by Aiden Bates
“Sergeant O’Rourke?” the receptionist called out, glancing up from her clipboard with an over-cheerful smile. “Dr. Smith is ready for you.”
I glanced at my watch, unsurprised. I should’ve been in twenty minutes ago. “I’d say better late than never, but…”
“No grumbling, Sergeant. It’s bad for your health,” she insisted, her smile growing just a little too wide as I got out of my chair and drew myself up to my full height. At six-foot-three, I tended to have that effect on people—but I didn’t have the heart to break it to her that no matter how hard she eyed the absence of a wedding band on my ring finger, she wasn’t my type. I preferred omegas.
The room she led me to was at the end of the hall, still missing the presence of the man who was going to determine the future of my career.
“Dr. Smith will just be a few minutes,” the receptionist informed me. “Do you need anything? Glass of water to cool you down, maybe?”
“I’ll be fine, ma’am.” I gave her a polite nod, which seemed to send the signal that I wasn’t up for any of her flirtations. There were enough strapping young men around Fort Greene to keep her busy. If she was looking for someone to settle down with, she didn’t need to be aiming her gaze at a man my age.
At my age, one failed marriage was enough.
After the receptionist left, all I had on my plate was more waiting. That much, at least, the military had prepared me for. By the time Dr. Smith arrived, I was more than a half-hour off my intended schedule for the day. He was lucky his receptionist had already implemented a no grumbling rule.
“How’re you feeling today, Logan?” Dr. Smith asked, swinging in toward the sink and scrubbing his hands clean. “Ready for your check-up?”
“Do I have a choice?” I asked, exactly half serious.
Smith chuckled, drying his hands then reaching out to shake mine. “Still charming as ever, I see.”
“I’ll be much less so if I walk out of here with bad news today,” I promised him, returning the shake with a firm grip.
“Fair enough. Let’s start out with some vitals, then, and we can work from there.” He paused as he reached for the blood pressure cuff. “How’s your heart doing, by the way? Anything I should know about?”
I blinked at him a few times, trying to decide whether the chest pain was worth mentioning. Considering I’d already been subject to one heart attack, it’d probably be lax of me not to mention it.
However, if I could internally rationalize the pain as psychosomatic, there was no reason Dr. Smith needed to go looking for something that might not be there.
“All good, Doc,” I grunted, shrugging off my jacket and rolling up my sleeve.
The reading on Smith’s blood pressure machine left him frowning, though. A pass with the stethoscope in the valley between my pecs only deepened that look of dismay.
“I’m gonna take some blood work now, Logan,” Smith said like it was some kind of apology. “It’s not necessarily anything to worry about, but…”
I gritted my teeth and swallowed. “Just give it to me straight, Doc.”
Smith sighed. “You’re not going to want to hear it.”
“I can handle it,” I assured him—even though, depending on what he had to say to me, it was very possible that wasn’t true at all.
“High blood pressure. Murmur in your chest when I was listening in. With your medical background…” Smith shrugged. “Don’t see how it could be anything other than your heart.”
“I’m healthy, though,” I insisted. “Impeccable lifestyle. Non-smoker. Daily exercise. You should see my diet.”
“I’m sure I’d be very impressed.” Smith flipped through my chart on his clipboard. “But unfortunately, sometimes there’s no outrunning things like this. Says here you’ve got a family history of heart disease. And with one heart attack on the books already, we’re better off safe than sorry.”
“What does that mean for me moving forward, then?” I asked, trying to stay pragmatic.
“We’ll wait for you blood work to come back, but I’d say we can start you on cholesterol medication.”
“Waste of a pill bottle.” I furrowed my brow in annoyance. “I don’t need any—”
“Actually, you probably do. And I’m ordering an EKG as well.” Just as I opened my mouth to argue that point, he held up his hand to stop me as he balanced my chart on the corner of the exam table. “It’s non-invasive, Logan. Just a quick test that’ll give us a better idea of how your heart is doing. Make sure there’s nothing immediate we need to worry about. I’ll get a certified nursing assistant in here to set you up while I send your blood sample over to the lab.”
Dr. Smith exited the exam room with one of those grim, smug smiles that said that’s old age for you—but I wasn’t satisfied with that.
I’d shaped my life the way I had for a reason. I was the master of my own universe. The careful commander of my own body—or so I’d thought. On a good day I could still do ten miles without even getting winded. Just that morning I’d lifted nearly twice my own body weight in the gym. I could carry a recruit with a sprained ankle all the way to medical just by hoisting him across my shoulders. Complete the entire obstacle course we’d designed to get our soldiers battle-ready faster than men half my age.
“There’s no outrunning things like this”, Dr. Smith had said, but that wasn’t good enough for me. In all my life I’d never come up against a situation I couldn’t handle. A challenge I couldn’t beat. Save for marriage, but with fifty percent of those ending in divorce anyway, the odds were stacked against me on that one. I’d had long enough to mull that particular defeat over, and I knew exactly where it had gone wrong. The choice there had been clear: I could’ve done my duty as a provider for my family, or as a husband to Roland. One or the other. Not both. Never both.
I’d chosen to provide, the same way my father had before me. Just like not everyone was cut out for a military career, not everyone was cut out to be a military spouse. Roland had needed me to be a companion, not a commander, but being a lover instead of a fighter didn’t exactly pay the bills. After the divorce I’d thrown myself even harder into my job. Complications of the heart hadn’t managed to hold me back.
It seemed like some kind of cruel irony that heart complications might run my entire career into the ground now.
By the time the door swung open again, my muscles were wound so tight they felt about ready to pop. The clenching of my jaw was beginning to give me a headache, and even worse, I could hear the way my heart was pounding beneath the open buttons of my shirt.
And that was before he walked in.
Bennet Long. It took me a blink to put two and two together, but of course it was him. He’d spent enough of his school nights and summers over at my place back when Jason and Teddy were younger, I would’ve recognized that messy, light brown hair and those bright blue eyes anywhere. He even still had the dark circles beneath them—although I suspected that these days, they had less to do with his living situation and more to do with the CNA uniform he wore.
Dark circles or no, he’d certainly grown up handsome. It was impossible to ignore. His arms were firm with muscle as he wheeled the EKG machine in, shoulders filling out the shirt of his scrubs with a broadness that was all man. As for the way he filled out his pants…
I swallowed and gritted my teeth a little harder.
Wasn’t right, a man of my age looking at one of my son’s friends like that.
But while I might have been checking him out a little, he hadn’t even seen me.
At least, not yet.
“Afternoon,” he said, stifling a yawn in his shoulder as he reached for my chart. “I’m Bennet and I’ll be setting up your EKG today. Once I’m finished, the nurse will be in to—oh!”
Bennet yelped as his fingers met with the edge of the clipboard, sending the whole thing clattering to the ground and skidding across the floor where it finally came to a stop at my boots.
I immediately stoop
ed to pick it up, gentlemanly instincts kicking in. As I straightened to hand it back to him, our eyes met, and for the first time since I got here, I felt a genuine smile tug at the corners of my lips.
“Nice to see you again, Bennet,” I said, holding his gaze as I passed him the chart.
Our fingers brushed as I did it. Couldn’t have lasted for more than half a second, but in that half-second, I watched Bennet’s Adam’s apple bob with a hard swallow.
“H-hello, Sarge.”
4
Bennet
A static shock shot through me, all the way up my fingertips and straight to my chest. For a moment, it felt like I’d just taken high voltage from a defibrillator. An electric twinge that left my pulse racing so hard and fast I had to hold my breath as I yanked my hand away from his.
“Sorry, Sergeant,” I said quickly, blinking as I tried to manage the strange leap my heart was doing up toward my throat. The Sergeant. That had been what Teddy and I had both called his father back when we were kids. But back then, Logan O’Rourke had just been a tall, commanding presence who had ruled the O’Rourke household with the same authority he’d controlled his troops. Masculine, a little intimidating—
But not quite as intimidating as he was now. Broad-shouldered, straight-backed, his uniform shirt unbuttoned down to his navel, revealing an incredibly well-muscled chest. His chest-hair curled thickly over every defined hill and valley, more salt than pepper these days, but in a way that spoke more of experience than it did age. There was a knot in his brow that expressed a general disdain for the entirety of the hospital environment around him, including but not limited to my being there—and that was before I’d come crashing in, stumbling over my own feet and knocking his chart to the ground.
“Long day?” Logan asked, his gaze falling on the dark circles I knew must have been digging trenches beneath my eyes.
“Long night, actually. Had to pull a double, which is the second one I’ve done in three days.” I laughed awkwardly, completely aware of how forced it must have sounded. “Guess it’s made me a little clumsy.”
“No shame in that.” There was a flash of something in the hazel of his eyes, something calculating and quick that softened his gaze by the time it passed. “This EKG—probably not necessary. You’re tired, I don’t need it. You should head home. Get some rest.”
A slow smile of comprehension tugged at my mouth as I realized what he was doing. Dr. Smith had warned me that my next patient might put up a bit of a fight over the EKG—I just hadn’t expected to find Teddy’s dad in the room waiting for me.
Typical Sarge.
“Sorry, Sergeant, but I’ve got orders.” I shook my head, fighting off a laugh as I placed the chart safely on the desk and dipped down to plug the machine into the wall. “You don’t want to get me fired, do you?”
“Our little secret. What Dr. Smith doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Logan suggested, which really did make me laugh.
“Might hurt you if we don’t, though,” I said, remaining firm as I gathered the sensors up. It was strange, standing up to The Sergeant like this, especially when he so clearly wanted to be done so he could go back to his troops. But whether he liked it or not, he wasn’t in his own domain now. He was in mine. “Get your shirt off, or I’ll do it for you.”
Logan cocked an eyebrow. “That a threat, Bennet?”
I smirked. “It might be. Want to find out?”
For a moment I thought he might take me up on it, which really sent my pulse off to the races. Logan was bigger than me. Certainly stronger than me.
But that wouldn’t stop me from pinning him down and wrestling his shirt off of him so I could do my job. And Teddy’s father or not—looking the way he did, I might even enjoy it.
Fortunately for both of us, Logan’s sense of decorum finally won out over his resistance to the idea of being poked and prodded by a CNA. With a grunt of annoyed acceptance, he undid the rest of his buttons methodically and shrugged his shirt off. He handed it to me with a steely glint in his eyes, holding my gaze captive with his own.
“Alright, then. But make it quick, I’ve got things to do today.”
I hung his shirt up on the hook behind the door, catching a whiff of his aftershave on the collar. Minty, fresh and clean. He didn’t wear cologne—The Sergeant had never been the type. But there was an undeniable masculinity to his scent anyway, something woodsy and light.
And that was just on his shirt.
“This will be a little cold,” I warned him, turning back to the EKG and then squeezing a little lubricant out onto my fingers.
“I’ll manage,” Logan grunted, shifting his shoulders back and closing his eyes.
That nearly made me laugh too. He looked like he was getting ready to face a firing squad. But with his eyes closed like that I couldn’t help but admire him as I leveled my fingers to his left pectoral, smoothing the lubricant over the curls of hair on his chest. I thought I’d find his hair to be stiff and wiry, almost coarse beneath my touch. Instead, it was soft and smooth. Oddly inviting, and with a physique like his…
I swallowed hard, coughing slightly as I caught what I was doing.
“Everything okay?” Logan asked, opening one eye and arching the brow above it again.
“Yeah, fine, totally fine,” I assured him, attaching the sensor quickly before I moved onto the next.
Thankfully, by the time my blush rose up my neck and settled onto my cheek, his eyes were closed again.
This is Teddy’s dad, you idiot. I clenched my jaw and blocked out any other, more untoward thoughts that might have risen to my mind as I stuck the rest of the sensors on his torso. You shouldn’t be thinking about him like that—even if he is in damn good shape.
“Okay. Prepped and ready,” I announced, grabbing a paper towel from the dispenser on the wall to wipe my fingers clean. “The, uh. The nurse will be in in just a few minutes to run the actual test.”
“You’re not doing it?” Logan asked, sounding offended at the mere thought.
“I’m just a CNA.” I shrugged, still all too aware of the way the sight of Logan’s perfectly chiseled chest had left my cheeks burning pink. “Not really qualified. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he said, even though it didn’t sound fine. If anything, he sounded more annoyed than ever.
But mercifully, my work here was done. Whatever poor nurse had drawn the short straw for running the EKG, Sergeant O’Rourke would be their problem now.
I tossed the paper towel in the trash and moved to the sink to wash my hands, breathing a sigh of relief. Whatever feelings I was having about the unbridled, ultra-macho handsomeness of Teddy’s dad would be a hell of a lot easier to deal with when I was out of the room. But to my surprise, as I was drying off and preparing to leave, I heard Logan clear his throat behind me.
“How’s Teddy these days?” Logan asked. “You heard from him lately?”
“Ah, a little here and there,” I admitted. “Sounds happy, and it seems like baby Viola is hale and hearty.”
“Good genes,” Logan agreed with a hum of approval.
“Very much so. She’s already so smart. You can tell because she’s constantly reaching for anything that catches her pretty little eyes, always giggling and cooing and babbling away.”
“Curious little thing.” A glimmer of fondness shimmered in Logan’s eyes. “Good. She’ll have gotten that from Teddy.”
“And Roman’s stubbornness,” I added. “She’s going to be a little hell-raiser one of these days.”
“They unpacked yet?”
“Well, you know Teddy.” I gave a little laugh. “He’ll probably still be unpacking for the next year or so. Can’t blame him, though. I was up there a few weeks ago to visit—they’ve got a lot of boxes to wrangle.”
“Mm. Glad to hear that all’s well.”
I opened my mouth to wonder aloud why Logan was asking me about his son’s wellbeing, but I bit my tongue as I recalled Teddy’s text to me from Friday. If Loga
n was as lonely as Teddy thought he might be, it’d be rude to draw attention to the motives behind his line of questioning like that. Loneliness was an insidious thing. I knew that as well as anyone. If he was asking me questions he must have already known the answer to, he probably just wanted to talk to someone.
Maybe Teddy was right—his dad just needed a little company. And after all, I had promised to check up on him. Applying the sensors for Logan’s EKG hardly seemed to count.
No matter how much I might’ve enjoyed it.
“I, uh. I got some good pictures of the happy family when I was up there, you know,” I said casually. “I’d be happy to show them off. Could bring them by for you to have a look at some time this week, if you wanted.”
“Nah. Don’t worry about it.” Logan waved the offer away with the same casualness. “I’m sure they’ll end up on Facebook soon enough.”
I blinked in surprise, but let it slide. Maybe he was onto Teddy and I. Too proud to accept the company. Or maybe, we’d read the whole thing wrong—maybe he wasn’t really all that lonely after all.
“I’ll go let the nurse know you’re ready, then,” I said, giving him a little smile goodbye as I headed out the door.
“Sergeant O’Rourke is prepped for his exam,” I told Lilly, the redheaded RN I found filling out paperwork at the nurse’s station. “Are you the lucky nurse?”
Lilly glanced around the station, her eyes desperately seeking another RN she could coerce to run the test instead, then groaned. “Guess so. Dr. Smith said the Sergeant isn’t exactly looking forward to it, though. He give you a hard time?”
“A little.” In more ways than one. I was careful not to add that last bit as I handed off his chart. “But he knows he’s gotta have it. Besides, he’s already all hooked up. Too late to back out now.”
