, Grant!” Alec exclaimed following behind him with his wine firmly clutched in one hand. “Don’t you even want to know the rest?”
“No,” he said, taking Alec’s wineglass from him and draining it himself in one large gulp. He slammed the empty glass down on the kitchen counter. “I don’t.”
“Leo’s done with Curtis. Totally and completely done. I have it on very good authority,” Alec said, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at him with happy, shining eyes. “Don’t you get it? This is your chance, Grant!”
“My chance? For what?”
“Happiness!”
“Are you insane? How on earth is this anyone’s chance for happiness? He’s incredibly sick, he’s an emotional screw-up, and—”
“And you’re a prize?”
“Thanks, Alec. I was going to say, he’s sick and on the rebound. So, frankly, I don’t have any desire to be his trampoline again, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, because I am quite happy on my own, thank you very much. I enjoy my job, my solitude, and I enjoy not dealing with indecisive, dramatic, heart-breaking queens.”
Alec groaned and threw his head back. “Yes, fine. Tell yourself all of these pretty lies about how your true love is surgery, like you’ve got a scalpel fetish, and I’ll say liar, liar pants on fire.”
“Mature.”
“Truth,” Alec answered, grabbing another wineglass from Grant’s cupboard and filling it from the open wine bottle on the counter.
Grant rinsed the dishes off in the sink, before turning around to shake a fork in Alec’s direction. “And don’t think I don’t see just what you did here.”
“What?”
“Coming over like we’re going to hang out just to two of us when you really just wanted to poke at me with this past weakness I briefly indulged in, pushing my buttons.”
“Did it push your buttons?” Alec sounded happy about that.
“Plus, you left Mina with Dennis, even though you knew I’d rather see that cute munchkin face of hers than have this ridiculous conversation about Leo Garner.”
“Mina is Dennis’s daughter! He deserves alone time with her, too.” Alec seemed on the edge of laughing, his mouth trembling at the edges with suppressed glee. “Look, all I’m saying is that you loved Leo and—”
“I did not!” Grant flushed hot, and he didn’t know if it was with anger or humiliation. “I should have guessed when you showed up alone that you had something up your sleeve, but little could I have imagined this particular come-to-Jesus spiel about love, or whatever the hell this is. But, if I’d known, I would have shoved you back out the door the minute you came in.”
“Good thing that I waited until after dinner then.”
“It’s not too late.”
Alec raised his glass. “I’ve had far too much wine for you to kick me out with a good conscience now.”
Grant turned around, dropping the dish
towel on the counter. “Leo Garner isn’t the end-all and be-all of men for me, understand? There are plenty of gay men in this state, Alec. Hell, in this town, even.”
Alec hooted at that ridiculous exaggeration.
“Why are you trying to force the recently returned, emotional cluster-fuck, probably-dying Leo Garner on me?”
“Force is a strong word, but as for the why? It’s because I saw what he did to you,” Alec said, tenderly. “I saw how he affected you. He changed you, Grant. He made you better.”
“No! He made me worse.” Leo had made Grant care and that had made him vulnerable in a way he’d never experienced before. It’d been the worst experience of his life. “And if you saw so much, then maybe you also saw how he chose his ex-boyfriend and took off across the country with him. I’m not going to play second choice six years later for what amounts to a pretty piece of ass.”
“Call it what you will.” Alec raised his brow and took a sip of wine. “I’ll call it what it is.”
“And just what is that?”
“Love. True Love.”
Grant scoffed. “Alec, you are insane. This is not The English Patient. I am not pining. I don’t pine. I’ve absolutely moved on, and I’m sure that Leo has too.”
Alec laughed lightly. “You’ve never even seen that movie, have you?”
“I thought it was a book.”
“It is, but, whatever, Grant. You’re right, this isn’t The English Patient.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re seeing logic for once and—”
“Because that story ended painfully. This one will end in the triumph of the human heart! Just you wait and see!”
Grant picked up his phone and chose the unfortunately familiar name.
“Are you calling Leo?” Alec asked eagerly, as though Grant was actually the easily-influenced fool he believed him to be.
“Come get your husband,” Grant said when Dennis picked up. “He’s drunk.” He disconnected the call, taking Alec by the arm, removing the glass of wine from his hand, and dragging him toward the door.
