Chapter 10 Lazlo
Lazlo
The monitor beeped, filling the room with its steady rhythm, but rather than being soothed by it, it was making me anxious.
His heart was beating too fast, his blood pressure too low.
I couldn’t keep my eyes from flicking up to read the numbers on the screen every couple minutes.
Feeling antsy, I stood from the chair at his bedside, checking for the tenth time that the antibiotics were right, the dosage, the rate.
This man… Sam had said his name was August, but no last name, and we didn’t find any ID in his wallet.
He’d been hiding in the barn. For days. He’d been right there the whole time, losing blood, infection spreading, and we hadn’t known.
I could’ve helped him so much sooner, could’ve gotten him care and avoided the hospital entirely.
This didn’t need to happen. Guilt gripped me, and I paced the length of the small private room, hands bunched into fists at my sides.
I could barely take my eyes off him. He seemed too small in the giant bed, the gown draped over his skeletal frame as if he hadn’t eaten a decent meal in weeks, maybe even longer.
He was too pale, weak from blood loss and the infection that had very nearly claimed his life.
Where on earth did he come from? Where did he give birth?
Because it clearly wasn’t in a hospital.
Mia hadn’t even been a day old when Jerry found her on his porch.
Whatever August had been through, he’d been alone, that much was certain.
I felt an uncontrollable need to protect him.
He barely looked old enough to grow a beard, let alone have a baby, maybe 24, 25 years old.
I imagined a psychologist would say I had a savior complex—as if I didn’t already know that.
It was the reason I went into medicine in the first place, to help people, but during my time working in a hospital, I’d had to learn that I couldn’t save them all.
It was mathematically impossible, the odds were not in my favor.
Every time I lost a patient, though, it always left a hole, a cavity inside me that could never be filled.
Like a piece of myself was buried with them, even long after they’d passed.
The thought of August becoming one of those lost patients, though…
Unacceptable. I would save him. There was no alternative.
Wrestling my emotions into place, I tried to think logically, as if he were nothing more than a patient.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Jerry, though I wasn’t sure he was listening.
He’d been quiet since the ride to the hospital, following behind the ambulance.
He looked haunted, trapped in his mind with dark thoughts. “Jerry?”
“Hmm?” His eyes flicked up to meet mine briefly.
He was standing by the window, rocking Mia side to side.
He’d sent Sam over to the neighbor’s house for the evening, but there was no time to find someone to watch her.
Maybe it was a good thing. Mia needed her father, and he needed her too, that much was clear.
“I’ll be right out in the hall. Come get me if he wakes up?” He nodded. No matter how much I didn’t want to leave August, I trusted Jerry to watch over him for a few minutes.
I quickly pulled out my phone and called Delaney at home. She answered, her voice holding a note of concern. I didn’t call her on off hours unless it was important.
“I’m really sorry to do this, but there’s been a bit of a… family emergency.” While that wasn’t strictly true, it felt more accurate than calling him a patient. “I’m at the hospital right now, and I’m not sure when I’ll get out of here.”
“Of course, just tell me what you need.” She didn’t pry, and I appreciated that about her. She always got straight down to business.
I asked her to reschedule what she could, and the next phone call I made was to Dr. Neal Gage, a semi-retired colleague who stepped in when I needed him to.
He would show up on Monday and hold down the fort for a few days.
I probably wouldn’t need him that long, but I couldn’t leave August’s bedside. Not now, not when he needed me.
When I stepped back into the room, nothing had changed. The stillness was so unsettling, I almost wished Mia would wake up and fuss, just so we had something else to focus on.
“He could’ve died.” My voice cracked as I looked over at Jerry, putting my fears out into the world.
“But he didn’t,” he said firmly, leaving off the part that he still could. Treatment did not automatically mean recovery.
He carried a sleeping Mia over and set her gently on her father’s chest, as if giving them the bonding time they’d missed after her birth, and my heart gave a tight squeeze in my chest. Jerry was so strong, he needed no one, and that just made me want to take care of him even more.
Even strong men deserved someone to lean on when they felt weak.
Standing at the bedside, he set a hand on Mia’s back to steady her, rising and falling with her father’s breath.
“He was wearing my clothes,” he said raggedly, eyes red-rimmed.
“I feel like I failed him. I knew Sam was hiding something, but I didn’t push.
I should’ve pushed… I should’ve known he was there.
I could’ve gotten him help sooner.” He sounded devastated, and I moved to his side and wrapped my arms around him.
“This is not your fault,” I said fiercely, reminding myself that it wasn’t my fault either.
But I would absolutely find out whose fault it was.
Rage simmered just under my skin. It was impossible to miss the previous injuries littered across August’s body like a map of abuse.
He had too many scars, still-healing bruises.
I’d bet if we took X-rays, we would find old fractures. This was the body of a survivor.
I’d never been a violent man, but for the first time in my life, I felt the urge to murder whoever had laid a finger on this man. And while pregnant! I closed my eyes against the wash of red that soaked my vision.
Jerry’s body was tense, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he clenched his teeth. His eyes were harder than I’d ever seen them, and I set a hand on his arm. “I wish…” he began, but whatever he’d been about to say was lost when we both noticed a change in August’s breathing.
I’d been so attuned to August’s stillness that the change stood out as clearly as a blaring alarm.
His breath shallowed out, then stuttered, and I whipped my head around in time to see his eyes flutter open.
They were a beautiful gray-blue—Mia’s eyes, I immediately noted—though there were deep purple creases beneath them.
His gaze darted back and forth between me and Jerry, the beeping from the monitor racing as he struggled to breathe. Jerry quickly went to grab Mia back from his chest, but August flinched, his hands coming up to hug her to him possessively. “No!” he shouted. “She’s mine!”
Mia jerked awake and started crying, and August’s face crumpled.
“Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry.” As tears started pooling in his eyes, I had a feeling he was apologizing for so much more than waking her from a nap.
He didn’t seem to know where to look or what to do.
I could see the signs of an impending panic attack.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Jerry said, soothing both Mia and August, it seemed.
I inched forward, and his eyes locked on me.
“August, do you remember me?” He frowned as he struggled to make sense of where he was and what was going on.
“My name is Lazlo, and I’m a doctor. We found you in the barn, and you were very sick with a postpartum infection.
You’re in the hospital—” That only seemed to trigger more panic, and I thought of the scars, the bruises, the fact that he’d delivered a baby outside of a hospital.
Someone was to blame for this fear, but it wasn’t us.
I took a guess and said, “They don’t know your name. He can’t find you here. You’re safe.”
He stilled for a second, holding his breath as he thought on that. His eyes drifted to Jerry next, whose hands were still extended in case he needed to catch Mia, and recognition flickered. “You…” he whispered. “Jerry?”
Jerry nodded, the briefest amount of tension leaching away. “Yes. You left Mia with me. I’ve been taking good care of her for you.”
The tears spilled down his cheeks. “I didn’t want to…”
“We know,” I said. “You did what you thought was best to keep your daughter safe.”
He nodded, seemingly relieved that we believed him.
Mia was still crying, so Jerry said, “She’s probably hungry. Would you like to feed her?”
“C-Can I? I tried before, but she couldn’t drink, and I didn’t know what to do.”
I grabbed the diaper bag and set it on the end of the bed.
“She has a cleft palate, which means she needs a special bottle to drink from. We’ll show you how.
” Together, the three of us got her bottle ready, then August held her close and fed her, looking up at us with doe eyes as though to confirm he was doing it properly.
His doctor, a friend of mine at the hospital, came in to check on August, and while he seemed quite pleased with his progress, he gave me a brief look on his way out. “I’ll be right back,” I said, before following him out.
Cedric stopped in the hall and turned to face me, his face stern.
“I don’t mind doing you a favor, Lazlo, but I can only hide your patient for so long.
You know we keep track of all stock, and if painkillers go unaccounted for, someone will come looking.
We can register him as John Doe, but I assume he doesn’t have insurance. ”
I held my hands up in defense. “Whatever the cost, I’ll cover it.”
Cedric hesitated for a minute, likely trying to work out who he was to me when he knew I’d never dated anyone seriously. Finally, he nodded. “Okay. I’d like to keep him here for another day or two and—”
“No, I’ll be taking him home tomorrow.”
Again, he paused, but in the end, as long as the infection was under control and there was no further risk to August’s life, he would give me what I wanted. “Okay… I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.”
“Always,” I assured him. If I were being honest, though, I would admit that the ground beneath my feet felt like quicksand.
I’d always been so measured, so sure about the direction my life was headed, and not once had I seen anything like this coming.
Because while I felt a growing connection to Jerry, the alpha with a heart of gold, there was no denying the pull I felt to take care of August too.
And binding all three of us together… Mia, the sweet angel that pulled all our heartstrings.
August drifted off to sleep again, and I watched Mia while Jerry went in search of food, coming back with foot-long hotdogs from the cart out front of the hospital. Hardly fine dining, but I wouldn’t have chosen to be anywhere else.
When visiting hours ended, I sent Jerry home with Mia for the night. It was obvious he was going to argue, but Mia was fussing, and I knew he would need to be home for Sam soon too. So instead, he drew in a deep breath, brow furrowed, and nodded reluctantly.
“I’ll call later,” I told him softly, reaching out to brush my fingertips over the back of his hand.
He went to say good night to August, and I stepped back, trying to give them a moment of privacy.
There was something intimate about the look that came over August’s face when he looked up at Jerry; it was borderline awestruck, and I couldn’t even blame him because it was how Jerry made me feel too.
Like he would move heaven and earth to give you anything you needed, and you were powerless to do anything but accept.
When it was just me and August, I almost expected him to withdraw, but he beckoned me closer. “Lazlo, I-I can’t pay for this.” His voice was ragged, his cheeks pink with embarrassment. We hadn’t talked about where he’d come from yet, but I wasn’t about to press. He would tell me when he was ready.
“Nobody asked you to,” I said, leaving no room for argument.
“I’ll pay you back,” he said immediately. “I’ll… get a job, and I will pay back every penny.”
Money was the furthest thing from my mind right now.