Reckless Behavior

by L. A. Witt

  “Yeah, I get that.” He reached out and took my hand. “What about what you want?”

  I sighed and looked down at our hands. “I don’t get what I want. I want . . . I wish he was here, and healthy, because he would have given me so much shit over you. He would have told you every embarrassing story from my childhood he could remember, and showed you all the worst pictures of me as a teenager. He would have loved you.”

  “You think so? With all my baggage?” Older, HIV positive, two exes and four kids and a reputation for assholery that’s wholly deserved? He didn’t say it, but I could see an edge of uncertainty in his eyes.

  “He’d have loved you,” I reiterated. “He called himself almost too Stepford to be healthy; he liked complicated people. And you make me happy, which he’d have said was the most important thing. At least, once he was an adult, he would have. Asher was kind of a dick as a kid.”

  Andreas chuckled. “What kid isn’t?”

  “I bet Erin wasn’t.”

  “You’d be surprised. She pulled a few nasty pranks on her brothers when she was little. They had to team up to get anything over on her.” He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, and I watched as the tendons in his neck stood out, like they were just begging for attention.

  No. I wasn’t going to have these thoughts at my brother’s memorial service. It was all over but the chitchat at this point, though. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He glanced over at me. “Don’t leave early for my sake.”

  “I’m not, trust me.” I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, then started to stand. “I’ll just go tell Mom—” He pulled me back down before I could walk away, and kissed me again, an honest-to-God lip-locking, breath-stealing kiss. There probably would have been tongue fucking too, if we weren’t in a church and he wasn’t on half a dozen different drugs.

  “You,” I managed once he let me go. “You . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing. Just . . .” Just I was stupidly in love with him, and the only time my heart didn’t hurt lately was when we were together. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay.”

  Of course, my swift farewell turned into something way more protracted when Mom realized we were leaving. There were more goodbyes, huge portions of food shoved into the backseat of my car, and promises to call them soon. Which I would have done anyway—there were still plenty of boxes of Asher’s stuff to go through, and while it wasn’t easy, there were some things in there I didn’t want to give away. I would have called them without being reminded to do it four times.

  By the time we got back to Andreas’s apartment, got ourselves and a metric ton of leftovers inside, and got him medicated and on the bed, I felt as tired as he looked. I flopped down next to him, pulled off my tie, and threw it on the floor.

  “Maybe someday,” I said, “we’ll both be healthy, and our families will be drama-free, and we won’t have a case more complicated than a lost puppy to deal with. That day will be a goddamn miracle. I don’t think a day like that has happened in the entire time we’ve known each other.”

  Andreas rolled over and wrapped an arm around my middle. “Never say never.”

  Ha. My life had been a roller coaster ever since I was given Andreas for a partner, and I didn’t see that slowing down anytime soon. I wasn’t entirely sure how we’d fit together when there wasn’t some emergency pressing at us—it was the only dynamic we knew.

  I was looking forward to finding out, though.

  “I’m going to have to redo a lot of what I did last time.” Zach scowled at my X-rays. So did I. The emergency surgery had helped, but even I could see on the X-rays that there was still work to be done. And God knew the pain hadn’t let up despite me being a good little patient and taking my painkillers regularly. Zach shook his head as he turned to me. “Hopefully this will be the last procedure, but no promises. It’s a fucking mess in there.”

  I wondered how different his bedside manner would be if he weren’t dating my daughter. Or maybe he was just this blunt because of that time I’d punched him while coming out from under general anesthesia. Either way, I actually liked it. Don’t bullshit me—just tell me like it is.

  I nodded. “Whatever it takes so I can walk on the damn thing again.”

  His lips tightened, and I suspected the surgeon in him wanted to chastise me for everything I’d done to my stupid ankle two weeks ago. He’d warned me about ditching the crutches, after all. But I was pretty sure he understood. If I hadn’t been able to walk that day at the plant, the pain in my ankle would be the least of my worries right now.

  “I won’t lie,” he went on. “Your ankle’s never going to be the same as it was before you broke it.”

  “I don’t expect it to be. Just maybe less . . .” I waved at the X-rays.

  That brought a quiet chuckle out of him. “I’m pretty sure we can improve on all of that.”

  “Good.”

  We shook hands, and he walked with me out to the waiting area. While he went back with another patient, I sat down with the scheduler to figure out my next surgery. Once it was scheduled for two weeks from now, I left.

  There was no sigh of relief on the way out the door, though. Even with a plan to unfuck my ankle, my stomach was still jacked up. I’d been nervous all day about my appointment with Zach. Surgery had been inevitable. The only questions had been, how many and how extensive?

  But hobbling out of his office, I was still nervous to the point of queasy, and it had nothing to do with my ankle. I was on my way to another appointment, and this one scared the fuck out of me.

  The other office was a ten-minute drive from the hospital, but it felt like hours before I stepped into the air-conditioned room. Soft music played from hidden speakers, and a fish tank bubbled in the background, but the whole place seemed eerily silent. Maybe because the only sound I could focus on was my own heartbeat, which ratcheted up as I met Darren’s eyes from across the pastel-colored waiting room.

  He didn’t even try to smile. He had his phone on his knee, but he wasn’t looking at it. Not distracting himself with video games. Not perusing Facebook. He just drummed his fingers on the case as his other knee bounced rapidly.

  “You okay?” I asked as I sat beside him.

  “What did Zach say?” He met my gaze, brow pinched, and if I knew him, he was hoping I wouldn’t notice that he’d completely ignored my question.

  Under the circumstances, I let it slide. I gave him the rundown on my disaster of an ankle, and he put the surgery date in the calendar on his phone. That gave me mixed feelings. Of course I’d have done the same thing, but every time he wrote something down or set himself a reminder, it was a nod to the elephant in the living room.

  To the reason we were sitting in this office.

  Neither of us spoke for a while.

  Then Darren broke the silence. “Promise me something.”

  My gut clenched. I was afraid to ask, to find out what processes his brain was going through as he steeled himself for today’s news, but I nodded. “Okay?”

  He stared at the industrial-grade carpet at his feet. After a moment, he turned to me. “When your ankle is healed, I want us to go somewhere.”

  I blinked. “Where?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t care.” He shrugged. “I just want a couple of weeks away from everyone and everything.” Reaching for my hand, he added, “Except you.”

  I nodded as I laced our fingers together. “That sounds like a really good idea.”

  His face lit up. “Really?”

  “Yes.” I freed my hand, wrapped my arm around his shoulders, and kissed his temple. “Anywhere you want to go.”

  “So, like, someplace with beaches and hot guys in Speedos?”

  I laughed. “Those places usually have hot women in bikinis too.”

  “Eh. They’re all yours.”

  “Well shit. This is sounding better by the minute.”

  He snorted, leaning against me. “Shut
up.”

  I just chuckled and kissed the top of his head. I definitely liked the idea of a trip someplace sunny and sandy. The sooner the better too.

  Because I want you to remember it.

  My gut clenched. The thought of him going down the same road Asher had was terrifying and heartbreaking. From nearly the beginning, every thought I’d had about our future had included caveats like We need to do it before . . .

  After today, those caveats would either evaporate, or they’d become far, far too real. If the tests revealed that he didn’t have the gene, we’d be able to breathe. Go on with our lives. Have a future that was as perfectly uncertain as any other couple’s.

  But if he had it . . .

  I closed my eyes, holding him a little tighter against me. No matter what, I wasn’t going anywhere. I loved him. End of story. My heart physically hurt at the thought of watching him suffer like Asher had, but no way in hell was I abandoning him.

  “Mr. Corliss?” A young nurse in cheery pink scrubs smiled at us from the doorway beside the desk. “Come on back.”

  We both stood, and it was hard to say who struggled more with the simple act of getting out of the chair. It killed me that I couldn’t put a reassuring hand on his back as we followed the nurse into the hallway.

  She took us to an office instead of an exam room. There was an enormous desk made out of some expensive-looking hardwood. The stereotypical green banker’s lamp. Framed degrees on the wall flanked by bookcases stuffed with thick medical texts. I knew it was typical of a doctor’s office, but that didn’t ease the déjà vu. Not after I’d sat in a room like this after my HIV test had come back positive.

  Dread trickled down my spine like cold sweat. Was I sweating? Fuck, I didn’t know. All I knew was I needed this to be over now, and at the same time, I hoped the doctor wasn’t in any hurry to come in here. We needed to know, and I wanted to know, and I didn’t want to know.

  “Dr. Gilliam will be with you in just a minute.” The nurse was still smiling like people didn’t routinely come in here for devastating news. “Can I get either of you some coffee or water?”

  We both shook our heads, thanking her quietly.

  She left the room as we took seats in the leather chairs in front of the desk. Now that I didn’t need to hold on to my crutches, I took Darren’s hand, and he responded with a death grip. I rubbed my thumb back and forth along his, not sure who I was trying to reassure more.

  Fifteen long, long minutes later, the door opened again, and a silver-haired women walked in. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, gentlemen.” She looked at me and extended her hand. “I’m Dr. Gilliam.” Her eyebrows rose above her wire-framed glasses, asking, And you are?

  “Andreas Ruffner.” I shook her hand. “Darren’s . . .” I glanced at him, not sure how to introduce myself.

  He smiled, though his eyes were too full of fear to echo it. “My boyfriend.”

  “Oh.” It wasn’t a curt sound. Not a disgusted one. More like This is a piece of information I wasn’t aware of, but all right. After we’d shaken hands, she sat down behind the desk and put a file folder in front of her. Her expression was serious as she opened the folder. “Well, Darren, your results came back—”

  There wasn’t much of a pause. Long enough for her to skim over the sheet in front of her, maybe. A second, if that. But God, it felt like days. All this worry and fear, Darren’s fate, it all came down to whatever followed that pause, and I wanted to scream at her to get on with it even though she’d barely stopped long enough for a breath and—

  “—negative.”

  Everything froze.

  I held my breath. So did Darren. His hand tightened in mine, the bones nearly grinding together.

  The doctor’s eyes flicked up from the chart, and her smile told me we hadn’t heard her wrong. There was no but.

  “Negative?” Darren whispered, his voice as taut as his posture.

  “Negative.” She closed the file and folded her hands on top of it. As if she understood how much we were both struggling to comprehend the information, she added, “You do not possess the gene, Darren.”

  Darren squeezed his eyes shut, and his entire body deflated except the hand still gripping mine for dear life. He pressed his other elbow into the armrest and covered his eyes, not making a sound.

  Dr. Gilliam gave him a moment before she softly asked, “Do you have any questions?”

  “No.” He shook his head, but didn’t look up. “Thank you.”

  She watched him. Then me. After a long silence, she rose. “You gentlemen take all the time you need to process. Just let the front desk know when you leave.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.” It was weird how her response—and ours, for that matter—was almost the same as it probably would’ve been if the news had been bad. We’d been hanging by a thread, desperate for the answer, knowing his future and ours hinged on what she told us today, and once the answer came . . . it was jarring. Earthshaking. Such a profound, bone-deep relief that it seemed near impossible to comprehend. Was this what it felt like to win the lottery? Like you knew you should’ve been overcome with joy, but you were just . . . stunned into silence?

  The door closed behind Dr. Gilliam.

  I put my other hand over the top of the death grip we still shared. “Hey. You all right?”

  Darren nodded again. He sniffed sharply before he looked at me. His expression was impossible to read, but his eyes were red and wet.

  “Come here,” I whispered, and pulled him into my arms. The chair’s armrest bit into my ribs, but I didn’t care. I just held him close and let the stunned feeling gradually give way to the relief I’d been expecting. Somehow, I didn’t break down with him.

  Darren sniffed again, still holding on to me. “Is it weird to feel guilty?”

  “Guilty?”

  He nodded, five-o’clock shadow hissing against my shirt. “Like, why do I get to dodge this bullet when Asher didn’t?”

  I stroked his hair. “I don’t know.” Survivor’s guilt was a complicated thing, and hell if I knew what to say to assuage that feeling.

  After a moment, he sat up and wiped his eyes. Then he released a long breath. “I feel guilty, but . . . I do feel better.” As he met my gaze, a smile slowly formed. “Maybe I can actually sleep now.”

  “Me too.” In fact, as the relief sank in, I suddenly felt like I could sleep for days. Judging by the way Darren’s shoulders were beginning to sag and his eyes were getting heavy, he probably felt the same way. And maybe that was what we needed.

  I put a hand on his forearm. “Should we get out of here?”

  Darren nodded. “I can’t decide if I want a drink or if I just want to face-plant in bed.”

  “You and me both.”

  We got up and started toward the door, but he paused with his hand on it. As he turned to me, the smile on his lips was a tired one, but it seemed more heartfelt than a moment ago. “Maybe after we’ve crashed for a while, we can start planning that trip.”

  The trip. Someplace sunny and sandy. With no fear that there was a ticking time bomb waiting to turn Darren’s mind against him.

  I leaned on one crutch and touched Darren’s cheek. “Anywhere you want to go. Let’s do this.”

  Darren just smiled, and we continued out of the office.

  Six Months Later

  “You know,” Darren said as we took our seats by our gate, “even if you didn’t have eight tons of metal in your foot, I would still expect you to set off the metal detectors.”

  I shot him a glare.

  He snickered. “Oh come on. Your saccharine-sweet personality is bound to set off some kind of machinery, don’t you think?”

  I tried to hold the glare, but . . . damn those puppy-dog eyes. They still got to me every time. Chuckling, I shook my head and patted his leg. “You’re lucky I love you, you know that?”

  He flashed a grin. Then he gestured past me. “I’m going to go get a bottle of water. You want anything?”
<
br />   “Sure, I’ll take one.”

  He smiled, gave my thigh a gentle squeeze, and got up.

  While he strode across the concourse in search of drinks, I propped my foot up on my carry-on suitcase. After spending so much time in and out of casts and boots, it was becoming a habit to elevate the damn thing whenever I was sitting down. Especially since our walk across long-term parking and the seventy-two-mile-long terminal had left it aching. Not bad, but enough to be irritating.

  It had taken two more surgeries before Zach was satisfied that my ankle wouldn’t fall apart in a strong wind. The second procedure had been relatively minor too, so I was thankful for that. After that one, he warned me that if I didn’t take care of it this time, he’d rebreak it on purpose just to teach me a lesson. I’d issued him a similar warning when he and Erin started making noise about moving in together. I was pretty sure he knew I was joking.

  From where I sat, I could see Darren perusing the shop’s newsstand with a couple of water bottles tucked under his arm. He wasn’t looking my way, so he didn’t notice me staring. Or smiling like an idiot. What could I say? He still got to me. I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.

  My phone buzzed. I pulled it out, and there was a text.

  Back order came through—should be ready when you get back.

  I glanced at Darren, who was still in the shop, and quickly replied, Perfect. Thanks.

  Then I pocketed my phone and tried not to hide my ridiculous smile. Which wasn’t easy. Even before that text had come through, I’d been more relaxed than I’d been in a long time, and hell—I was excited. I couldn’t even remember my last real vacation.

  Along with Zach and Erin, we’d been visiting my boys and ex-wife for the weekend. Now my daughter and her boyfriend were headed home, and Darren and I were on our first real vacation as a couple. Darren had been like a kid on Christmas planning this thing. He’d run me through the itinerary a few times, but the gist of it was three weeks on an island I still couldn’t spell or pronounce.

  As we’d packed in our hotel room last night, he’d mentioned he felt kind of guilty for taking a long vacation right now.