All in all, after drinking way too much and making a complete ass of himself last night, Kyle felt all right.

Maybe it was because of the fact that Brandon hadn’t dared ask him what he’d gotten up to. Maybe it was just lost in the trepidation and excitement he felt over his new job at Hidden Creek Memorial. The last thing he wanted to do was put his scrubs on inside out or forget the ID badge he’d been assigned after the job offer was made. Both seemed plausible if he hadn’t managed to pull his shit together and focus on having an uneventful morning.

But as Kyle showered, all he could think about was Wes. He didn’t even know the man’s last name, he just knew that tower of lean muscle all wrapped up in a cocky facade made him feel things he’d never felt before. In the heat of the moment, he’d been ready to do just about anything for the man, so long as his mouth kept moving so expertly and his hand kept up its path to his aching dick.

He wasn’t even sure he would’ve regretted it. Yes, it would’ve all happened in a blur, but Wes seemed like the kind of man who knew exactly what he was doing. He’d felt comfortable with the man, even safe, for all the predatory stares he’d gotten throughout the night. Those feelings were only amplified when Wes—who’d obviously just been looking for an easy hookup—had responded with kindness and compassion. He hadn’t mocked Kyle for his lack of experience. He hadn’t tried to cajole him into more. He hadn’t made any promises he knew he wouldn’t keep.

He’d just been supportive and understanding, much more than Kyle would have expected. So much so that he suspected there was a soft, gooey center to Wes’ hard, sexy exterior.

He knew he’d see the man again. Hidden Creek was only so big, and there were only so many places to go out for a drink or get a bite to eat. Hell, he could already imagine seeing Wes at something as mundane as a gas station, filling up whatever fancy car he owned at the next pump over. Totally ordinary, and not something he needed to think about in the context of that same man having his hand on Kyle’s cock.

Nope. Definitely not.

The sun had just barely started to scrape over the horizon, but Kyle was already wide awake and ready to start the day. He’d annoyed the Charge Nurse at his old hospital with his peppy morning person routine, but eventually she’d come to value the fact that Kyle could pick up everyone’s morning rounds without missing a beat.

With any luck, he’d do the same at Hidden Creek Memorial. As he fixed his ID tag to his scrubs and checked himself in the mirror, Kyle vowed not to fantasize about Wes for the rest of the day. There’d be time to sort out his sexuality later.

“You told him, right?” Beth was the third RN to ask that question of the current on-duty Charge Nurse, Vivian.

“First thing I said to him.” Her pronounced Texan accent flowed like honey, making his own seem fake by comparison, as if he hadn’t lived in Texas all his life.

“I haven’t had time to make a Bingo sheet yet,” Kyle joked, “but I’m pretty sure I just won.”

Beth grinned at him. She was a short, stocky woman in her mid-thirties who—according to Vivian—went out of her way to make sure her patients got the best possible care. Even if that meant losing face with—or outright arguing with—the doctors. Kyle already knew the two of them were going to get along amazingly.

“I’ve dealt with difficult doctors before. I’ve made a whole career out of getting talked down to,” he said with a smirk. “I can’t say I’m that scared of Dr. Monroe.”

Beth clicked her tongue behind her teeth, and Vivian made a low sound of disbelief, shaking her head. “Your funeral,” she added in a sing-song tone.

“She tell you about the time Monroe made Annie cry in front of her patient?”

“Yep,” Kyle confirmed. “She asked for clarification on his Diazepam order and he snapped. Seen it before. Doctors think they’re beyond reproach.”

It was one thing he’d always known to be true. In an ideal hospital settings, nurses and doctors would work together to provide the best patient care possible. But more often than not, doctors brought a superiority complex to the job. They always took it poorly when a nurse—someone who, to them, had to endure a lot less suffering for their position—questioned anything they did, from med orders to discharge write-ups.

Kyle, of course, had never given a damn. He’d grown up the youngest of four children, all boys. He was used to people treating him like a second-rate citizen. As much as he loved his brothers, they were complete assholes when it came to him being a nurse. He’d learned to ignore it a long time ago, from pretty much the moment he decided on nursing as a career path.

And if he didn’t let his own family push him around, he definitely wasn’t going to let some hotshot doctor do it. The guy was probably ancient; part of the old guard. The type of person who used social terms and labels that had fallen out of favor twenty or thirty years ago.

“I’m not worried,” he said, offering Beth and Vivian a friendly smile. “So long as he doesn’t treat the patients that way, we won’t have a problem.”

“Oh he’s the perfect gentleman to every patient who walks through that door,” Vivian said, rolling her eyes. “Calm, kind, attentive. He’ll sit there and answer questions for an hour while somebody rattles off all the things they read on the internet about their diagnosis.”

Nice to patients but not nurses? Interesting. Either he really did consider himself above people like Kyle, or he had some kind of outstanding beef.

Beth had another theory. “He does that just to spite us, you know, so we look like the unreasonable ones if we ever complain to Sloane.” Her voice deepened, imitating the director Kyle had met during his interview. “His patient satisfaction rating is impeccable, Bethany. Have you considered the idea that maybe Dr. Monroe isn’t the common problem here?”

Vivian groaned. “Did he honestly say that to you?”

The conversation changed to griping about Sloane, and while Kyle definitely wanted to endear himself to his co-workers, trash-talking everybody’s boss on day one seemed like a bad idea. So the instant there was a break in the conversation, he took the opportunity to do something useful.

“It looked like there was a patient in three when I came in,” he noted, “have they been seen yet?”

“Mmhmm,” Vivian said, navigating the patient files on an ancient CRT hooked up to an only slightly less ancient PC. She smacked the hard case of the monitor after several long moments of silence. “Damn thing’s locked up again. I swear we’d get a lot more patients in and out of here if they’d actually spring for some computers that were made after 1999.”

Kyle visibly winced, hoping that was an exaggeration. Considering the monitor, he doubted it.

“Three’s a migraine,” Beth said. “Dr. Monroe’s supposed to see her whenever he bothers to drag his ass into work.”

“Do you mind if I follow up? I want the patients to know who I am, so they can grab me if they need me.”

Plus it would give him a chance to get the initial meeting with Dr. Monroe over with as soon as possible. After that, he could just go on to having a productive day.

“Be my guest,” Vivian said. “If you take any vitals, just mark ’em in her chart. I recommend getting in and out quickly though, if you don’t want to bump into His Royal Highness.”

Kyle let out a soft snort of amusement. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said as he turned to head off to curtain three.

It wasn’t nearly as much of a walk as his old hospital. Before, the nurse’s station had been smack dab in the middle of a wing of thirteen curtains, with another thirteen on the other side. People were triaged in a small exam room, then they were given a bed until they were either admitted or discharged.

He’d been told there were twenty-five beds total in Hidden Creek Memorial, and that was split between urgent or acute care and patients who were recovering from the occasional procedure—a rarity in the hospital, and usually only occurring after an emergency.

Though most of the beds were for walk-ins, the layout wasn’t especially efficient. There were only five curtains sectioning off little “rooms” for each patient, with another five down the hall, and more past that.

Curtain three was close to the nurse’s station, though, and Kyle stopped outside the space, his blue sneakers—the one part of his wardrobe he got to choose as a nurse—peeked out under the curtain.

“Mind some company?” he asked, waiting for an answer before he drew back the curtain and stepped into the room.

He ignored the chart for a moment, focusing on the patient. She was in her late thirties, early forties if he had to guess, though the dark circles under her eyes and the deepened frown lines probably made her look older than she was.

“I’m Kyle Harris, one of the on-duty nurses for today. I know you’ve probably talked to a bunch of people already, but I just wanted to touch base and find out what’s going on. Maybe there’s some way I can help?”

She squinted as she looked up at him, in obvious pain though she offered a friendly smile. “Brenda Carson,” she said, introducing herself without the need for a chart. “You’re right, I have talked to what seems like everybody in this damn hospital. Everybody but the one doctor who apparently works here. I know it’s busy,” her words dripped with sarcasm since both the beds beside hers were empty, “but I’d like to know what’s causing these headaches sometime before Christmas.”

Not a friendly smile, then. More of a “bless your heart” smile. But Kyle had long ago learned how to be patient and show compassion to people who were in pain or showing signs of distress.

“You know what, I will check on that for you. In the meantime, I’d like to ask a few questions, see for myself what’s going on, if that’s okay?”

With a heavy sigh, Brenda consented, and Kyle finally picked up her very much not digital chart. He’d brought a pen, thank God, because he didn’t think the patient would’ve waited for him to rummage around for one.

As it was, he had a hard time getting answers out of her that weren’t tinged with annoyance, but he was able to sift through the complaints to take down useful notes for the physician.

He’d guessed the migraines were keeping her up at night, and they were obviously making her more irritable. One of the other nurses had turned off the overhead light, but Kyle took the initiative to turn off the monitors and cover up every other light source, too.

“Any better?” he asked.

“Much,” she said, bringing her hand down from her eyes. “Thank you. That beeping was going to drive me to drink.”

“Afraid I’m all out of bourbon,” Kyle said with a grin, “but I can fetch you a soda. The caffeine might help.”

Maybe a cloth soaked in cool water, too. It wasn’t as good as medication, but he wasn’t authorized to write any prescriptions, only to dispense them. That was one of the reasons he’d decided to go back to school to become a physician’s assistant. He hated feeling helpless when it came to patient care.

Brenda never had a chance to answer him, though, because the curtain was drawn back and a tall, well-built man entered. A tall, well-built man with a very familiar voice.

“Are you suggesting caffeine to my patient before she’s had a workup done?”

Kyle stopped in his tracks, his eyes widening. It couldn’t be. There was no fucking way. But the instant he turned around, he saw the man.

Wes was a doctor at Hidden Creek Memorial. Worse than that, Wes—the man who’d been kind and supportive when Kyle had blue-balled him last night—was the arrogant asshole all the other nurses warned him about.