by Willa Okati
Nathan could taste himself on Fitz’s tongue, ripe-rich-salty. When had they started kissing again? Nathan couldn’t remember. Only that he’d taken Fitz by the hair and pulled his head back almost too far, too hard, and that Fitz clung to him as if they were still fucking.
It doesn’t fix anything. Of course not.
“I know,” Fitz broke off to say. “You didn’t say that out loud, don’t worry. I just know you. At best, that was trying to patch up a bullet wound with a sticking plaster. But you’ve gotta start somewhere, right?”
Nathan groaned. He changed places, scolding himself when the natural move was dropping his head on Fitz’s shoulder—but he couldn’t change that it was natural, and once he’d touched down Fitz didn’t let go. The hands on his back gentled, less clutching, more stroking in broad swoops and soothing circles.
Nathan knew he should fire Fitz now, before this went any further. He had every excuse. Legally and ethically speaking, he should show Fitz the door.
But so help them, Fitz had been right. With Ilse’s desertion, it did leave him in a major pinch, and exactly who else was lining up to help?
Like it or not, he needed the man.
It still grated. And it bothered Nathan most of all that it didn’t bother him more.
And God help him if he’d felt this young, this alive, in seven fucking years. My God.
That was something else he remembered now. Fitz never played by the rules, no, but he always, always won.
Chapter Three
It should have been awkward, afterwards. There should have been an uncomfortable silence wherein they cleaned up, tucked themselves away, and couldn’t meet each other’s eyes. Nathan knew he should have taken the opportunity to tell Fitz no, and to tell him go, but he was well aware Fitz wouldn’t take marching orders gracefully. It’d mean a hell of a fight. And if they didn’t get a move on they’d be truly late for their appointments. Some of his patients couldn’t wait.
No choice, Nathan told himself.
To Fitz, he said, “We’re not done yet.”
Fitz listened to him. Nathan would give him that much credit. But what his response might be… Still working on that one.
Which brought them to the moment. Dressed in a reasonable facsimile of appropriate attire—though his legs were still jelly inside the pressed khakis—Nathan stowed his gear behind the driver’s seat of his Jeep and gestured hop in at Fitz. She might be an old girl, but she was faithful and her engine grumbled to life on the first try. “All-natural air conditioning,” he said, checking behind himself as they pulled out of his driveway. “Sorry.”
Fitz waved a careless hand. “Don’t be. Remember the dorms? Heat in winter, yes. In summer? Screw you. Box fans.”
“I remember.”
He did. The heat, stifling thick, laid on in a sultry blanket that suffocated the unwary, but through which Fitz swam as sleek as a silver-sided fish. Shirts off and briefs on only under duress while indoors, and sometimes out of doors. Nathan chuckled. He’d forgotten that—the night Fitz didn’t quite go streaking. Streaking required running. Fitz had ambled across campus at his leisure, without a stitch, gathering other summer sufferers behind him like a demented Pied Piper.
And more, he remembered Fitz lying on his bed. Their bed. Dewed with sweat, sheened with a thin gloss, licking the salt off his lips and Nathan’s. The hotter, the better. The way their bodies had stuck together and had come apart in the heat, humid air barely breathable except when Fitz passed it from mouth to mouth. He’d sucked on wintergreen mints and, somehow, he’d made July bearable. He’d drawn Nathan into his bed and hadn’t let go until August…or so it had seemed. A month’s worth of stolen kisses, nimble fingers pressing deep inside him, long limbs content to be draped over him and Fitz coaxing him on, ordering him to go deep and hard and like he meant it, now.
God.
Showing up for rounds with a hard-on would be a bad idea, and he was on the wrong side of thirty-five. Coming so recently, he ought not to have been good for another one for a while…
But that was Fitz for you, always beating the odds. Then and now.
On the surface, he didn’t look so very different, chin propped on his hand, watching the world flash by through the passenger window. No lines on his face except for the beginnings of crinkles at the corners of his eyes. Nathan could see the places where he’d been pierced. Heavy-gauge metal that had left scars in a row up both ears and on the left side of his nose. Tattoos bristled dark and tribal on his neck. Clever hands, capable of anything.
If Nathan had met him out of the blue, he’d trust him as a nurse. The thought made him laugh.
Nathan’s laugh drew Fitz’s attention back to him, at once knowing and curious and beneath that, maybe a little… There would be a better word for it, but Nathan knew the look from the times he’d felt it on his own face. Wishfully thinking.
“You still have the busiest head of anyone I ever knew,” Fitz said, with a flash of a new sort of grin. Mature. Knowing. The tiniest bit self-deprecating. All of it—all of it—full of his zest for life. “What are you chewing over like a dog on a bone?”
He knew he didn’t have to ask, the brat. Nathan eyed him sideways as he answered. “I was thinking you hadn’t changed a bit,” Nathan said. He drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel. “Then I was wondering if I knew anything about you at all.”
Fitz raised one hand palm up. Not much of an answer, but Nathan could intuit its meaning. Doubt and wishing. That didn’t sit well on Fitz. He’d been made for self-assurance, and its lack unsettled Nathan.
Which, perversely, pleased Fitz more than anything yet.
He spoke abruptly, and with content still more surprising to Nathan. “It was never in you, to hate,” he said, drawing the words out long and thoughtful. “Not like my dad. My brothers.”
Startled, Nathan glanced at Fitz. “What?”
Fitz rested his arm on the edge of the open window and dabbled his fingers through the rushing air. “That was what I worried about most of all, you know. That what I did for love would have turned you to hating.”
“There were times I wasn’t fond of your memory.”
“Wasn’t?” Fitz asked.
Nathan could feel Fitz watching him in profile. Silent. Leaving it to him. “Don’t ask me that now.”
Fitz nodded, and let it pass. For the moment.
And now it was Nathan who couldn’t let go. He drew the tip of his tongue over his lip, and his lip between his teeth. “You couldn’t have told me then what you were planning?”
“No.”
Well. Guess that told me.
Or it would have, if Fitz hadn’t barrelled on before Nathan could respond. “You’d have wanted to help me. I had to do it myself. And look at you. You did fine without me. Better than.” He twisted the cord of the necklace he wore around his forefinger.
Nathan wasn’t sure he wanted to know any more, and yet he had to ask. “Then why did you come back? And don’t just say it was because I had a job opening. That was a door. You say you know me? I say I know you. There was a reason you walked through now.”
Fitz raised an eyebrow. “Do you really want me to say it? By which I mean, are you calm enough to listen?”
Nathan snorted. “I thought you liked it when I was angry enough to pop all over you.”
Fitz laughed. “Yeah, well. There’s different kinds of explosions. Aren’t there?” He slipped a hand beneath his shirt and drew out the medallion, pressing it to his lips. Worn smooth and shiny from old habit.
Nathan’s breath caught. Dear God. Fitz didn’t have to say it. Nathan knew.
Fitz had come back because Fitz loved him. Still.
Had never stopped loving him, even when he’d left him—had left because he loved him.
Nathan couldn’t think straight. What was a man supposed to do with that?
Fitz rode for a few minutes in silence, turning the medallion over in his fingers. He shook his head when Nathan didn’t speak.
Then he leant back and propped his elbow on the rolled-down window. “It’s a start. At least you didn’t punch me in the jaw,” he said. “Which I wouldn’t have begrudged you.”
“You know I couldn’t have done that.”
“Offer stands. If anyone does, I deserve it.”
“I still—” Nathan stopped, frustrated. “I couldn’t hit you. All right?”
“Even if you wanted to?” Fitz studied him. “Do you want to?”
Nathan clamped his mouth shut.
Fitz slipped his hand out to rest on Nathan’s knee.
Silence.
“If you don’t have hope,” he said, quietly, ever so quietly, “then you don’t have anything. That’s all.”
He left it there, for Nathan to make of it what he would. All on him, now.
All of everything he ever was and would be.
No pressure there, huh?
* * * *
Nathan knew the list of house calls he’d scheduled for the day. He still ran over them inside his head, ticking down the list, annoyed to find himself thinking, What will they make of Fitz?
Will Fitz be able to handle this? What about that?
Fitz watched him at it, either out of the corner of his eye or in the rear-view mirror. After five or so minutes, he didn’t bother attempting to play subtle with his silent inquisition.
Nathan prided himself, just a little, on not cracking until they’d reached their first victim, er, patient of the day.
“I am a good nurse,” Fitz said, one hand on his seatbelt but making no further move to free himself from its confines. “If that’s what you’re thinking so loud about, you can knock it off.”
Nathan exhaled. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”
He winced. Too late.
“You’re concerned about something,” Fitz said. He undid his seatbelt, but only to turn sideways and study Nathan’s profile directly. With a grin. “You’re worried for me?”
“Not exactly,” Nathan said, face hot. “Worried about you. There’s a difference.”
“Fine line there, Nathan. I can take care of myself.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Nathan stopped him. “Look. The woman we’re about to see, June Lockhart, she was raised in the old school where you serve tea and cookies to your guests.”
Fitz gestured, So?
“That means she’s old enough to rightly feel she can speak her mind. Whatever her mind might be.”
“You think she’s going to have problems with me?”
“Yes. No. Probably? I’m not sure. She’s old, cantankerous, and I like her. Get on her good side, and you’re golden around here. Piss her off, and look forward to a lifetime of woe.”
“What was I just telling you? Stop worrying. If she doesn’t like me, it’s not going to break my heart.” Fitz stretched his fingers wide, tips straining towards Nathan, but with as good as half a mile of seat between them. The gesture drew Nathan’s eyes to follow, and his skin to remember… “But she matters to you, so she matters to me. I’ll be nice. I know what I’m doing now. You’ll see.”
Nathan ached to reach out and take. Touch. But it couldn’t be that easy. Shouldn’t be. Right? “What’s your point?” he asked when the silence became too much to bear.
“You know what my point is,” Fitz said. Mercifully, he left it at that. “Besides. I like people I have to work a little for, myself.” But, as he was Fitz and getting the last word in once wasn’t enough, he popped the door and slid out of the truck, remarking, “Guess we have that in common.”
Nathan blinked, stunned. He hadn’t ever thought of it that way, but it was—it had been—true.
“Nothing good ever came easy,” Fitz said over his shoulder. “But there’s nothing wrong with intuitive leaps, you know. When they’re right, and when you can, why not?”
Right. Not just talking about June. Nathan wasn’t that thick.
But that was Fitz all over, again, leaping miles ahead. Before Nathan could properly process that, the door snapped open as briskly as linen in the wind, revealing a tiny woman leaning on her cane. Fitz stood at near-military attention and removed his sunglasses with an air that suggested either bowing or doffing his cap to royalty. Possibly both. “Ms Lockhart?”
“Well.” June pressed her hand to her heart. She readjusted her glasses. God only knew what kind of smile Fitz was giving her but, even while hurrying to meet them both, Nathan could make an educated guess. June nodded sharply, drawing herself as upright as her old bones would allow. “Good. It’s about time. See that he eats properly, if you please.”
Nathan’s jaw dropped.
June made an impatient noise. “I’m old, child, not blind. Besides, I never could abide that cow Ilse. Why didn’t you get a handsome fellow for all of us to enjoy before now?”
Fitz’s shoulders shook with laughter. At least he kept it silent, Nathan told himself. But interestingly enough, that didn’t stop his mirth’s contagion, and he couldn’t quite help himself. Against all reason and sense, Nathan found himself smiling as he followed in their wake.
* * * *
Two stops out and as high up the mountain as they’d go, Gibson yanked open the door to his home for them of his own accord before Nathan and Fitz had made it halfway up the muddy hill he called a yard. He glowered across the distance at them. Gibson didn’t have much left but posturing and trying to make fists of his shaking hands, and it didn’t hurt Nathan’s pride to dole out that kind of medicine.
“Parkinson’s?” Fitz asked under his breath.
Nathan gave him the barest of nods. “Plus total hip replacement about a year ago.”
“And he’s still living on his own?”
“Against doctor’s advice.”
Fitz pressed his lips together. He watched Gibson’s every move, assessing the old man’s condition. Not as if Fitz pitied him. More as if sizing up a still formidable opponent and formulating a battle plan. Smart move. Bad hip or not, at the first hint of unwanted sympathy Gibson would kick the giver’s ass so hard he bounced back down the mountain courtesy of momentum and gravity. “He should have a nurse, or at least a nurse’s aide, living in,” Fitz said.
A flash of—something—made Nathan’s shoulders tight. He can’t have you.
But not, he thought, unnoticed by Fitz. Though if he had gleaned the meaning of Nathan’s pause, he kept his reaction to a glint of a grin and kept his eyes on Gibson.
Was that better or worse?
“He needs help,” Nathan said, knowing each word led him into confessing more than he’d like, even if they were things Fitz already knew. “I don’t disagree. You try telling him that.”
Fitz’s grin shone bright and wide. “I like a challenge.”
“So I recall,” Nathan muttered under his breath.
Fitz’s chuckle warmed Nathan down to his bones despite the chilliness of both season and altitude. He raised a hand to signal friendly intent to Gibson. “Yeah, I know the type. Stubborn old cuss, huh? Sir?” he asked. Ah. So he’d spotted there was nothing wrong with Gibson’s ears? “Want me to introduce myself, or get this health care business out of the way so you can get on with telling me to get a haircut and show some respect to my elders?”
Gibson’s cracked laughter sounded not unlike that of an elderly parrot clucking. “Up yours, boy.”
“No thanks, sir. I like fresher meat.”
Nathan choked on air. “Fitz!”
Gibson didn’t miss that either. “Eh, so you two know each other, hmm?”
Fitz met his hawk-eyed stare, not backing down an inch. A little of the old bad boy shining through. “Yes, sir, we do.”
“Long as you don’t develop a taste for old turkey, good for you.” Gibson hawked and spat. To the side. He held one wrist with the other hand, another long-term habit that did nothing to wrench his hands proudly still, and shuffled aside to leave the front door open for the pair of them. “Well? You two coming in, or not?”
Fitz winked over his
shoulder. See? Nothing to it.
For Pete’s sake. Nathan cast his gaze to the heavens.
But for all that, he had to linger a few steps behind Fitz to wipe the grin off his face before he went any farther. This was starting to become a habit.
But Fitz had a way of doing that, didn’t he? Becoming an addiction. Then and now.
Chapter Four
An afternoon cloudburst started on their way down the mountain. “Hell.” Nathan slowed to a crawling pace near one of the lookouts that dotted the parkway winding around these hills. He angled his head to look up and gauge the skies. Just small drops so far, teasing them with a patter on the roof of the vehicle. “We might see a delay.”
“Looks like.” Fitz craned to look out of his window. “How’re these roads when it really opens up?”
“Not great. Don’t jinx us. Might just be passing through.”
The skies opened up, pouring down buckets of rain. Nathan swore and stopped completely. “Or not.”
“I’ve seen worse. Haiti, remember?”
Nathan did. “You were really in Haiti?”
“For a while, yeah.”
Nathan had considered going. He still regretted, sometimes, choosing to stay…but his patients had needed him here, too.
“I was thinking about you while I was there,” Fitz remarked. He glanced sideways at Nathan. “You were there by proxy.”
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
Know what I was thinking.
“I don’t, always,” Fitz said. He started to reach for Nathan, stopped, then carried through and brushed the back of his hand against Nathan’s cheek. “Your face is an open book. It was then, it still is now.”
“A lot has changed since we last saw each other, Fitz.”
“Not that much,” Fitz said quietly.
Nathan rubbed at his forehead. “Not everything, but some things.”
“Ah.” Fitz fell silent. Only for a moment, though he didn’t look at Nathan when he spoke up next. “It’s after noon. I can hear your stomach rumbling. If we can’t go much farther until it quits raining, how about we break for lunch?”
