Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
EMIL
“Am I fired?”
“Why would you think that?”
Impossible as it seemed, Anders actually looked small lying in the hospital bed.
The gown stretched across his broad shoulders, and his hair, usually in neat braids and a bun, had come partially undone and stuck out at odd angles.
The bags under his eyes looked like he’d gone a few rounds in the ring and not come out as the winner.
He looked nothing like the supremely competent clerk with a quiet, tidy style I had gotten accustomed to seeing at the office.
“Because I caused a disturbance at the office today.” The beep of the machine monitoring Anders’s saline drip echoed in the small cubicle.
“That wasn’t a disturbance, Anders. That was you becoming ill. It’s not like you fainted on purpose.”
Anders found something fascinating to study on the wall opposite me. “Why are you here?”
“Because the health and well-being of my employees is a priority,” I answered.
The answer I gave wasn’t much of one, but it was the best I could come up with on the way over.
It made no damn sense why I was here, but I wasn’t going to admit that to him.
After he fainted, Lacey was ready to call an ambulance to take him to the hospital, but when Anders regained consciousness, he panicked at the idea of going out on a stretcher.
It was obvious that a drive to the hospital would be the better choice.
But the million-dollar question wasn’t clear even to me.
Why was I here? I couldn’t give myself a reasonable justification to explain it.
Luckily, a commotion at the door interrupted my attempt to come up with a plausible explanation. “Because my gut said I needed to” invited more questions than I had answers for, so the truth wasn’t an option.
“You about gave me a heart attack, Anders. As soon as I saw your name up on the board— Oh, hello?” The doctor burst into the room in such a familiar way that I knew it wasn’t a strictly professional visit.
“I’m Reed.” The doctor held out his hand with a friendly, open smile as he introduced himself.
“Emil Magnuson. Are you Anders’s doctor?”
“No, that’s Dr. Greer. He’s great, by the way. I’m a friend, that’s all.”
“Reed, I appreciate you coming to see me, but it’s nothing.
I’ve just been feeling a little under the weather and got a little dramatic at the office,” Anders offered with an apologetic laugh.
On the surface, his tone was deliberately nonchalant, but I heard the fatigue underneath. “I’m sorry I interrupted your day.”
“Interrupted my day? You didn’t interrupt anything,” Reed responded gently. Anders seemed to have better taste in friends than he did lovers. How he’d ended up with a fuckwit like John was beyond me. “Before you ask, I didn’t tell Jakob you were here, but do you want me to call him to come down?”
“Absolutely not. He’s working on a journal paper this week. He needs every minute to finalize it.”
“How do you know about that?”
“Because he’s been stressing about it for weeks. In the group chat the other day, he said it was in the final stretch. Anyway, don’t call him. It’s nothing, and I’m sure I’ll be out of here soon.”
“Are you new here, Anders?” Reed teased.
The affection in his voice was evident. “No one is ever out of an ER fast. Keeping people here as long as possible is how we ER docs find joy in this world.” Belatedly, it seemed to hit Reed that I was here instead of Anders’s boyfriend.
The doctor glanced around before returning his gaze to the giant man in the hospital gown, worry lines etched across his forehead. “Where’s John?”
“Uh, um, I’m not sure.”
“He declined to bring Anders in,” I interjected flatly.
Anders had been adamant that no ambulance be called, but I’d be damned if I’d let it go entirely.
If nothing else, I wanted to protect my company.
Or that’s at least what I told myself. My heart skipped a beat when Anders collapsed next to me.
Then, when his asshole boyfriend declared himself too busy to take Anders to the ER, Lacey said she would do it and arrange childcare on the way.
That was when I stepped in and said I’d do it.
It was a testament to how poorly Anders felt that he gave only token pushback against the decision.
Reed wasn’t able to mask his reaction quickly enough. “Too busy? Okay,” he said with skepticism.
“He’s been working hard on his current project and sick people make him nervous,” Anders said.
“He’s working hard, or he’s pushing you hard to do his shit?” Reed shot back.
I’d already pegged John for an absolute waste of a desk at the company, but it surprised me that someone from the outside would have so much clarity on the bullshit John was pulling. From what I knew of Anders, he’d defend that asshole to the end.
A furtive glance at Anders revealed a man on the edge.
The exchange with Reed, which I had no doubt came from a place of concern, left Anders even more exhausted than before.
He’d leaned back on the raised gurney and closed his eyes, but it wasn’t a relaxed posture.
His head teetered on the edge of collapse.
As much as I agreed with his friend’s opinion on the boyfriend, Anders couldn’t take any more.
“Doctor, would you mind showing me the visitor’s lounge?” Reed looked away from Anders, who visibly relaxed at the diversion of his attention. Yeah, it was definitely enough. “Now.” Reed looked as if he wanted to argue, but finally gave a curt nod.
I followed him through the glass cubicle’s door and carefully slid it closed behind me. Once we were clearly out of earshot and eyesight, Reed stopped and leaned against the wall.
“Fuck that fucking asshole. I went too far in there. Anders doesn’t need yet another asshole pushing him.”
“It’s out of concern.” Reed nodded, and I added, “But it was too much.”
Reed grimaced but nodded again.
“Did he even pretend like he gave a shit his boyfriend was in a crisis?”
“Not really. He stood around while one of the other people in the office tended to him, and didn’t lift a finger to assist.”
I tried to keep my voice neutral, but there wasn’t much effort behind it.
Whatever it was about Anders that had caught my attention, I didn’t have a good explanation for it.
After the goddamn debacle of a takeover, I was about to shut the entire company down, take the tax write-off, and conveniently forget I was the one who signed off on the investment in the first place.
“You’re his new boss?”
“Indirectly. My firm has absorbed them. I’m only there to get them integrated into our systems, and then I’ll turn it over to the general manager.”
“I don’t know shit about business, but I’d have thought you had people for that kind of thing.”
“You’d think so, but the owners have been challenging since the loan was called and we exercised our rights over the shares.”
The business was small enough that the employees could be absorbed into other ventures. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than putting them out on the street. But I couldn’t shut the firm down completely until the books were in order, and there was some shady shit going on in those.
The numbers weren’t adding up, and once we cleared out anyone who might have been cooking them, the accountants had struggled to make them match too.
It appeared there were two entirely separate sets of books, one real and one fantastical.
And, in a surprise to no one, it was the altered ones that had been presented to the board during the acquisition process.
“Dr. Greer should be in with him pretty quickly to double-check his levels, but I suspect he’ll release him after he does that final check. Did anyone call Rory?”
“Who’s that?”
“His best friend, but more like family.”
“He was having lunch with a reddish-haired guy tod—”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“Yeah, Anders told Lacey not to call anyone, so I’m guessing not. I doubt John bothered. Do John and Anders live together?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Trying to get Anders home, but I’ll take him.”
“I appreciate that. Knowing him, he’ll try to call an Uber so he doesn’t accidentally inconvenience anyone.”
“That’s not happening on my watch.”
“Any questions before I sign off on discharge?” Dr. Greer asked.
When he returned to check on Anders’s levels, he was as thorough as I expected based on Reed’s praise.
He looked a little too casual to be a doctor in my mind, but what the fuck did I know about downtown emergency rooms?
He warned Anders to be careful going forward, that he was rundown and his iron levels were concerning, so he needed to talk to his regular doctor about that.
But in the meantime, he told Anders to stock up on spinach and red meat.
He promised to send the nurse in with the final discharge papers quickly so we could finally be released.
I waited until he was gone before asking Anders about what came next.
“Is John picking you up?”
Anders’s mouth tightened to a firm line before he shook his head and looked out the window. He took a deep, steadying breath before he turned back and faced me with what I already knew was a fake smile.
“He’s having dinner with some…some…colleagues. He won’t be able to make it, so I’ll just call an Uber.”
After he finished his statement, he looked away quickly, but not before I caught the wobble in his chin. His throat moved up and down constantly as he, I’m assuming, tried to swallow the emotion threatening to explode from him. He looked exhausted in a way that came from his core.
“An Uber isn’t safe given your tiredness. I’ll take you home myself, and you’re taking tomorrow… No, you’re taking the rest of the week off. You need rest.”
“No, that’s not necessary. I’m fine. Those books need to be finished. We’re hitting a deadline.”
“And they’ll never get done properly if you’re too exhausted. Those books can wait. You are taking the rest of the week off.”