Medically Speaking

Chapter 25

Standing in Brandon's sterile looking room, exactly the way it had been before he'd arrived, left me feeling happy for him. He was still perched on his bed, waiting for me to finish with his discharge paperwork, but he was going home. He'd been a bit of a piss baby about being here at first, but he'd fought to get healthy enough to leave, no matter what was thrown at him. He'd faced just about every complication in the book but today, there was color in his face and an anxious anticipation permeating the air.

There was that weird ache in my chest that I often got when my long-term patients flew the coop because you do get used to them being around. You learn their likes and dislikes, like how Brandon likes chocolate or vanilla pudding, but tapioca makes him gag. You laugh with them, you care for them at their hardest hours, and you celebrate their victories from the smallest to the largest. Watching them leave after all of that is bittersweet but mostly, it's sweet.

The room still felt bizarrely empty. The extra chairs were gone. All of Brandon's things were gone. The conference room had already been set back up to the exact way it had been before they took over it. Only four of the guys were even on hospital property. Sean was somewhere in the Academy hospital doing his job, Corey was off hunting down a wheelchair, and North was pulling the car around to a side entrance to save Brandon the embarrassment of being rolled out the main doors.

Getting him to accept the wheelchair without me karate chopping him into it had been hard enough. I knew our limits.

"It's weird not having twenty-six eyeballs watching to make sure I don't accidentally murder you," I teased as I showed him where else to sign. His handwriting was almost illegible enough to be a doctor's, which was endlessly amusing since Sean's handwriting wasn't nearly as bad as most medical professionals.

Brandon snorted. "They can be a little much, even when they mean well. They're a pain in the ass, but we go through everything together as a family. It can be really fucking annoying, but that unity is what keeps us going. It's what makes everything we do possible."

I stuck my lip out as I drawled, "Awww! Don't go getting sappy on me, Brandon, or I'll never make it through this without tears." He scowled at me, but there was no heat in it, none of the animosity it had contained in our early days together in this room. "I'm teasing, I think it's great how close all of you are."

And he's one of the ones that's interested in seeing if I can be a part of that family. I've managed to wrestle the thought into submission and to the back of my mind all morning. If they were acting any weirder than the few lingering glances I've received this morning, I haven't noticed by pure design. Pretending nothing was going on was the easiest path. I can't afford to be that distracted at work, too many people rely on me to stay alive, but it would be a lie if I said that seeing Corey this morning didn't send my heart racing.

Last night it had been all I could think about. My exhausted brain refused to shut down, preferring to run over what had happened with Corey and Raven and flood me with a mixture of fantasies of a future with them and a self-narrated newsreel of ways it could go wrong.

Shuffling through the papers, I handed Brandon his collection of information sheets. "I know Sean went over these with you, but if you have questions, feel free to ask."

His hand wrapped around my arm and I yelped when he pulled me down next to him as he skimmed over them one last time. I knew better, he didn't actually give a shit what was on them. Anything he wasn't sure of Sean would have handled. Flustered, I tried to put a bit more space between us, but he just leaned towards me again. Not putting any weight on me but making sure our shoulders were brushing.

Corey chose exactly that moment to come through the door, pushing the wheelchair along as he went. Brandon gave it a side eye while Corey raised an eyebrow at us. I shrugged at him, pretending like this wasn't making me a bit woozy. "He needed help reading the big words."