Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Leo
Iawoke with a start.
The arms gripping me tightened.
Quinton.
Holding me.
Because I killed a woman. I couldn’t even say her name in my head.
You didn’t kill her. You did a perfect surgery. But she had a complication. She had a stroke. There’s nothing you could have done to prevent that.
Telling myself that—and believing it—were two different things.
“I’m here.” Quinton murmured the words in my ear.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “I’m usually the big spoon.”
He pressed a kiss to my bare shoulder. After my shower, he’d dried my hair then coaxed me into bed naked.
Skin to skin. I knew the studies of course—how skin-to-skin contact was so helpful to newborns.
We’d held Trevor that way, even though he’d been a few weeks old.
We’d done everything to promote bonding.
Melodie, being older, still needed lots of reassuring hugs.
I’d been stunned how quickly she’d latched onto us—Gideon in particular.
Of course, he was home with her all the time while I’d worked insane hours. But we had our family.
Quinton pressed his hand against my sternum.
“I’m okay.” Yet the words came out broken.
“It’s okay if you’re not.”
“But I am.” Who are you trying to convince—him or you?
“Okay.” Said quietly. With compassion.
“You’re right.” I sighed. “I’m not.”
“There’s no easy way to deal with this. Losing patients is part of being a doctor. And a nurse. But no matter how much they try to prepare you for it in medical school, it still hurts.”
I sighed. “People don’t believe me when I say I’ve never lost a patient on the table.”
“Because that’s completely unrealistic. Patients die.”
“Not mine.”
“Leo—”
“Okay, I’ve lost patients.” I hated saying it aloud and so never did.
He gripped me tighter.
“But never because of a mistake I made.”
“You’re human—”
“Not when I’m operating. I studied so damn hard, Quinton. Honest-to-God.”
“You probably didn’t cause the death yesterday. Post-operative complications happen. For any number of reasons. You learn from it and you move on.”
I grasped the hand pressed against my chest. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Of course you can. There will be more lives to save. More people who need a confident surgeon. Look, even if you did something wrong—which I’m not suggesting—then you learn from that mistake and you keep going. You can’t give up because of one bad outcome.”
“I almost did. Before.”
He held still.
“My first patient. Iana Howland.” Even saying her name brought a tremendous amount of pain.
“Oh?”
“My first solo surgery. After all the years of training and of being watched and learning. I finally had my own OR.”
“Okay.” He said it cautiously.
I didn’t blame him—obviously this story wasn’t going to end well.
“She crashed during recovery. I don’t know if she could have been resuscitated.
I’ll never know. Because the nurse on duty had stepped out of the room to take a personal phone call.
Oh, she was only supposed to be gone for a few seconds.
And the other nurse was helping a patient relieve themselves and so couldn’t jump into action in that crucial moment. ”
“Jesus.”
“Right?” I tried to hold back my anger. “The nurse who was delinquent was reprimanded—a week off work without pay. As you know, nurses are hard to find. A note went on her record.” I gritted my teeth.
“Would Iana have died anyway? No way of knowing. For unknown reasons, her heart stopped. The autopsy showed the repair of her aorta was textbook perfect. I was briefing her family on the surgery when the alarm went off. I ran. But…we couldn’t restart her heart. ”
“Oh God.”
“Yeah. So when I see an on-duty nurse with a cell phone, I tend to lose my shit.” I rubbed my face. “Not just because I’m arrogant—but because I know what a moment of inattention can mean.”
“I’m sorry for that.”
“I had to go back to tell her family she’d gone. Post-operative complication. There’s no closure from that. No coming back. That void is permanent. Forever. They blamed me. How could they not?”
“Leo—”
I shrugged. “I tried to move on. The scheduler ensured that, for the first month after, that the nurse and I were never working the same shift. Eventually, though, that couldn’t go on. She tried to apologize. I rebuffed her.”
“That’s understandable.”
“You would’ve forgiven her.” I might not know everything about Quinton, but I understood how he dealt with people.
“If she’d been responsible for my mother and her inattention might’ve caused Mama’s death?
I think you give me too much credit.” Again, he pressed his lips to my shoulder.
“Being human means fallibility. Means we’re going to fuck up.
It’s how we learn from that mistake that defines how we make amends. ”
“The family tonight? Aside from the shock? The woman’s husband shook my hand. Said he appreciated I’d tried and that post-operative complications were unpredictable. Who does that? Accepts things as presented?”
“They have kids, right? Maybe he realized being angry wasn’t going to get him through the next day. Hell, next week or next month.”
“There are stages of grief.” This I’d paid attention to in my studies.
“But they’re never linear. Sometimes anger comes later on. Sometimes you start with bargaining. Hell, some people never make it to acceptance—it’s just an open wound for the rest of their lives.”
“God, I hope not.” I winced. “I moved to acceptance far sooner over the end of my marriage than I should have.” Why are you bringing this up now?
“I held onto anger as long as I could, then just skipped bargaining and depression and moved straight to acceptance. Although divorce isn’t the same as death.
” I sighed. “My parents are dead, but I didn’t grieve them.
They died when they rejected my relationship with Gideon. ”
“I’m sorry for that. Not the grieving part. No, for the rejection. I’ve never known that. Despite being an only child, I never had anything but love from my parents.”
“Despite?”
“Mama wants grandbabies. Swears she’ll retire when I give them to her.”
“That’s a shit ton of pressure.” I swallowed.
“You should have kids because you want them—not because someone else wants you to have them. Gideon and me? We wanted kids right from the start. We waited until I was out of school and on my way to becoming a surgeon. He had some seniority by then at his job and was able to take the year of paternity leave to stay home with the kids. I was so damn jealous—and also focused. Somehow, everything worked out. Until it didn’t.
” I winced. “And you don’t need to hear any of this. ”
“I’ll listen to whatever you have to say. Sometimes you just need to vent. Sometimes you need a sounding board. And sometimes I have to speak my mind.”
Despite myself, I chuckled. “And this time?”
Yet another kiss to my shoulder. “Whatever you want.”
I stilled. Then, yet again, swallowed hard. “You don’t know what you’re offering.”
“I’m a big boy, Leo. I’m well-aware what I’m offering. If I didn’t give a shit, then I wouldn’t be here. If I wasn’t willing to take the brunt of…whatever this is…then I wouldn’t have brought food, gotten you in the shower, and forced you into bed.”
“So you could spoon me.”
He chuckled. “I happen to like being the big spoon.”
“You’ll always have to fight me for it—there’s more protector in me than you realize.”
“Uh, I totally realize. And acknowledge. But you’ve got to realize I have your number.”
“That should concern me.”
“And yet it doesn’t.” True amusement in his voice.
How does he do it? I’m not better…but I’m not hurting as much. I want to rail and scream…and also to take the comfort he’s offering and sink into it. Slowly, I scooted back.
“What—” He held still as my ass touched his flaccid cock. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” I wiggled said ass. Is he going to reject me? Tell me it’s inappropriate? Make me beg? Because I was not above begging. Like, at all.
“Shouldn’t we be in reverse positions?”
“Not if you’re going to fuck me.” I grasped his hand and clutched it tight. Please don’t say no. “I mean, if that’s okay.”
“Fuck you? I’m never going to say no to that. I just…I don’t do it as often as I might’ve made it seem.”
“Oh? I thought you said you were vers. And bisexual.”
“Yes. I do most of the making love to women—and take it up the ass from men. Huge delineation.”
“Ah.”
He pressed his growing erection into my crack. “But I’m certainly not going to turn down the invitation. I’m not even going to ask you if you’re sure because you’re a big boy and perfectly capable of making your own decisions.”
“I am.” At least here, I could offer confirmation.
“You know I won’t hurt you.”
I stilled. My gut reaction was I want you to. Which was ridiculous. Gideon had rarely topped me, and he’d never—ever—hurt me.
“Leo?”
“Yeah.”
“Were you hoping I’d inflict some kind of pain? Because that’s not my jam.”
I pulled my lower lip through my teeth. “Not mine either. Except—”
“Except?”
“Never mind.”
“Ah.” He rubbed his stubbled cheek against my shoulder.
“When you do that, I find it hard to think.”
He pressed his fully erect cock against my ass. “I think that’s the point.”
“Fair.”
“May I prep you?”
The question had me hesitating. Of course I’d let Gideon do it the very few times we’d changed things up.
He’d always been willing—but his happy place had been as a bottom.
As mine was being a top. So why are you doing this?
The answer came swift and hard—because I need it.
“Sure.” I injected more certainty into the word than I felt.
“Where do you want me?”
“Where do you want to be?” I could be obtuse when I wanted to be.
“I’ll always want to look into your eyes. But I understand that might not be your happy place. Some guys—”