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  He then looked up and spoke aloud the time so the death could be properly documented. Tanner stopped doing compressions and pulled off his gloves, a loud curse ripping from his lips. Ricky jumped both in shock over the word and because he couldn’t believe Tanner was getting so upset. Sure, they all hated to lose a patient, but all hospital staff learn to compartmentalize those feelings so they didn’t break.

  Then it dawned on Ricky why this was hitting Tanner so hard, and his chest clenched in pain for his lover.

  The girl. All this was no doubt making Tanner remember that horrible day. Ricky exchanged worried looks with Ben.

  “Fuck this,” Tanner yelled before he stormed out of the room and went through the bay-doors leading outside.

  Ricky didn’t hesitate, Tanner needed him, so he’d be there for his man. Leaving everybody behind, Ricky raced outside. The cool, night air sliced through his scrub top, making him shiver, but Ricky hardly noticed it.

  All his attention was focused on Tanner and the heartbreaking image he made. He was leaning his forehead against the concrete wall and looked to be close to tears.

  “Tanner, are you okay?” Ricky asked.

  He gave an internal wince. Duh! Of course Tanner wasn’t okay. One look at the guy screamed that fact. Approaching closer, Ricky reached out to touch Tanner only to have Tanner pull away from him.

  “Get the hell out of here,” Tanner snapped.

  Ricky froze, hurt going through him. He shook it off, telling himself that it was only the grief talking. “No, I won’t leave you. You need me.”

  Tanner turned on him. “Surprise, Ricky, not everybody in life is lost without your precious guidance. There’s some things that not even you can fix.”

  Ricky took a step back, his gut twisting with emotion. “I didn’t say that you needed to be fixed, I just wanted to be there to support you.”

  “How? You have no idea what I’m going through. You don’t know what it’s like to lose a patient. You’re a radiology tech, so the only thing you ever are in danger of losing is a damn X-Ray.”

  “You don’t mean that?”

  “It must be so easy to have a job where you can just tuck yourself in a room and never take the risk of having somebody under your care die.”

  “Hey, I was in that room, too. That kid was every bit as much as my patient.”

  “Not really, since we didn’t need you to work the X-ray machine. After all, that’s the only reason you were there. It certainly wasn’t to invest yourself into his care.”

  Oh, no he didn’t! Ricky took a deep breath as a heavy dose of anger hit him. “Are you trying to say that I’m nothing more than a glorified portrait photographer?”

  “Yes! No! Damn it, I don’t know. I just need you to leave me alone.”

  Holding his hands up, Ricky backpedaled to the bay doors. “No, problem. You can stay here with your misery for the rest of your life for all I care. I’m done being your verbal punching bag.”

  Ricky then turned and walked through the doors. The entire time, he hoped that Tanner would call his name, maybe even give chase and apologize, but it never happened.

  Tanner finished marking patient charts before he tossed the pen to the side and let out a tired sigh. Actually, he was more than tired, he felt sad, depressed, miserable, dejected and every other synonym for gloomy.

  All because he’d fucked up, big time. Worse yet, he hadn’t been able to make things better between him and Ricky. Tanner had tried numerous times in the past three days to talk to the man, but Ricky refused to talk. When Tanner called, his lame ass was tossed into voice mail. Knocks to the front door went unanswered. Shit, Tanner couldn’t even see the guy at work because Ricky called in every shift since their argument.

  He buried his face in his hands as he wondered what he was going to do. While he and Ricky had only been officially together for a couple days, Tanner realized he’d fallen for the man a long time ago. Now that they finally came so close to having a real relationship, Tanner didn’t want to lose it.

  A tiny fist came from his right and slammed into his arm. “You stupid jerk! I told you not to break his heart!”

  Jerking in pain and shock, Tanner turned to find a very furious looking Carla.

  “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “And shouldn’t you be on your knees, groveling to my brother for forgiveness,” she countered before giving him another punch.

  “Ouch! Easy there, tiger.”

  Ben came rushing over. “What’s going on here?”

  Carla shot Tanner a filthy glare. “I’m just giving this DB here a piece of my mind.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Tanner demanded, letting the DB comment slide for the moment. “I’ve tried apologizing, but he refuses to talk to me.”

  “That’s because you’re a—”

  “Okay, we get it,” Ben cut in. “Tanner’s a great big meanie butt. “

  “Yes, he is,” Carla snarled.

  “But Ricky’s being a stubborn brat, too,” Ben added.

  She let out a gasp of shock. “How can you take Tanner’s side?”

  “Because I know Ricky better than anybody and I know how bullheaded he can be. I also understand how upset Tanner has been these past few days. It’s so bad that I’ve been tempted to pin a blue donkey tail to his butt because he’s been just as chipper of Eeyore.”

  “Really?” All the anger faded from her face.

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s been really, really miserable? Because that’s what he deserves.”

  “I know I do and I would do anything to make it up to him,” Tanner cut in.

  Carlo narrowed her eyes. “Give me one good reason why I should believe you?”

  “Because I haven’t hurt this bad over losing somebody. Not even when my own family cut me off. It’s so bad that I spent all last night eating ice cream and watching Dr. Who reruns.”

  Tears pooled in Carla’s eyes. “Oh, wow. That’s both sweet and amazingly dorky.”

  Turning to Ben, she asked, “So, what are we going to do to get them back together?” .

  Tanner wondered when it’d suddenly became a we problem. He kept his mouth shut though, because he didn’t want to get punched again.

  Ben smiled. “I actually have an idea.”

  She leaned her arms on the nurse’s station. “What is it?”

  “Forrest and Patrick are throwing a huge early Halloween bash. They’ve invited all the people in the gay EMS circle, too, so Tanner or Ricky can drop easily drop by.”

  “Do I get any say in this?” Tanner asked.

  They both ignored him.

  “How can you be certain Ricky will go? We both know he’s not the party type?” Carla demanded.

  “You let me worry about that,” Ben assured her. “We just need to figure out the perfect costume for Tanner. It should be something that will touch Ricky so much that he’ll have no choice but to forgive Tanner.”

  “Oh!” She danced up and down on the balls of her feet. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Yes, it’s time that Ricky got a visit from The Doctor.”

  Going by the wicked look the pair shared, that comment didn’t bode well for Tanner at all.

  Chapter Eight

  Ricky stared morosely down at his drink as he wondered why in the hell he’d allowed Ben to talk him into coming to this damn party.

  Not that the food and drinks weren’t good. They were top quality. Hell, they even had a live band playing. If Ricky were pressed, he’d have to admit it was one of the best set-ups he’d ever been to.

  It’s just that it seemed like every damn person there was part of a happy couple. They even frigging wore matching costumes. Matt and Lucas were dressed up as a certain caped hero and his younger sidekick. Forrest and Patrick wore Salt and Pepper costumes. Dylan and Kaleb were Bert and Ernie. Jessie and Randal came as Starsky and Hutch. Kiefer and Ray dressed as The Lone Ranger and Tonto, completing their look with stick horses. Cal
vin was dressed as David Beckham while James came as a giant soccer ball. For some odd reason Dustin and Vaughn had chosen to be Ringo and Paul, completely leaving out poor John and George. Since Clayton was a huge fan of the show Survivor, he and his partner, Justin, came as tribe members, with matching buffs. Chauncey and Brody rounded out the group with their Frodo and Samwise getups.

  And what did Ricky have on? A stupid, borrowed Army costume that reeked of stale cigarettes and Axe Body Spray. Even Ben looked better and he was dressed up as the Red Angry Bird.

  To make things even suckier, all the couples were snuggling and kissing. Each performance of PDA sending Ricky deeper into depression because it only made him think of Tanner.

  Ricky knew he should just let Tanner talk to him. Maybe he wanted to explain or apologize. It was just hard though, because some of the things Tanner had insinuated about being a radiology tech were the exact thing Ricky’s dad had jeered at him about. That left Ricky feeling hurt and a little betrayed because he thought Tanner had more respect for him and his job.

  It wasn’t easy to stay angry though because Ricky missed Tanner—so much so that it caused an ache in his chest. While they may have only been lovers for a while, Ricky found that he didn’t want to make it through the day without hearing Tanner’s voice, or to feel the man’s strong arms around him.

  Ricky knew then that first thing in the morning, he’d call Tanner and try to find a way to fix this damn mess. Because hurt feelings or not, Ricky simply wasn’t ready to give up on the other man.

  Tossing his cup into the trash, Ricky went over to Ben. Tapping him on the shoulder, Ricky said, “I don’t feel so well, so I’m going home.”

  “You can’t go home. Not without seeing The Doctor,” Ben replied putting really heavy emphasis on the last word.

  “All I have is a headache. It’s not serious enough to bug Patrick over.”

  “No, I meant that Doctor.”

  Ben pointed to the front of the room and Ricky looked, his breath catching in his chest when he saw Tanner standing there, dressed as Doctor Who. Or more specifically, the Eleventh Doctor Who.

  “Oh, my God,” Ricky breathed, his heart melting just a little bit.

  Tanner glanced down at the getup. “Do you like it?”

  “Of course I do. You have the tweed jacket, the suspenders and you even wore the little bow tie. It’s perfect.”

  “You look nice, too,” Tanner said, nodding to Ricky’s Army costume.

  “What can I say? They asked, I told and they still took me. Gotta love that repeal,” Ricky teased in an effort to hide his nerves.

  Tanner cocked a brow. “So, do all uniform pants in the military have Velcro running up the sides?”

  “Damn it, you saw through my ruse. Okay, it’s actually a costume I borrowed from a friend of Matt. Since he’s a wannabe stripper, it needs to be easy on, easy off.”

  “That was nice of that guy to lend you his work outfit.”

  “Yeah, I guess. Too bad the man was a bit sleazy. I’m kind of afraid to go under a black light. I’m pretty certain this thing is just full of body fluid stains.”

  Tanner nodded. “You’d probably glow brighter than a Christmas tree.”

  “Which would not be nearly as fun as it sounds.” Ricky gave Tanner another once over. “You really do look amazing.”

  Ricky still couldn’t believe that Tanner had shown up and dressed as Ricky’s favorite TV character. It made all the anger and hurt that had been lingering over the past few days evaporate.

  “Thanks, Ben. Carla and Matt helped me.”

  “Wait! Matt got you something as awesome as that, but he stuck me with this?” Turning back to the crowd, Ricky yelled, “Matt, you suck!”

  “Thank you,” was Matt’s far away sounding response.

  “I still think that Captain Jack Harkness would have been better,” Lucas shouted.

  “Ah, babe even I know that he’s from the wrong show.”

  “Don’t be a jerk, Torchwood was a spinoff from Doctor Who, so they’re close. They both had characters that crossed over.”

  Tanner laughed. “Don’t mind them, they’ve been having this argument all day long.”

  “It was worth listening to them for that kickass costume.” Ricky smiled.

  “I’m glad you like it, because I wore it for you,” Tanner told Ricky.

  “You did? I mean, I kind of suspected that was the reason.” A warm feeling pooled in Ricky’s belly.

  “I figured that if I was dressed like this you would finally talk to me.”

  “Well, the puppy dog eyes you’re shooting me are helping your case, too.”

  Tanner took a few hesitant steps forward. “I was a complete asshole the other night. I didn’t mean any of these things I said about you.”

  “It really hurt me,” Ricky confessed around the lump in his throat.

  “I know and now I’m terrified.”

  “Of what?”

  “That I’m going to lose you. As soon as you walked away from me that night, I realized something.”

  “Really, what?” Ricky asked, feeling a bit like a parrot.

  “That if I keep letting the past drag me down, I’m going to lose the most important thing to me now.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You. Look, I know we’re just starting this relationship, but I know I’m well on my way to falling in love with you. Ricky, you are so special that I don’t even want to contemplate a life without you in it. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to keep you. I even signed up for counseling to help me get over some of my issues.”

  By now, the entire room had grown quiet as they all watched Ricky and Tanner.

  “Of course I forgive you,” Ricky said, his voice breaking.

  Covering the distance between them, he launched himself into Tanner’s arms.

  “I’m sorry, too. I should have given you a chance to explain instead of hiding away the way I did.”

  “I guess we both have a lot to learn as far as relationships go,” Tanner said as he gave Ricky a tight squeeze.

  “Maybe I’ll go to therapy, too. In case you haven’t noticed, my family is a bit crazy.”

  Tanner laughed. “Now that you mention it, they do seem a bit odd. But I like them that way because they are a part of you.”

  Oh, damn just when Ricky thought the moment couldn’t get any better.

  “Just so you know, you mean the world to me, too,” Ricky said as he buried his nose in the nook of Tanner’s neck.

  “Good, because this time neither one of us is ever running away again. Through good times and bad, we stick by each other’s side.”

  “Forever,” Ricky added as he closed his eyes.

  He meant it, too. Now that he had the man of his dreams, Ricky was never going to let him go again. Just as he knew that Tanner would always be there to watch over and care for him in return.

  The room burst out in applause. Laughing, Ricky leaned down and said in a low voice, “Now, how about we talk about you wearing this costume to bed?”

  “Anything for my man.”

  My man. As far as Ricky was concerned, there were no two sweeter words in the world.

  About the Author

  Stephani Hecht is a happily married mother of two. Born and raised in Michigan, she loves all things about the state, from the frigid winters to the Detroit Red Wings hockey team. Go Wings! You can usually find her snuggled up to her laptop, creating her next book or gorging on caffeine at her favorite coffee shop.

 

 

 
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