Chapter Five #2
Ricky didn’t have answers. He barely had the courage to show up.
But he came anyway.
Every night.
He hadn’t told anyone, not even Bateman. He couldn’t face Ezra during the day. Couldn’t stand those dark, searching eyes that asked questions Ricky wasn’t ready to answer. So, he came in the dark. Brought water. Checked vitals. Sat beside the bed and said nothing while Ezra slept.
As he neared the door, he softened his steps, a reflex now. The corridor light was dimmed to dusk-mode. Ezra’s room was darker still—curtains drawn, door just cracked.
He clicked the tiny tactical torch clipped to his backpack strap. One notch up. Just enough to see his hands.
The door opened without a sound.
Three steps in—
Click.
The bedside lamp flared on, soft and golden.
Ricky froze mid-step like he’d just been spotlighted by a sniper.
Ezra was awake. And staring right at him.
“Lights out was an hour ago,” Ricky said carefully, voice low, like it might soften the awkwardness.
Ezra tilted his head, eyes clear, alert. “Sedatives didn’t work.”
Ricky’s brow knit. “They should’ve knocked you out. Your body still needs time to heal, you—”
“Not just my body, Ricky.”
The words landed heavily.
Ezra shifted on the bed, slowly, wincing only a little as he straightened.
“I asked Blake not to give me the meds. I found out that you were ghosting me during the day, but coming at night and I needed to speak with you. I begged him to help me, so he brewed me a pot of coffee strong enough to reanimate the dead.”
Ricky stepped further into the room, setting the bottle he’d brought on the side table without looking at him. “That was stupid.”
Ezra shrugged. “Probably. But desperate times and all of that.”
Ricky was already shaking his head. “You need to heal.”
“I am.” Ezra’s gaze held him steady. “But that’s not the only thing I’m trying to heal.”
Ricky didn’t answer. Just stared down at the floor like it might give him an escape route.
“Will you sit down and talk with me?” Ezra moved forward, pressing his fingers under Ricky’s chin and gently forcing him to lift his gaze to meet his. “Please?”
Ricky swallowed, then nodded. He couldn’t keep going on like this. Sleeping late and taking all the crappy late shifts so that he could watch over this man as he slept, might be medicinal now, but once he was out of hospital, it would be considered creepy. And it was probably illegal.
He waited while Ezra climbed back onto the bed and had to force himself to stand still when he flinched. Yeah, the man might think he was healed, but he was far from a hundred percent.
Once Ezra was seated, Ricky slid into the armchair against the wall. It was comfortable, and he had already spent many an hour on it.
Silence stretched tight between them until Ezra broke it.
“What did I say?”
Ricky frowned, a little confused as to where this conversation was going. “When?”
“In the warehouse, after you found me.” Ezra’s voice was steady, but there was a tremor underneath. “I’ve been trying to remember. I was out of it, I know that—but I said something that hurt you. Didn’t I?”
Ricky’s mouth went dry.
He tried to dodge it. “Ezra, you had a punctured lung and more morphine in your system than an ER crash cart. You weren’t exactly making sense.”
Ezra sat forward, voice sharper now. “I don’t care if I was drugged out of my skull—I said something. You’ve been avoiding me ever since. So, what was it?”
Ricky stared at the floor for a long second. Then he leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees, captured Ezra’s concerned gaze and took the leap.
“You grabbed my hand,” he said quietly. “You squeezed it really hard, looked me in the eye and said that I was your biggest regret.” Fuck, even saying it now hurt like hell.
Ezra inhaled, sharp and pained, like Ricky had just hit him.
“I didn’t mean—” Ezra started.
“Doesn’t matter what you meant,” Ricky said, cutting him off, his voice tight. “It’s what you said. And if I’m honest, and I always try to be, I’d been carrying that one since the morning I woke up alone in your bed. I figured you left because you regretted what happened between us.”
Ezra looked wrecked.
Not from his injuries.
From this.
“I was trying to say I regretted leaving,” he said. “That walking away from you—that’s the part I hate myself for.”
Ricky swallowed. “That is not what you said.”
“I’m saying it now.”
Ricky didn’t speak. Not at first. Just looked at him—this man who had crawled into his life, into his chest, and detonated everything.
“Don’t ever say something like that again,” Ricky said finally. “Don’t leave me wondering if I was just a mistake.”
Ezra nodded, his distress clear to see. “You weren’t. You never were. You never will be.”
Ricky exhaled, some of the pressure in his chest loosening. Just enough to breathe again.
“All right,” he said quietly. “That’s a start, I guess.”
Ezra’s swallowed hard. “But I did leave you that morning. No warning. No explanation. It must have felt like I treated what we had like it didn’t matter—like you didn’t matter.”
Ricky’s jaw clenched, but he nodded.
Ezra leaned forward. “That night, it wasn’t a regret for me. It wasn’t just comfort or adrenaline. It meant something. You meant something.”
He exhaled, slow. “I thought I could keep my world separate—grief, danger, feeling. But you ... you got under all of that.” Ezra’s expression was raw and open.
“I’m not proud of what I did. But I’m here now, trying to put it right.
Because the thing that hurts the most—more than the knife to the side, more than the chains—is knowing that my actions hurt you.
And if I don’t fix that, then nothing I do next matters. ”
Ricky’s chest tightened like something was wrapped around his ribs, squeezing. He wanted to speak—God, he wanted to—but his throat locked down around the ache.
Ezra shifted again, slow and stiff, sliding to the far side of the infirmary bed.
He winced, then patted the space he’d cleared.
“Come lie with me, baby. You look like you’re about to either run—and I’ll have to give chase—or beat the shit out of me, and I have to be honest. I’m not up to either at the moment. ”
It was such an Ezra thing to say—honest, irreverent, just vulnerable enough to crack through all the walls.
And just like that, the edges softened.
Not gone. Not yet.
But they softened.
Ricky let out a slow breath and toed off his boots. Then, without a word, he climbed into the narrow bed, sliding his arm around his shoulder, fitting himself beside Ezra like he belonged there because maybe he always had.
Ezra eased back into his arms with a sigh that sounded like relief. His fingers found Ricky’s, twined them together against his stomach and lay his head on Ricky’s chest.
“I missed this,” Ezra whispered.
“Yeah,” Ricky murmured, pressing a kiss to Ezra’s temple. “Me, too.”
Ezra lifted his head, and Ricky met him halfway—mouths brushing, then deepening, the kiss slow and aching. It spoke of everything they hadn’t said and everything they still needed to. Passion, sorrow, longing. The sharp edges of regret dulled by the quiet promise of something better.
They didn’t speak after that.
They didn’t have to.
Wrapped in each other’s arms, heartbeat to heartbeat, they let sleep take them. Together. Safe. Sound. And home.