Chapter 13
Wade
I dragged myself through the front door, exhausted from six hours of emergency surgery on a compound femur fracture.
A mountain biker with more ego than skill had taken a bad fall.
Three plates and a dozen screws later and my body ached like it had been put through a trash compactor.
But it was the satisfying ache of a job well done.
I could feel my love for medicine coming back to me every day I spent at Elkhead General.
The people you worked with really made all the difference.
Even if long surgeries still made my back hurt.
Even if right now, all I wanted was a hot shower, food that wasn’t from the hospital vending machine, and Bode’s hard body beneath mine.
Hopefully, he’d be into it, too.
The smell hit me first, rich and savory, making my stomach growl.
My brain, foggy with fatigue, took a moment to process the scene in front of me: Bode moving around the kitchen with purpose, pulling containers from the fridge, the microwave humming in the background.
Three place settings on the table, which was set with napkins, chopsticks, and the good glasses.
“What’s happening?” I dropped my bag by the door. “Is your mom coming over?”
"You look like shit," he said.
"I feel like it too." I rolled my shoulder, wincing at the pinch of overused muscles. "Mountain biker versus gravity. Gravity won."
“Bad break?”
“Compound femur fracture. Had to be airlifted in. But we did a good deed. He’ll be okay.” I moved closer to the kitchen, drawn by both the smell and the sight of Bode in motion. “What’s all this? Are we celebrating?”
He was wearing jeans instead of his usual sweatpants, and a dark blue sweater that made his eyes darker. His hair was still damp, like he’d showered recently. The overall effect was… distracting. My fingers itched to haul him close.
“Dinner.” He shrugged, smiling up at me.
”That’s thoughtful."
He glanced at me, away, a flush creeping up his neck. “Yeah, well.” He set the glass down with more force than necessary. “Don’t get too excited. Lucky asked me to do it. She says we all need to talk.” He took a step back and frowned at the microwave like it had personally offended him.
The microwave beeped, and he pulled out a container of what appeared to be some kind of stir-fry, steam rising from it in fragrant clouds. My stomach growled again, reminding me I hadn’t eaten anything since the stale bagel I’d grabbed on my way into the hospital this morning.
“Well, I appreciate it anyway.” I moved to help him transfer food to serving dishes. “I’m starving.”
Our hands brushed as I reached for a bowl, and Bode’s flush deepened. He glanced up at me, those dark eyes holding mine for a beat too long, and tension shifted in the air between us.
"If I’d known you’d be this excited about reheated leftovers, I would have done it anyway," Bode said, his voice low enough that I had to lean closer to hear him. "You look so happy."
“I am happy,” I said. “I had a shit day, and coming home to this is nice.”
Bode made a small, dismissive noise, but he didn’t step away when I moved closer.
We were standing too close now, close enough that I could see the different shades of brown in his eyes, the slight stubble along his jaw.
Without thinking, I reached up and cupped the back of his neck, my thumb brushing against his cheek in a gesture that was simultaneously too intimate and not intimate enough.
His breath hitched, eyes widening.
“What are you doing?” he asked, but he didn’t pull away.
“Making a choice,” I said. “Is it okay?”
He swallowed, the movement of his throat visible, vulnerable. “Yeah.”
My thumb traced a path along his jaw, the slight roughness of stubble, the warmth of his skin. His eyes fluttered shut for a moment, and the sight of Bode Hayashi allowing himself to be touched like this, to be vulnerable like this, made something fierce and protective surge through my chest.
"So," he said, eyes opening again, a hint of his usual sharpness returning to his expression. "Are we at the ‘kissing hello’ stage now? Because I think I missed the memo."
The question made me laugh. It was so classically Bode, prickly and direct and secretly hopeful all at once.
“Do you want to be?” I moved my hand to cup his face fully. “At the kissing stage?”
His eyes darted to my mouth, back up. "You’re asking like I have any fucking idea what I’m doing here."
“Me either,” I said, still smiling, still tracing the line of his jaw with my thumb. “I’m making this up as I go.”
He shivered, surrendering under my touch. “Fine, kiss me hello, then,” he said, the word coming out rough around the edges. “Like I can say no to anything when you’re doing that thing with your thumb.”
“What thing?” I asked, deliberately stroking my thumb across the same path.
“That thing.” He sounded annoyed and aroused in equal measure. “You know what you’re doing.”
I did, sort of. I’d noticed the way he responded when I touched his face, the way his breath would catch, the way he’d lean into it despite himself. And now I was testing the theory, watching in fascination as Bode melted under my touch like ice in summer.
“You’re adorable,” I said, because it was true and because I knew it would annoy him.
“Fuck you,” he said without heat, not pulling away.
“Is that a request?” I grinned down at him, enjoying the way his pupils dilated at the suggestion. “Because I’d love it if you want to.”
Instead of answering, he reached up and gripped the front of my shirt, frustration clear in the tight set of his jaw. “Are you going to kiss me or not?”
So I did.
I leaned down, closing the space between us, and pressed my mouth to his.
The first contact was electric: his lips surprisingly soft, his body tense for a moment before he seemed to make an internal decision and melted against me.
I slid my hand from his face to the back of his neck, holding him as I deepened the kiss, a surge of triumph when he made a small, needy sound in the back of his throat.
He tasted like coffee and honey, his mouth opening under mine with a hunger that matched the growing heat in my own body. He moved his hands from my shirt to my sides, fingers digging into my ribs like he needed the anchor, like he was afraid I might disappear if he didn’t hold on tight enough.
When we broke apart, both breathing harder, Bode’s eyes stayed closed for a moment, his expression almost pained in its vulnerability. He blinked, focused on me, and the corner of his mouth twitched upward.
"You’re not bad at that," he said, rougher than usual.
“High praise from the master of understatement.”
He laughed, a sound that I hadn’t heard nearly enough in the weeks we’d been living together. His hands were on my sides, and mine was at the back of his neck, neither of us ready to break the connection.
“Shit.” He pulled back. “Stop distracting me, I need to tell you why we’re having dinner.”
I nipped the side of his neck, intent on distracting him.
"Wade." He groaned, laughed. "Fuck, man. I have ADHD, you can't break my focus or I lose my train of thought."
I blinked, some of the puzzle that was Bode slipping into place. “Is that why I found the salt shaker in the freezer yesterday?”
Bode groaned, dropping his forehead against my chest. “Is that where it went?”
“There was also a pint of ice cream in the spice cabinet, so I could see where you were going with it. Chunky Monkey.”
“Nooo… not the Chunky Monkey.”
“Reframes things a bit when I realize the random things I keep finding laying around is you forgetting what you’re doing and wandering off.”
He was laughing, his body shaking against mine, and it struck me how different he seemed like this, relaxed, open, young in a way he never seemed otherwise. I wanted to keep making him laugh, keep finding ways to crack through that maintained shell of his.
A throat cleared behind us.
Bode’s eyes widened. “Yeah, so I was supposed to tell you something. She found out.”
I blinked down at him for a beat before turning towards Lucky who stood at the bottom of the stairs. My brain short-circuited at the sight of her.
She was wearing an outfit I’d never seen before: a black pleated skirt that was long enough to cover her ass, black stockings that left a strip of smooth brown skin bare, and boots nearly as tall as the stockings, with a heel that made her legs miles long.
A fitted black tank top completed the outfit, hugging curves I’d spent seven years pretending not to notice.
Her hair was down, falling around her shoulders in dark waves, and her eyes were lined with something that made them bigger, darker, more intense.
I realized I was staring when Bode elbowed me in the ribs, but when I glanced at him, I saw he wasn’t doing much better, his eyes were wide, his lips parted, a flush spreading across his cheekbones.
"Sit," Lucky said, her voice carrying a note of authority I’d never heard before. "Both of you."
We moved to obey before I’d even fully processed the command, both of us scrambling to take seats at the table like kids called to dinner. I found myself in the chair directly across from Bode, with Lucky at the head of the table, between us with an unreadable expression.
Lust had overtaken my hunger. For him. For her. I wasn’t even sure anymore.
She moved to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of her favorite sparkling water and a glass. She was deliberate in every movement, like she’d choreographed this entire scene in advance, and I was part of a performance whose script I hadn’t been given.
“Fuck, she’s sexy,” Bode whispered.
“She’s wearing shoes in the house. That’s against your rules.”
His eyes darted to Lucky, taking in her outfit. She was watching us, taking a sip of her drink. “Those boots get a pass.”
"What? You yelled at me the other day because I forgot my wallet and ran inside without removing my shoes."
"Stop whispering. She already realizes," he whispered back. “We’re in trouble, and she can definitely hear us.”
The pieces clicked into place. This wasn’t dinner. This was a reckoning.
“Do you think she realizes we jerked each other off to it, too?” I asked.
Lucky choked on her drink, her eyes going wide as she coughed and sputtered.