New day. New attitude. New set of circumstances to be anxious about.

After his conversation with Brandon, Kyle had resolved to take the high road and apologize for his part in what happened to Mrs. Hartford. Whether Wes accepted the apology or changed his behavior didn’t matter—at least, that was what he tried to convince himself. What mattered was that he didn’t want to give Wes, or anyone else, the very wrong idea that he was just as arrogant and unable to put the patient’s needs before his own.

As he walked into the hospital a good half hour before his shift, though, he couldn’t help thinking it would all be for nothing. The tense work environment that had been present from day one would still be there. Wes would still see him as a liability. Someone he had to tolerate, but who wasn’t an actual asset to patient care.

Why do you care what he thinks?

In the grand scheme of things, he didn’t. If Wes wanted to believe all nurses were second-rate medical professionals, fine. There were plenty of doctors who shared that opinion. What bothered Kyle was the worry that he, specifically, wasn’t making enough of an impact to be seen. Not by Wes, necessarily, but by anyone. His colleagues, his boss, the patients.

It was a fear that had manifested back in nursing school, when he’d jumped on every lab and internship opportunity he could get just to prove some theoretical “them” wrong.

No. It wasn’t just nursing school. It started well before that, when his mom told him—after downing a fifth of vodka—that he wasn’t going to amount to anything. He was too soft. Too sensitive. He let people walk all over him, and he was going to spend his life as the eager to please ’yes man’ nobody ever remembered.

Kyle stopped just past the automated doors, that memory catching him off guard. He hadn’t thought about his mom in years. Not consciously, anyway. Not since his father’s funeral, when he’d seen the pictures of her that showed the bright, vivacious woman she was—when she wasn’t drinking.

He drew in a breath through his nose and soldiered on. That was something to untangle some other day, when he had the mental fortitude to deal with it. For now, he needed to psych himself up. Wes would be in soon, and Kyle needed to sort out exactly what he’d say to the man.

Greeting the nurses who were finishing up their shifts from the night before, he made his way to the break room and popped open his locker. No sooner had he stashed his valuables and grabbed his kit than the door swung open, a wide stride eating up the tile floor behind him.

Somehow, Kyle instinctively knew it was Wes. It was that hair-raising feeling he’d always felt right before a Texas thunderstorm.

He turned to see Wes popping open the back off the coffee maker. The man made a face at the very dirty filter, but tossed it without comment. Considering he hadn’t gone on some immediate tirade about how the night shift nurses never remembered to make a fresh pot for the day crew—something he’d admittedly heard his colleagues bitch about—Kyle decided this was the best mood he was going to find Wes in, and went for it.

“Hey.” Solid start. Especially when the doctor didn’t acknowledge him beyond a clipped glance. “I wanted to talk to you for a minute. About Mrs. Hartford’s case.”

“She was discharged last night,” Wes said. “She’ll be following up with her PCP next week, and her son is going to come stay with her for a few days until she feels better.”

He still didn’t look at Kyle. He just washed out the coffee maker and the carafe, pulled down some paper towels to dry everything, then seated a new filter inside.

Meanwhile, Kyle was left wondering how he’d found that out when he just got in. But that wasn’t the point of this conversation. He already knew Wes was intensely focused on patient care. Now he needed to prove that he was, too. At least enough to put this whole thing behind them.

“That’s great to hear,” he said, somewhat awkwardly. The whole thing was made even more awkward by the fact that his badge got caught in his locker and he had to yank it out.

Wes, of course, hadn’t noticed.

Kyle felt his temper rising. It was impossible not to think this was some kind of power play on the man’s part. But he was reminded of his brother’s words, and he finally came out with it.

“I messed up,” he began, letting out a breath. “I should have asked for clarification on the med order before I administered anything. I was so worked up over the shitty way you were suddenly treating me that I did exactly what I told you I wouldn’t. I let you intimidate me, and the patient suffered because of it.”

It didn’t feel as good to get that off his chest as he’d hoped. Probably because, as he’d said, someone paid for his inability to separate his job from his bruised ego. Of course, it didn’t help that Wes all but whirled on him, a savage look in his eyes that Kyle just knew was going to lead to a knock-down, drag-out argument in the middle of the break room.

But something changed. Wes’ expression settled, the anger lines easing, the fury dying down. Steel grey eyes searched his, and the doctor’s expression eased even further at what they found there. After several moments of silence, he just looked… indescribably tired.

Honestly, Wes looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. Even the slight nod he gave spoke of a bone-deep fatigue, and Kyle had to stop himself from asking questions.

“Thankfully the consequences weren’t as dire as they could have been,” Wes said, flipping the switch on the coffee maker. “Just don’t let it happen again.”

Kyle bit back his most immediate response. Wes wasn’t his boss, and he definitely didn’t have the authority to treat him like an underling. But what would arguing that point accomplish? Wes wasn’t saying anything he didn’t already know.

Still, after much deliberation, Kyle decided to be just a little bit petty. “Right. Good talk.”

Part of him expected Wes to rise to the bait, but there was nothing. The doctor just waited for the slow-drip coffee maker without saying a word or otherwise acknowledging Kyle’s presence.

Well. That was a waste of everyone’s time, he thought. Wes hadn’t suddenly become tolerable, and he didn’t feel any better about the mistake he’d made or what he planned to do to correct it.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Kyle just made his way to the door, deciding to start his shift early rather than kill another twenty minutes standing around Wes.

“Good morning, Mr. Maynard. My name’s Doctor Monroe and I’m going to be taking care of you today.”

Kyle froze in the middle of quieting the monitor. Of course Wes was the doctor on this case. Hidden Creek Memorial was a small hospital, but there were still three other doctors to go around, and so far Kyle’s patients had all been assigned to them, not Wes. So much for thinking he had a full day of dodging that bullet.

“I told you I don’t wanna hear that racket,” Mr. Maynard barked, reminding Kyle of his task.

A middle-aged woman rose from the chair in the corner. “Dad, he’s working on it. Please be patient.”

The woman—Mary, Eli Maynard’s daughter—gave Kyle an apologetic look as he turned off the monitors. It wasn’t the first time, and Kyle treated it like all the last. He just gave her a reassuring smile in return and she stopped fidgeting.

“Is that any better, Eli?” Kyle asked.

The room was mostly quiet now, except for the soft beeping of more crucial monitors he wasn’t willing to turn off.

“Seeing as how I can hear myself think now, yeah,” the man grumbled.

Wes observed these interactions, seeming unconcerned with the fact that his appearance had been all but ignored. Deciding to again take the high road—and prove he wasn’t going to back down on this case—Kyle filled the man in.

“This is Eli Maynard and his daughter, Mary.” Kyle turned to the woman and smiled encouragingly. “Mary, why don’t you tell Dr. Monroe what you told me.”

She looked up at Wes, who seemed to sense the high amount of tension in the room. He pulled up a chair on the opposite side of Eli’s bed, and Mary visibly relaxed.

“My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s five years ago. It’s late-stage now, and he’s…” She looked at her father, and the mix of pain and fatigue in her eyes broke Kyle’s heart. “He’s a handful. He’s become combative, which I was told could happen, but he was always such a sweet man.” Her voice shook slightly, but she steeled herself. “Lately I’ve had trouble getting him to eat and drink as much as he should. He started getting dehydrated, so…”

She gave a helpless shrug, and Kyle offered her a smile for going through all of that again. Even as Eli talked through some of it, raising Cain about being treated like an invalid.

“It looks like he’s already been hooked up to IV fluids, and that’ll get some nutrients in him. I’ll schedule a few unobtrusive tests, just to make sure the lack of appetite isn’t a symptom of something else, but this is fairly standard.”

Mary nodded, and Kyle fought back the urge to glower at Wes. Of course she knew it was standard. She knew everything about her father’s disease. She was his primary caretaker.

“In the meantime, Mary, I have to ask…” Here it came. The concerned question about whether or not she’d considered putting her father into a home. “Do you have any kind of support system? Friends, family, spouse? Anyone who can take care of your needs while you take care of your father’s?”

Well, that… wasn’t what he’d expected. Kyle stood there, blinking dumbly. Maybe it was a roundabout way of suggesting it. But as Mary explained her situation, Wes just listened attentively. He didn’t offer heavy-handed suggestions or unwanted concerns, nor did he interject.

In fact, Eli was the one who finally broke the conversation. “Oh, Stephen. Thank God. Will you tell these people I’ll eat when I damn well feel like eating?”

The man looked right at Wes, and it wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on. Quietly, Mary clarified.

“Stephen was my other dad. Eli’s husband.”

“Where were you last night?” Eli pressed. “I missed you. You know I can’t sleep when you’re not around.”

Kyle watched, his whole-body tense as he waited for Wes to burst Eli’s illusion. Some doctors seemed to think it was the “kind” thing to do; that it might help a patient reach lucidity faster. In circumstances like this, though, it just seemed excessively cruel to Kyle.

And apparently to Wes, because he smiled at the older man and… reached for his hand. “I’m here now.”

Eli’s whole expression brightened, and something clenched just behind Kyle’s breastbone.

“Last night I had a dream that you were gone. That you were taken from me,” Eli said, his voice desperate. His whole being was fixed on the man he thought was his husband, and he didn’t see Mary’s sorrow-filled face.

“I’m right here, Eli. But I need you to take care of yourself, okay? And I need you to let Mary help you when I can’t be around.”

Eli scoffed at this, but when he opened his eyes again, they’d turned misty with unshed tears. “She’s just a little girl, Stephen. I don’t wanna put her through that…”

“Dad,” Mary called, reaching out to rest a tentative hand on his arm.

Eli turned to look at his daughter, his eyes seeming almost apologetic. “You’re just a little girl. You shouldn’t have to do this.”

Kyle had no idea if it was a moment of clarity or if he was just expressing a sentiment he’d felt throughout his life. Either way, he felt tears sting at his own eyes, and he busied himself with updating the order for Eli’s IV fluids.

“She’s tough, Eli,” Wes said, drawing the man’s attention. “You raised her to be that way. Stop being so stubborn and let her help.” A soft smile touched his lips—the kind that made Kyle’s heart do an odd little flip. “For me. Please.”

Eli held his head proudly, staring down the man he believed to be his spouse. But finally he let out a sigh, following it with a gravelly chuckle.

“Bastard. You know I can’t resist that.”

Kyle smiled to himself as the visit transitioned yet again. Wes filled Mary in on what he planned to do and gave the order for Kyle to get a full round of labs worked up. As the two of them prepared to leave—Wes to move on to the next patient, and Kyle to get that order put in immediately—Mary stopped them just outside the curtain.

“I just wanted to thank you,” she said, the earnestness in her voice causing a swell of emotion to rise in Kyle again. “Both of you. No one understands what he needs. That’s why I can’t bring myself to take him anywhere. But you both get it, and you treated him—and me—with respect, so thank you.”

“Respect is the bare minimum you’re both owed,” Wes said, missing the point. Kyle shot him a look, and he added, “And it’s the least we can do.”

“Dr. Monroe is right. You need a support system as much as Eli does,” Kyle said.

Wes nodded. “I’d like to recommend you to a therapist I know personally. She doesn’t push, and she has extended hours to accommodate people who are in your situation.”

He pulled a pen and a small pad of paper out of the breast pocket of his lab coat. As Kyle watched, he saw Wes take extra care with his handwriting.

“I’d love to talk to someone, but there’s no way I can leave him alone that long,” she said, looking back at the curtain.

“Maybe you can find someone who does Skype sessions?” Kyle suggested. “There’s a website that lists the therapists who do them. May I?”

He gestured to Wes, and the doctor handed over the pen and paper without comment. Kyle wrote the URL of the database he’d found when searching for his own therapist some time ago, then handed both pen and pad back to Wes. Fingers brushed so briefly that if it wasn’t for the electricity that arced through his body, Kyle wouldn’t have even known it happened.

As it was, he found himself very, very aware of it. Especially when those grey eyes locked with his.

This was the Wes he remembered. This was the man who’d shown him kindness and compassion the night they first met. And this Wes was far more dangerous to him than the man who completely disregarded his input and treated him like a child.

Tearing his gaze away, Wes pulled off the top sheet and handed it to Mary. “I put my cell number on there, as well. Just in case you ever need someone to talk to.”

“I don’t know what to say…” Mary looked down at the piece of paper, tears in her eyes.

Wes reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. Kyle was almost concerned she might throw herself against the man and start sobbing—he probably would have, were he in her shoes—but she just sniffled, her eyes and nose red as she pulled herself back into the working state she had to maintain to take care of her father.

“I won’t forget this,” she said softly, looking at Wes and Kyle in turn. “Thank you.”

The two men waited as Mary went to be with her father. Kyle assumed Wes was just going to head off to his next patient, but the man stayed put, looking at him in a way that felt… strange. Not bad, necessarily. Just strange.

It almost felt like Wes was seeing something he hadn’t before, and he was stuck staring in awe.

“I’ll… get those orders in,” Kyle said, feeling like a bashful teenager again.

“Good,” was Wes’ eventual answer, accompanied by a nod, and the word being repeated two more times. Neither of them moved, and finally Wes said, “Come find me when you take your lunch.”

And that was that. No explanation, no insight into what that meant before Wes turned and walked away, leaving Kyle to stand there feeling like an idiot. An idiot whose heart was pounding at the idea of a private meeting with Dr. Monroe.