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Biting his bottom lip, Ricky looked briefly away before saying, “Anyway, I’m going to go inside before I say something else dorky.”

  Even though he knew he should just let Ricky walk away, Tanner found himself reaching out to grab the man’s hand to stay him. “You’re not dorky.”

  The blush on Ricky’s face grew a few shades darker. “Yeah, I am. That’s okay. You don’t need to lie to save my feelings.”

  “So, how have things been with you?” Tanner asked.

  Inside his head a voice shrilled, Why in the hell are you engaging him in conversation? That will only lead to a load of questions you have no desire to deal with.

  Ricky shrugged. “Just work and nothing much else. Ben tells me I really need to get a social life.”

  The name, Ben, sounded familiar and Tanner scrambled to think of where he’d heard it before. He finally remembered that Ben was Ricky’s friend.

  A jolt of unwanted jealousy nagged Tanner as he wondered just how close Ben and Ricky were. While Ricky had confessed to being single at one time, that was months ago. Things could have changed.

  “So, does Ben tell you what to do all the time?”

  One corner of Ricky’s lips kicked up into a half smile. “Well, since we’re roommates, he does tend to get bossy with me sometimes.”

  Disappointment and the bitter sting of regret hit Tanner, making his gut ache. “Oh, so you’re really tight then?”

  “Yeah, we have been for a while now.”

  It dawned on Tanner that he was still holding onto Ricky’s hand. In fact, Tanner felt pretty certain that he’d been fanning the pad of his thumb over the guy’s palm. Great, nothing like a little public humiliation and low-grade groping to start off his new job. He cleared his throat and jerked his hand away.

  “I should probably get inside. I don’t want to be late on my first day,” Tanner said, wishing to hell the conversation had never taken place.

  Next time his inner monologue yelled at him to Run! Run! Run! he’d sure as hell better listen to it.

  Ricky chuckled. “Yeah, Ben is going to be the one to train you, and you don’t want to get off to a bad start by making him wait.”

  Great! The fucking day just kept getting better and better. The only thing missing was a storm cloud that hovered only over Tanner’s head and followed him around everywhere.

  “Can’t keep Ben waiting,” Tanner replied.

  Even to his own ears, his voice sounded tight and overly cheerful. With that last bit of humiliation, he decided to leave while he still had at least a shred of dignity left. Nodding goodbye, he rushed through the ER’s double glass automatic doors.

  The thing with him and bad days, though, once they got going they just kept rolling. So, when it was Trauma Bay One that caught his immediate attention, he really wasn’t too surprised.

  He paused in front of the room that held too many bad memories, his heart pounding so hard it was a wonder the entire ER department didn’t hear it. He even started to breath a bit fast, not quite hyperventilating, but not too far away from it either.

  Even though the white, tiled floor was presently so clean that it reflected the lights, he still saw the puddles of blood that once marred the surface. Shit, he could smell it, even though he knew that was impossible, since the blood in question had been spilled months ago.

  God, why in the hell did he ever think that he’d be able to work here? Oh yeah… because he was dead broke and needed the income. While the hospital may hold a whole nightmare worth of bad feelings, at least he’d have a staff backing him up in case he fucked up again. Before, when he worked on the copter, it’d just been him and his partner, Chauncey. And on that day, Tanner hadn’t even had Chauncey, since the nurse had the day off. Instead, Tanner had been stuck with some rookie who hadn’t even known the difference between a nasal cannula or non-rebreather mask.

  “There you are! I was beginning to think you were going to be a no show,” Ben exclaimed as he came walking down the corridor.

  Tanner eyed up the slightly smaller man and tried to imagine how Ben and Ricky looked together. In the end, Tanner couldn’t help but think that Ricky would by far be the cuter of that pairing. While some might say that Ricky came off as a bit mousey, to Tanner, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Sure, Ricky might sometimes have messy hair, and he did wear glasses, plus he sometimes stumbled around when having a conversation. To Tanner though, all those traits made Ricky so endearing and well…adorable.

  Speaking of which, Tanner just bet that Ricky and Ben made a cute, frigging couple. However, Tanner wasn’t jealous, honest he wasn’t.

  Liar! You’re almost sick from the thought of somebody else touching Ricky. In fact, if you were the caveman type, you’d probably run to radiology, throw Ricky over your shoulder and then grunt, mine!

  Telling that damn voice to shut up, Tanner held up his slightly rumpled paperwork. “Sorry, I dropped this outside and had to clean it up.”

  Ben smiled. “It’s okay, I was just giving you a hard time. Why don’t you follow me and I’ll show you around? I know you’ve been here a million times, but you’ve never been in backrooms and stuff.”

  Tanner ran a nervous hand down the side of dark, blue scrub pants, then nodded. “Sure, that sounds good. Is there somewhere special I should turn in the paperwork?”

  “We can swing by the nurse supervisor’s office and hand them off to her. She should have your name badge, too.”

  Ben then led him around, giving a pretty detailed tour of the ER. Along the way, Ben also deemed it necessary to share some of the latest gossip about the staff. So, by the time they were finished, Tanner knew that Becky from the lab was going through a drama-filled divorce, Doc. Shelton’s wife had just left him for a bass player and the red-headed medic from Alpha 638 was a bitch who couldn’t follow protocol, even if you put a leash on her and led the way.

  Once they were finished, Ben led him to one of the side nurses’ stations. Leaning a hip against the counter, Ben asked, “So, do you have any questions?”

  “Not right now. I’m sure I’ll have a million once we get started.”

  “It’s all pretty routine. Well, I guess as routine as an ER can get. That’s one thing I love about this department, you never know when you’re going to get some excitement.”

  “How long have you worked here?”

  “Only a couple of years.” Ben studied him carefully before asking, “So, why did you decide to come here? I thought you liked working out in the field.”

  Tanner’s gut clenched. Damn, it hadn’t taken long for that question to come up. Feigning indifference, he shrugged, “I just wanted a change is all.”

  The look Ben gave him said the nurse didn’t buy that excuse, but thankfully he didn’t press the matter. “Well, I can tell you that Ricky was pretty excited when he heard you were employed here.”

  “You should know, you are his roommate after all.”

  Wow, Tanner hadn’t meant for that to come out sounding bitter, but damned if it hadn’t. Ben’s mouth parted in shock and he blinked a few times before he let out a soft chuckle. “This is just too precious.”

  “What is?” Tanner snapped, even though he knew he should just end the conversation before it got even more out of hand.

  “You’re jealous.”

  “Am not.”

  “Yes, and it’s because you still have a hard-on for him.”

  Tanner shot off a scathing glare. “Do we really need to have this kind of discussion? We’re grown men, not a couple of teen girls chatting on Skype.”

  Ben ignored the jab. Letting out a full-blown laugh, he said, “I can’t believe it. And here I didn’t think the whole classic big misunderstanding happened in real life. I thought it only occurred in romance novels and old Three’s Company reruns.”

  “I’m so glad I can amuse you,” Tanner replied tightly, still having no clue what was so funny.

  After a few more moments of that annoying laughter, Ben waved a hand. “I’m sorry.
I shouldn’t make fun of you. At least not on your first day. I just couldn’t help myself when I realized that you thought Ricky and I are a couple.”

  “You’re not?”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “No, we’ve been best friends since forever, but we’ve never been with each other like that.”

  “Really?” Tanner asked, feeling like ten different shades of idiot.

  “Yes, really.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, if you want to…talk to him, I would have no problem with that.”

  God, how Tanner wanted to do that. So much so, he could almost taste it. During the brief interaction he’d already had with Ricky on the way in, Tanner had felt more alive than he had in months. Then, Tanner’s gaze flicked over to that damn trauma room and the familiar pains of regret slammed into him.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he mumbled.

  Ben shook his head. “I don’t get you. It used to be that whenever you came to this hospital the first thing you did was seek Ricky out. Now you’ve turned almost anti-social.”

  Then Ben’s gaze slid over to the trauma room and understanding dawned in his eye. “Oh, shit. You’re still upset about that girl dying.”

  “Just leave it,” Tanner growled.

  Of course, Ben didn’t. “That’s why you’ve been MIA, too, isn’t it? You blame yourself.”

  Frustrated, hurt, and now angry, Tanner finally lost control. “Why shouldn’t I blame myself? She died under my watch.”

  “But, that could have happened to any of us. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Oh yeah! How do you know that for sure? All I can think about is how I didn’t catch that she had that internal bleed. If I had…” he trailed off, unwilling to go down the all-too-familiar path of what-ifs. There would be plenty of time to do that after his next nightmare.

  “She was just nineteen,” Tanner said, his chest tight with emotion.

  “True, but if I recall right, she was also a victim of a multi-car pileup, and she hadn’t been wearing her seatbelt. She had so many injuries that there was probably nothing you could have done to save her.”

  “Probably,” Tanner echoed pointedly. “See, even you can’t tell me for certain that I didn’t fuck it up. I know for a fact that most other nurses wouldn’t have. Chauncey would have immediately caught it.”

  “Bullshit. We all miss things. We’re only human, after all. We just have to hope that it doesn’t happen again and that it makes us better nurses in the end.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have a dead teenager on your conscience,” Tanner retorted, that bitter tone creeping back into his voice.

  “You can’t keep thinking that way. It’ll end up destroying both your career and life,” Ben said, sadly.

  Tanner knew Ben had a point. Hell, he’d said the very same thing to himself countless times. The only problem was that Tanner didn’t know if he had what it took to forgive himself. If anything, being back at the hospital only made him doubt himself more than ever.

  Chapter Three

  After working under Ben’s supervision for three nights, Tanner couldn’t decide if he liked the guy or wanted to have the idiot admitted to the seventh floor for a psych evaluation.

  Ben was a great nurse. Not only was he knowledgeable and efficient, but the patients all loved him. Nevertheless, it was the other part of Ben’s personality that troubled Tanner. Flat out, the guy had a dozen screws loose and was two dozen cards short of a full deck.

  If the guy wasn’t playing pranks such as the time he put apple butter into the breakroom coffee pot, then he was jawing off some outlandish story. At least Tanner thought they were outlandish. He really didn’t think that Ben could have done half the crap he claimed he did during his off work hours.

  Tanner was just finishing the charting for the end of their shift when Ben came up. He was holding a big mug of coffee and looked a little less rambunctious than usual. In his other hand, he held a glucometer.

  “I need you to do a favor for me,” Ben said.

  “I don’t know about that. The last time I agreed to do a favor for you, I found myself stuck giving Mr. Elders an enema. Since he’s a runner and a kicker, that was something I never want to experience again.”

  “Oh, come on! It wasn’t that bad.”

  “Did I mention that he’s a biter, too? I still have the bruise on my arm in the shape of his dentures.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “You’re such a lightweight. I have full-out scars from that man’s choppers. You can relax though, because that’s not what I was going to ask you to do.”

  Tanner still didn’t trust the little shit, but since Ben was technically his trainer, Tanner didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter. “Fine, what do you need?”

  Ben handed him the glucometer. “Can you go to radiology and check Ricky’s blood sugar? I would go do it myself, but I have to give a report to the next shift.”

  Taking it, Tanner glanced down dumbly at the device as if he’d never seen it before, which was stupid since he used the damn thing several times each shift. It was just that he’d always used it on patients, but never had he imagined having to use it for Ricky.

  “I didn’t know he was diabetic,” Tanner finally said, his chest aching a bit.

  “Yeah, he has been for a while now.”

  “Are you worried about him or something? I mean, if he’s been diabetic for that long, he should know how to test his own sugar levels.”

  Ben took a deep drink of coffee before sighing. “Ricky is great at taking care of others, but he’s shitty at making sure his own needs are attended to.”

  Tanner didn’t need to hear any more. He left the nurse’s station and rushed to radiology. He found Ricky alone in the large room that served the ER department. Tanner paused for a moment, his breath catching in his throat as he drank in the image of the other man.

  Ricky wore his usual maroon scrubs since that was the color scheme St. Anthony’s assigned his department. But Ricky added a dark blue hoodie, giving the look as his own twist. He sat at a small table, hunched over some files. The low light almost made his skin seem to glow, and as always, his hair was just slightly messed up.

  Tanner must have made a noise because Ricky sat up with a start, one hand going to his chest.

  “Shit, you scared me,” Ricky exclaimed.

  “Sorry.” Tanner held up the glucometer. “Ben sent me.”

  Ricky eyed the device as if it was a poisonous spider. “You can tell Ben not to worry. I’m fine.”

  Tanner tilted his head to the side. “Why don’t you just let me test you? It’ll placate Ben and I did come all the way here after all.”

  “I don’t need it.”

  Not wanting to get into an argument, Tanner shamelessly pulled out the guilt card. “Give a guy a break, will ya? Ben is my trainer and I would hate for him to get pissed at me.”

  Ricky’s droll stare said that he didn’t buy the reasoning at all. “Nice try, but we both know that Ben doesn’t have it in him to report you for something like that. While he may be a jackass when it comes to pranks and stuff, he’s still a big softie inside.”

  “Okay, then how about you do it because he’s your friend and he’s worried about you?”

  “Ben is always worried about me,” Ricky groused.

  He did toss down his pen and swivel his chair around though. Holding out a hand, palm up, he said, “Fine, let’s just get this over with.”

  Not wasting the chance once he got it, Tanner rushed over and took a chair next to the desk. Opening up the case, he took out the supplies and got the machine ready. Once that was set, he snapped on a pair of gloves and grabbed Ricky’s hand.

  Even through the thin layer of latex, the heat from Ricky’s body instantly made Tanner aroused. It didn’t help the situation that he was now close enough to smell the man either. Before he even realized it, Tanner leaned in closer, breathing in deep. Over the layers of hospital smells, Tanner detected the sharp
bite of citrus. He wondered if it was the cologne Ricky used, or maybe his brand of shampoo.

  “Is everything okay?” Ricky asked.

  It was only then that Tanner realized he was hovering too close, like some kind of pervert or something. Clearing his throat, he hastily pulled back and tore open the alcohol wipe packet.

  “Do you have any preference where you want me to stick it?” Tanner held up the lancet.

  Ricky cocked a brow, one corner of his mouth lifting into a smile and Tanner realized just how loaded that comment was.

  “I don’t know if I should tell you that,” Ricky sing-songed. “The last guy I gave that information to had to buy me dinner and a movie. Sure, it was just the dollar menu at McDonalds and he used a Groupon at the show, but hey, it counts. Although, I knew really should have held out for more once I realized he was taking me to see a Claude Van Damme flick. I didn’t even know that he made movies that didn’t go straight to video anymore.”

  Tanner had to bite back a laugh. Damn, how he’d missed Ricky’s little babble fests. If he had to use one word for the man, it would be adorkable. Not that he thought Ricky was a true dork or anything, it was just his little tendencies to stammer or yammer on about mundane things was so endearing.

  Ricky just kept on yapping so Tanner decided to get the show on the road. He rubbed the wipe over Ricky’s middle finger and quickly poked it with the lancet.

  That stopped Ricky in midsentence. He jumped in surprise, but didn’t let out a cry of pain. Probably because he’d become long ago accustomed to being pricked. And no way in hell Tanner was going to say that last word out loud. The last thing he needed was to hear Ricky’s gutter talk over the term prick.

  Tanner quickly collected the blood on the test strip and handed Ricky a gauze pad while they waited for the reading. Tanner already knew it wouldn’t be good when Ricky began to twist his fingers.

  “I was just going to get some breakfast so it may mess up the reading,” Ricky said, his voice pitched with worry.

  When a bright, red fifty-five flashed across the screen, Tanner bit back a curse. Ricky leaned over and once he saw it, more excuses began to fly, “It’s no big deal. Amy called in sick today so I had to work extra hard and couldn’t get away to eat like I should. Plus, I forgot to take my insulin a few times over the past couple of days so that’s making everything wonky.”