5. George #2
“I’m going to choose to take that as a compliment.
” He’s looking around my living room now, and I try to see it through his eyes.
The Gran Torino print above the TV, dark green and chrome, the car my father wanted his whole life and never got around to buying.
His photos on the shelf across three decades, different ages, same steadiness in his eyes across all of them.
The worn leather couch broken in over years until it holds the shape of whoever sits in it.
The toolbox table, a converted three-drawer Snap-on that came home from the shop because the shop had no use for it anymore, scratched along the top and solid as a bank vault.
Lance has his feet up on it already. He’s been doing that since the early days, and I never bothered asking him to put it down after a while.
“You working tonight?” I ask, needing something to break the silence.
“Yeah. It’s three to eleven, which gives me a few hours to kill.” Lance is still looking around, and his eyes land on the TV. “You gonna put on Supernatural or what?”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
He grabs the remote off my coffee table. “Season four, right?”
I grunt.
He’s already scrolling. The thing is, we’ve been doing this for years.
Lance shows up at my place, I drop by his, we eat, watch TV, sit in the same space without forcing conversation.
We started Supernatural a few months back when he needed something to run through between night shifts.
It’s about Dean and Sam Winchester, two brothers hunting demons and monsters while juggling family drama. It gives us easy entertainment.
The episode starts. The opening riff of “Carry On Wayward Son” fills the living room, jangling guitars and harmonies that have become part of our ritual.
Lance drops onto the couch beside me, close enough that our shoulders almost touch.
We sit there watching, letting the noise of the show take over.
Then Lance says it, completely casual. “You know, Dean’s pretty hot.”
I turn my head. “Hmm?”
“Dean Winchester. He’s objectively attractive.” Lance looks at me and shrugs. “I can appreciate a really good-looking guy.”
I take a second to process this. “I guess I never really looked at it that way.”
“Come on.” He nods toward the screen where a shirtless Sam is working out. “You’re telling me you’ve never looked at Season Four Sam and thought, damn, that guy is built?”
I look properly this time. “I usually look at Dean’s Impala more than anything else.”
“Of course you do.” Lance is grinning. “You’re such a car guy. But you’re not arguing the point.”
“Got eyes. I can see it.” I shift back against the couch. “Why are we talking about this?”
He takes a sip of his coffee, still watching the screen. “Because men don’t usually say it out loud. Women tell each other that all the time. A woman says her friend looks beautiful and nobody reads into it. A guy says the same thing once and suddenly it’s a whole big thing.”
He’s not wrong.
He turns to me then, casual as anything. “Like you, for example. I should be able to tell you that you look good in those shorts and it doesn’t have to mean anything.”
My brain snags on that remark and drags me straight back to Azure Tides. There’s fucking Lance, looking at me like he was starving for something only I could give him.
I take a slow drink of my coffee and stare at the screen, not entirely sure anymore whether it’s just Lance or something I’ve been pushing down for longer than that.
Lance keeps talking. I catch pieces of it. My brain is stuck three sentences back, turning that one over without making any progress on it, and the show runs without me.
“Earth to George.” Lance waves a hand in front of my face. “You still with me?”
I blink, realizing I haven’t heard a word he’s said for the last minute.
“Where’d you go?”
I turn my attention back to the TV. “You’re right though, about guys being able to say another man looks good without it being weird.”
“Exactly.” Lance settles deeper into the couch, looking satisfied. “I’m glad we’ve resolved this important philosophical question. Now shut up and watch. This looks like a good part.”
That would be easier if my dick would stop paying attention to every little movement he makes.
The second episode ends, and Lance checks his watch with a grimace. “I should probably head out. Brought my scrubs home for laundry.”
And that’s a whole separate fucking problem.
I’ve seen him in scrubs more times than I can count. Work clothes—that’s all they are, except I watched him in that ER, and ‘watched’ is the wrong word for what I did.
He moved through that room like it answered to him.
No hesitation or wasted motion. Every step had purpose, every touch exact.
His hands didn’t shake or hover. They just knew where to go.
His voice stayed low and even, not loud or demanding, but people listened anyway.
They shifted for him, made space, and followed without question.
All the bullshit falls away when he’s working. The smart mouth. The constant commentary. The inability to leave anything alone. What’s left is sharp and focused and completely in control.
That day in the ER, he kept talking in that calm voice that made it hard to think about anything else, even the pain. He smelled like antiseptic and that same damn scent that’s just him. I watched how sure he moved, how capable he was.
Those navy scrubs stretched different than I remembered. Pulled across his shoulders when he reached, dragged tight down his back when he bent. Every movement carved him out under the fabric, not showy or anything. It was just…there. Strength without effort. Control without thinking about it.
And I couldn’t stop following every fucking thing about it. In those moments, when he’s damn good at what he does, it hit me with a mix of respect and dirty fucking hunger.
And now he’s bent over my thigh again with those same steady hands, and I’m fighting the urge to grab him and pull him onto my lap.
I’ve been in that ER as a patient exactly once, and I spent most of it watching my own fucking nurse a little too closely.
Who am I kidding? I didn’t even try to hide it. I looked, and he saw me look, and there was a second there where it felt like he knew exactly what I was thinking.
And now I can’t tell what I want more—to look away and shut it down, or step closer and see what happens if I don’t.
Lance stands up and stretches, shirt riding up to show a strip of skin above his waistband. I suddenly find the ring his coffee cup left on the table fascinating.
“You change at the hospital?” I ask. It comes out normal. I’m unreasonably proud of that.
“Nah, I’ll change at home. Sometimes I change at work, but not today. Same time tomorrow?”
I grunt.
“And that’s a ‘yeah, sure’ grunt. I’ll bring better coffee.”
He quickly packs up his medical supplies then heads for the door. He pauses with his hand on the doorknob, glancing back at me. Something in his expression shifts, more serious.
“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re okay,” he says. “When you came through the doors, I thought…” He cuts himself off and shakes his head. “Yeah. I wasn’t a fan of that. Don’t do that again, G.”
I study him. “You looked pretty calm.”
“I was trained to be calm under those conditions,” he says with half a smile. “It doesn’t mean I wasn’t losing it a little the whole time.”
Then he’s gone, door clicking shut behind him.
His empty coffee cup is still on the toolbox table where he left it. He never finishes them when he’s here, just leaves them, and I always find them later when I’m cleaning up. I pick it up and stand there holding it for a second, then put it back down exactly where it was.
The afternoon light has moved while we were sitting here, coming in lower through the window now.
I pick up the remote and click rewind to the shirtless scene. I look at Sam Winchester’s shoulders and his build, probably closer and longer than I mean to.
I drag both hands over my face and go find something useful to do.