Page 37
I pour myself a cup of coffee and drink half before it even cools, then finish the rest without pausing. Heat spreads through my chest, grounding me, anchoring my limbs back into something functional. I wipe the crumbs from my lips and take a breath, making sure I look composed before stepping back out. No one needs to know that I’m running on sugar and caffeine.
I step into the first room and the hospital routine settles over me. Temperature, pulse, questions about pain. Smiles exchanged, reassurance given. My hands move through tasks on autopilot, muscle memory guiding me. My mind hovers half a step above, still processing everything from earlier, but my body knows what to do.
Some of the patients smile when they see me, relief passing over their faces. Others barely glance up, too wrapped in their own pain or drowsiness. To most of them, I am background. Replaceable. The nurse whose name they might not remember in a week.
I cling to that anonymity.
From time to time, I catch my reflection in a window or a stainless-steel cabinet. I look normal. No sign on my face that I spent the day being drugged, or strapped to a table.
Inside, though, the contrast is sharp.
At some point, I sense a shift in the air near the station. A restless presence. I finish adjusting a drip and step back into the corridor.
Taylor stands near the door with a plastic bag in his hand. His shoulders curve inward slightly, and his eyes look raw. Grief hangs over him, heavy and dense.
Our eyes meet. For a moment, both of us stop.
He swallows. “Hey.”
“Hi.” I walk over slowly. “You came for his things?”
He looks down at the bag, then back at me. “Yeah. They called earlier. I wasn’t ready then. I thought I should be a grown-up about it tonight.”
His voice cracks around the word ‘grown-up’.
“Everything’s there,” I say gently. “Come, I’ll walk you outside.”
He exhales in a rush. “Sure.”
I nod and gesture toward the corridor.
We walk side by side, past the bays where patients lie sleeping or watching late-night TV with the volume turned down.
Taylor’s gaze flicks into the rooms, then away. Each monitor beep seems to hit him harder than it should.
We turn a corner. The corridor narrows slightly here, fewer people, fewer doors. I keep my pace slow, letting him process each step.
We reach the end of the hallway, and he stops, turns toward me, and looks fully into my face for the first time tonight.
“Come with me,” he says suddenly.
My chest hitches. “What?”
“Leave this job.” His voice gains momentum, fueled by a mixture of exhaustion and determination. “Leave this place. Come with me. We can go somewhere else. Anywhere else. I’ll quit my job. I’m serious.”
I blink. The words hit in a rush.
“What are you talking about?”
He runs a hand over his face, fingers pressing against his eyes. “I went to that club you took me to, and it shifted something. I began seeing you in another light.”
He stares at me, eyes shining as my pulse ticks faster. A part of me remembers the night I took him to The Boarpit. Another part remembers him fucking me while I was a cum bucket for the night.
“Taylor,” I say softly, “you’re grieving. You just lost–”
“I know exactly what I lost.” His jaw tenses. “And I know what I want now. You. Somewhere else. Away from all this. I swear, I’ll make it work. Just us.”
The idea he paints should tempt me. But I have seen too much. I have felt too much. I cannot forget the weight of a man’s hand on my throat in the ring and realize that I wanted it. I cannot scrub away the image of Rio three inches from my face, telling me I am safe while the whole club watches. I cannot erase Brox’s eyes when I screamed in that basement and he came for me.
