Dinner was a simple affair. Wes called in an order and picked it up, urging Kyle to go ahead to his place and make himself comfortable. He’d given the man his key—a temporary gift, but one Kyle balked at—and sent him off in his own car. Partly because it was the practical thing to do, and partly because it gave him time to sort out his feelings.

Something was happening here. Something that felt a great deal bigger than anything Wes had prepared for or wanted. And somehow, he had the feeling that the way they chose to approach tonight would decide a great many things about the future.

Had he ever had that moment with Adrian? A point of no return? Their relationship had transitioned somewhat seamlessly, to the point that Wes barely even noticed he relied on Adrian so much. In fact, he wasn’t sure he had noticed until it was too late.

It might not have been the same situation with Kyle, but he enjoyed the man’s company. He liked working with him, and he was genuinely interested in learning more. For most people, that might not have signified, but for Wes—someone who’d made it very clear to everyone in Hidden Creek that he only did casual sex—it was huge.

He could walk away from it now. Kyle would be annoyed if he suddenly changed his mind, but he’d get over it. Alternately, he could forget about dinner and conversation entirely and just fuck the man senseless if Kyle was willing.

But both of those options felt wrong, and so Wes stuck to the original plan. He picked up their meals, then drove to his apartment where Kyle stood sheepishly by the sideboard, a bottle of wine in his hands with a corkscrew stuck inside.

Wes snorted at the sight. “Having trouble there?”

“Okay, in my defense, this corkscrew is from like… 1912 or something.”

“I’ll trade you,” Wes’ lips curved into a smirk as he held up the takeout bag. “There are plates in the cabinet closest to the stove, and silverware in the second drawer.”

Kyle made a face at that. “You’re one of those people who dumps takeout onto an actual plate, huh?”

He took the bag and Wes went to pry the corkscrew out of the cork. “Not normally. Normally I eat them hunched over the steering wheel with a plastic spork. But since this isn’t a date…”

He heard Kyle laugh from the kitchen, and shortly after, the cork finally popped free. The wine could’ve used time to breathe, but Wes’ nerves were so overwrought that he decided to pour it immediately, adding a generous amount to two glasses.

After a bit of fussing—and a lot of scraping of silverware on plates—Kyle came out of the kitchen with two plates and associated silverware.

“Compromise? It feels weird to eat takeout at a dinner table. And—this may be hard to believe—but nobody’s ever going to mistake my plating techniques for a master chef’s.”

He was right about that. The best Wes could say about the plating was that the entree was mostly kept separate from the sides. Not that he minded. Residency had taught Wes to eat what he could when he could, and any pickiness he had over eating was resolved quickly in his first year.

“You’re not going to hear any complaints from me,” he said, gesturing to the couch.

They settled in, wine glasses on end tables, plates on laps. It was an odd mix of formal and casual, but somehow it worked. Wes’ nerves eased somewhat, and after half a glass of wine, he was feeling more like himself and less like a teenager who’d just realized he had a crush on a boy at school.

Kyle seemed to relax, as well. While they’d talked about random, safe things throughout the meal, it was obvious there was something on Kyle’s mind. After a bit more wine, he finally gave it voice.

“I… have a question you’re not going to like very much.”

“Know me that well, do you?” Wes smirked, but his heart started beating at an irregular pace.

“Why do you have such a problem with nurses? I’ve seen who you are with the patients, and it just doesn’t fit.”

A fair enough question, but it conjured a mixed bag of memories that made Wes’ food suddenly much harder to stomach. He lifted his wine glass to his lips and drained it, pouring himself more soon after.

He could give Kyle a vague answer and leave it at that. He was a controlling person—he always had been. He’d made so many hard decisions for his mother when he was young—all of them when she was fall-down drunk—that he’d never been comfortable letting go. But there was more to it than that, and as he looked at Kyle, he thought perhaps the man deserved to know the full story.

“When I was doing my residency, I fell for a patient,” he began, his finger scraping along the edge of the glass. “Not one of mine, and not while he was being treated. It happened afterward.” A soft smile touched his lips as he remembered running into the confident man who’d apparently decided from day one that he and Wes were meant to be together. “His name was Adrian. He was… an amazing man with a very unfortunate medical condition.”

He could feel the shift in the room. No doubt Kyle had picked up on the pointed use of “was,” but Wes just didn’t have it in him to hide the sorrow or the bitterness.

“What was wrong with him?” the man asked softly.

Wes let out a humorless laugh. “His heart was too big. Literally. Genetically. It was too much of an effort for his body to maintain.”

Adrian joked about it all the time. It was one of his favorite anecdotes to throw out into a room and see how people reacted. Even when he was hospitalized, he kept that same disposition. It was something Wes deeply admired about the man, and one of the reasons he’d loved him so much. He was a light in the darkness… until that light was finally snuffed out.

“He must’ve been on medications though,” Kyle said weakly, his brow set in a deep crease.

“He was, but even the maintenance wasn’t a perfect solution. He ended up in the hospital a few times a year, and he used to tease me about how hands-on I’d get,” Wes said with a bitter smile, taking another long drink of wine. “But I needed to be doing something to help. It was agony to just sit in that chair beside his bed and watch him suffer.”

Kyle reached across the couch and laid a hand atop Wes’, giving it a gentle squeeze. “No one likes feeling helpless.”

“No, but apparently it’s necessary sometimes.” A harsh note tinged his words as the memories surfaced. They’d treated him like he was any other worried love one; like he didn’t have a clue what Adrian needed. “My last year as a resident, Adrian spent almost two months in the hospital. We were considering adding him to the transplant list, but one night while I was getting a bit of rest at home, he started having complications. He was in cardiac arrest by the time I got back to the hospital, and I demanded to go in with the other doctors. They wouldn’t let me.” Wes squared his jaw, looking away from Kyle. “One of the nurses escorted me out of the room and made me sit there while he died.”

He’d been in the waiting room, too far away to watch what happened within. Afterward, he’d demanded exhaustive details. Who called the code? Who responded first? What meds did they try and in what quantities? What life-saving measures did they attempt, and how long did they keep going?

Because if Wes was in the room, he would have kept going until he collapsed.

“I know you might not understand. It probably sounds petty to you,” Wes admitted quietly. It wasn’t a worry he’d ever said aloud before, but there it was, existing in the space between them.

“It doesn’t sound petty. Losing a loved one so suddenly… Wes, I can’t imagine what that’s like. But I do know that the people with you—the people who break the news—stay in your mind whether it’s a conscious memory or not. You felt helpless. Out of control. There was nothing you could do for Adrian, and the people you trusted were actively keeping you away from him.” Kyle gave his hand another squeeze. “I get that.”

His gaze settled on their hands, and Wes felt that familiar pang of loss; of loneliness. He hadn’t expected Kyle to argue with him about his own feelings, but he had expected some kind of well-meaning lecture. The fact that he wasn’t receiving that right now meant more than he could say.

He finally looked at the man who sat beside him, Kyle’s eyes softened with the same boundless empathy he’d seen him bestow upon their patients. It was caring. Compassion. A regard for Wes’ wellbeing that he’d rarely felt. Mostly because he rarely let anyone else care for him in that way.

A part of him wanted to pull away; shore up and ask Kyle to leave before he saw anything more. Another part of him wanted to lean in to the man’s embrace and accept what he was offering.

When Kyle leaned in and pressed his lips to Wes’, he settled for something in between those two extremes. It was a concession of sorts. An admission that he needed the comfort, without letting himself surrender too much to it.

This he understood. The caress of lips, the searching of tongues, the heat of bodies intertwining. He didn’t want to pretend like nothing had changed since that first night, he just wanted to explore it in a language that was easier to understand. In a language where he didn’t feel weak and vulnerable and helpless.

And though Kyle’s initial kiss was soft and comforting, he warmed to it as Wes did, a silent understanding passing between them.

They both needed this. For different reasons, he was sure, but in this instance, Wes was willing to be selfish and look after his own needs right now. And what he needed—more than anything else at this moment—was someone to treat him with the same warmth and compassion he knew Kyle was capable of giving.