First Impressions

by Jay Hogan

  Michaels jaw dropped. “What the fuck, Josh?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. They, of course, blame her for eavesdropping.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Jesus Christ. They actually called you that? A fag? To their friends?”

  “Yeah. That’s not all, though. Their friends answered that Sasha would be better off being raised by her grandparents.”

  “Holy shit. Unbelievable.”

  “If only it was. Anyhow, Sasha stormed in at that point, and you can guess the rest. They obviously knew she would dob them in, so they had no choice about owning up to some of it at least. Not that they believe there was anything wrong with what was said.”

  Michael snorted. “What fucking planet are they on? I can’t believe they copped to that shit.”

  Josh sighed. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard from them before. But it’s the fact that they discussed it in a semipublic conversation with their friends while Sasha was in the house, that boils my blood. It can’t go on. I’ve had it with them. I haven’t decided exactly what I’m going to do other than tell them they’ve seen the last of her for a while until I’m good and ready. And not to hold their breath about when that will be.”

  “Jesus.” Michael whistled long and low.

  “Yeah, and just think, I haven’t even heard Sasha’s version yet.”

  Silence fell between them, and with it an awkwardness Michael hadn’t felt since they’d first met.

  “So, about what I said back there…,” Josh began uneasily.

  Shit. Here it comes. Michael raised a hand to interrupt. “Look,” he said, his voice far shakier than he’d have liked, “while you were inside with the hounds of hell….” He made a stab at a grin that fell dismally flat. “I had some time to think… about us—”

  “Michael, don’t….” Josh took a step toward him.

  Michael stepped back and raised his hand, again. “Let me finish,” he begged.

  Josh froze, a deep frown nestling in his brow.

  Michael continued, “We both know you’ve got a whole lot going on. Your parents, Sasha, they need your attention, and I don’t want to mess with that. They have to be your first priority, not us, not—” He waved his hand between them. “—not whatever this is. We agreed at the start, right? And we agreed to take this slow when things changed, see if it had legs first. It’s just like you told Sasha this morning—we aren’t boyfriends, not yet. And maybe we need to stop at that now. You have to put Sasha first.”

  “Michael, I didn’t mean—”

  “No, it’s okay.” Michael sighed. “I totally agree. We probably let it go too far. I have to leave after this contract, we knew that.”

  “You agree?” For a second Josh looked confused, and Michael felt a surge of hope. But then Josh’s lips set in a thin line and he just looked… disappointed. Disappointed and pissed. Fuck.

  Michael went on. “But it’s been fun, right? I really like you Josh, and I wish it could’ve been different.” Hurt flared in Josh’s eyes. “But it’s what I said to Sasha. Your relationship with her is more important than anything, certainly more important than us, than me. And maybe we crossed some kind of line that we shouldn’t have.

  “Sasha’s hurt. And sure, you might not have told her about us, but the reasons were the right ones. And that’s okay, it really is. I don’t want to mess her around, she deserves so much more than that, and so do you. Perhaps you had me pegged from the start. I’m not that guy, Josh. And with everything that’s happened, I think it’s better if we maybe leave it at that.”

  Josh shook his head. “Don’t do this, Michael.”

  A range of emotions played across Josh’s face. Sadness, hurt, anger, but also maybe relief. You know I’m right, babe.

  “Dad,” Sasha called from somewhere inside.

  Josh’s gaze tracked to the door. “I… ah, shit, Michael. Jesus, there’s no need for this. Can we just wait and talk about it?”

  But Michael had caught the crack in Josh’s voice and knew he had to end this before he couldn’t. The urge to wrap him in his arms and never let Josh go nearly overwhelmed him. Instead he shoved both hands in his pockets and looked away. “Go,” he said. “Your daughter needs you. I’ll tell the team you won’t be at practice this morning.”

  “But—”

  “Dad,” Sasha yelled again.

  “Go,” Michael repeated, eyes glued to Paris, knowing if he dared look at Josh he’d be undone.

  Josh hesitated only a second, then grabbed Michael by his jacket and kissed him hard and disappeared into the house. Michael rocked on his feet, the warm touch of the man’s lips sliding too quickly into memory, stinging his eyes, shattering his heart. He grabbed his bag and strode to his car, desperate to hold himself together and get home before he lost his shit completely. He didn’t make it. Half a kilometre down the road, he pulled over and broke apart.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Two weeks later.

  MICHAEL GLARED at the pager going nuts in his hand and promptly threw it on the break-room sofa. “Jesus Christ, give me a fucking break,” he grumbled. “I’m trying to finish my fucking lunch here.”

  Cam’s head popped through the door. “You got a problem, sexy?”

  Michael threw a cushion at his head. “Fuck off. I’m hungry, and I’m exhausted. I should’ve been off at eight, and yet here I still am at noon.” He’d volunteered for a run of nights the last two weeks. It was better than not sleeping.

  “Yes, you’re a saint,” Cam agreed, altogether too readily for Michael’s taste. “Which reminds me,” the charge nurse continued, “why are you here at noon?” He slipped inside the room and closed the door.

  Before Michael could answer, his pager started up with its infernal squawk yet again. He went to pick it up, but Cam got there first.

  “Hold it, hotshot. Everyone deserves a break.” The nurse picked up the wall phone and punched in some numbers. “Mary Anne? Is Steve around? Oh, is he now? Well, tell him that his boss is on a much-needed break after sixteen hours on the trot and I don’t care if the woman in five is sex on a stick, he’s to get his butt out of that room and call—” He glanced at Michael’s pager. “—the blood bank on behalf of Michael. That is unless he wants a rotation through the colonoscopy clinic next week. Got it?”

  He hung up and sat his ass on the chair opposite Michael, arms folded across his chest. Michael swept an eye across his pretty features and found himself with the closest thing to a smile on his face in two weeks. The colour of the day was obviously green, and Cam’s eyelids fairly glittered with it.

  “So, Dr Oliver,” he drawled. “You going to tell me what’s been stuck up your arse lately, and I don’t mean in a good way?”

  Michael raised a brow. “Is this an intervention?”

  “Does it need to be?” Cam leaned back on his chair, legs stretched before him.

  Michael slapped the man’s leg. “Do you know how insanely annoying you are?”

  Cam smirked. “Yes. Now stop distracting me. What’s up? You’ve been chewing out my staff left, right, and centre for the last week. I wouldn’t care if you kept your foul temper to the medical staff, mostly they deserve it, and it saves me the bother, but when you start leaking it all over my nurses, I’m gonna have your balls in a bag before you can say cocksucker.”

  Michael winced. “Jeanne said something, huh?” Michael had torn a strip off the night charge nurse over something petty, something he’d normally have laughed off. She hadn’t deserved it, and he knew it.

  “I was holding back saying anything, hoping you’d grow a pair and offer her an apology,” the nurse chided. “It’s not like we don’t already know you can be a dick.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Michael rolled his eyes.

  “You’re welcome. But usually incidents of your dickishness are justified in some way. A big trauma case, life-and-death shit, and such like. But throwing your weight around over stupid piss shit stuff like that isn’t you. So, I’ll ask you again, what’s up?”
/>   Michael’s gaze slid away. “You’re gonna give me hell, huh?”

  “I’m gonna burn your ass into next week is what I’m gonna do if you don’t spit it out.”

  Michael sighed. “Okay, but it’s really nothing. It’s just… well, that thing I had with that cop,” he said softly. “It’s… well, it’s not a thing anymore. I ended it.” He shook his head. “Happy now?” he snapped.

  Cam leaned forward, cinnamon eyes blazing. “Say again? I could swear you just said that you’re all twisted up and nasty because you broke it off with Mister Tall, Blond, and Sexy, but that can’t be right. Because that would mean you really liked the guy. And that would make it something like a relationship, and Michael Oliver doesn’t do relationships, and he especially doesn’t do attachment.”

  Michael rolled his eyes. “Fuck off, Cam. You heard me the first time. And it was me who broke it off, so I guess I still don’t do relationships, or attachment.”

  Cam went deathly quiet for a moment. “Can I ask why you broke it off?” the nurse finally asked.

  Michael clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back with a sigh. “It was getting messy. He’s got this kid, a gorgeous girl, eleven years old. And there is all sorts of complicated shit going down with his bigot-assed parents, and I was just getting in the way, making things harder. We were fuck buddies, nothing more. So it made sense to let it go, let him sort his shit out and find someone that wants what he wants, house, family, and all that shit. I’m not that guy, Cam. You of all people know that. I’m not the picket-fence, weekend-brunch type. We were getting too close.”

  Cam cocked a brow. “We?”

  “Fuck. No. Not we, me. I was getting too close. And I’m nowhere near ready for something like that. I’d fuck it up, and it’s not just him. Sasha would get hurt too.”

  Cam slid him a sympathetic grin. “Oh how the mighty have fallen.”

  “Asshole.”

  The nurse kept his gaze level on Michael. “You really liked him?”

  Michael stood and leaned against the break-room bench. “Maybe. Makes no difference. It was headed nowhere.”

  Cam shook his head. “You don’t know that.”

  Michael eyeballed him. “Yes. I. Do. He didn’t need me complicating things for him.”

  “Did you ask?”

  “No, I didn’t ask. There was no need. It was crystal clear.”

  Cam winced. “Ouch.”

  “Yeah. Whatever. Anyway, he told his daughter in front of me that we weren’t serious.” You know damn well why he did that. “And even if he was interested in more, I realised I’m still a million miles away from being ready for that, especially with a kid involved. I’d just screw it up.”

  “So you keep on saying, over and over again. And yet you seem to have fallen for this guy, so just maybe think about that. You might be more ready than you want to believe. Maybe it’s not that you aren’t ready, but that you’re just plain fucking terrified.”

  “I don’t want to think about anything. We’re done, end of story. I’m sorry for being such a prickly bastard, and I promise to do better. And I’ll apologise to Jeanne. Happy?”

  Cam rolled his eyes. “Over the fucking moon.”

  “Then this conversation is over.” Michael strode to the door, but before he got there, Cam placed a hand on his arm.

  “You do know that going out and simply screwing more guys isn’t going to get you what you want, right?” the nurse said.

  Michael held the other man’s gaze. “I’m not an idiot. It might not solve anything, but it’s a damn good way to pass the time.”

  “Whatever. But if you’re serious about not trying to mend things with Josh, then you need to get over it and move on, before I’m forced to drown you head first in the sluice room sink. Because if I have to watch you waxing pathetic any longer, I swear I’ll lose the will to live. You’re clogging up my ER with your damn self-pity, and the sooner we get the old, irritating Michael Oliver back, the better for all concerned. Best chance of that happening is getting you back in the saddle. So, and I cannot believe I’m about to do this, a few of us are heading to Downtown G tonight. Join us.”

  Michael waggled his eyebrows. “You asking me out on a date, Mister Charge Nurse?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Cam pushed past Michael and through the door.

  Michael kept his smile in place until the nurse was out of sight before collapsing against the wall. The last thing he felt like was cruising, but maybe Cam had a point. Maybe it would get him out of his funk—nothing else was working. Two weeks hiding out in his apartment, running from the nightmares, trying not to give in and fill the hole in his chest the size of Chicago with booze, sure as hell hadn’t helped. He hadn’t been able to stomach the thought of other men, just the one, the one he couldn’t have. And if a cute girl with blond hair sometimes also crossed his mind, well, that was understandable—he’d liked the squirt well enough.

  No. Cam had it right. Michael was better than this. He didn’t do needy, and he sure as hell didn’t do sentimental. With the bruising gone, his face was almost marketable again. A hot and heavy romp with a stunning piece of ass was likely just what he needed. The fact that his cock adamantly refused to perk up at the thought was a moot point, and one Michael did his best to ignore.

  “FOR FUCK’S sake, Josh,” Mark muttered as he landed a boot to Josh’s shin. “If your bottom lip sinks any lower, you can suck the damn beer spill off the table and save the server the trouble. Though that would be a crying shame because those looks he’s been sending me, well, let’s just say there’s a good chance that sweet arse is mine by the end of the night. Ergo, I’ll be real pissed if you screw it up for me.”

  Josh sat up straight and plastered a fake smile on his face. “Better?”

  Mark winced. “God, no. Now you’ll really scare him away.”

  Josh sighed. “Sorry, man. I told you I wasn’t up for this.”

  “Rubbish. You’ve been moping around that damn house of yours for too long. You needed to get your gay on.”

  Josh snorted. Mark had appeared at his house, having organised Katie to babysit, and simply dragged Josh to the G.

  The detective’s expression hardened. “Don’t push me, Joshua Dudley Rawlins. Sometimes you make it damn near impossible to be your friend.”

  And wasn’t that the truth. Josh had been avoiding everyone, including his best friend, who’d just full named him to underscore his level of pissedoffedness. “Sorry. I know I’ve been a wanker.”

  “A cocksucking wanker,” Mark corrected. “Now drink up. If you aren’t going to get laid, you can at least get drunk. Make me feel like I’ve done my job.”

  Josh took a half-hearted swallow and surveyed the bar. On Fridays, Downtown G was generally hopping, and tonight was no different. With pounding bass, lots of hot skin on display, and a dance floor jammed full of men, some of whom hadn’t been shy in sliding Josh a few blatantly interested looks, and still his cock hadn’t mustered any interest whatsoever.

  And why is that, Joshua? Yeah. Try as he might, Josh couldn’t get the damn doctor out of his head. He’d missed Michael way more than he’d expected, and it shocked him. They’d had fun, lots of fun, in and outside the bedroom. And yeah, he was pissed as hell the man had just walked away from… well, from whatever it was they didn’t name, because for sure they were boyfriends even if neither of them had used the damn word.

  But maybe Josh shouldn’t have expected anything more. Michael had made no bones of how commitment-phobic he was at the start, and he didn’t make a move to fight for what they had when the chips were down—he just ran. What the hell had Josh been thinking even starting something with him?

  Mark was still eyeing up the blond server, now busy at the next table. The twink was fit, tanned, and yeah, pretty damn cute. Josh caught the two exchanging a look and booted his friend under the table. “Too young and cute for you, old man.”

  Mark gave him a wide grin. “Watch and learn.”
<
br />   The blond approached their booth, and the detective sat a bit straighter. “Anything you need?” he asked, keeping his gaze firmly locked on Mark.

  Close up, Josh could fully appreciate the young man’s looks, and watching Mark’s reaction was amusing in its own right. The detective was clearly smitten and appeared… well, flustered. Huh. Mark had been a one-and-done guy for a long while now. This reaction was… new.

  “Another two of the same, sweetheart,” the detective answered, holding the server’s gaze.

  The guy blushed to his roots. “Coming right up.” He rocketed off as if his life depended on it.

  Josh snorted.

  Mark scowled. “What?”

  “Not your type, I’d have thought.”

  Mark shrugged. “What is my type, smart-arse?”

  “Tall, hot, heavy on the muscle, light in the head, fuckable but not dateable, and usually totally wrong for you.”

  Mark winked. “But they do as they’re told and go home after the job’s done.”

  “That’s because most of them can’t even read.” Josh laughed.

  Mark flipped him off. “Fuck you. Anyway, this guy—” he nodded in the direction of the server. “—Josh, honey, he’s everyone’s type.”

  Josh laughed and shook his head. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “That’s way too big a word for this number of drinks,” Mark quipped. “So, how are the parents from hell?”

  Josh blew out a sigh. “Nice change of subject, arsehole.”

  Mark saluted him with his bottle. “I’ll raise two bigoted weasels to your one arsehole.” he grinned.

  “And the rest,” Josh grumbled. Mark knew his parents well. “The short answer is I haven’t called them, and they haven’t tried to contact me, which is probably for the best. I’m still fucking furious with them. Not sure what I’d even have to say at this point.”