He’s parking at the emergency room entrance by the time I mop up what I can with the towels. It’s going to have to be good enough, I decide, slipping out of Tia’s blazer and into Bax’s huge jacket. I don’t miss his eyes lingering on my chest in the lacy camisole, but there’s no time for me to stop and wonder what it might mean that Baxter Morgan is finally paying attention to my body.
I quickly walk up to the front desk, making note that the hospital floors are a bit slick under my heels. The security guard looks up from his newspaper. “May I help you?”
“Yes, hi. I realize I look a mess. I’m looking for Tim Peterson. He came in via ambulance a few minutes ago…I’m his athletic trainer and I was hoping—”
The guard points a thumb down the hall. “He’s in room 106,” he says. He eyes Baxter curiously, but I grab his hand. “You two can head on back.”
When Bax and I get down the hall to Tim’s room, he seems to be asleep on the bed. Kevan sits beside him on a folding chair, holding Tim’s hand and kissing Tim’s knuckles. Kev looks up when we walk in and seems relieved.
Springing up from the chair, Kevan pulls me and Baxter both into a big hug. “Guys, I’m so fucking sorry,” he says. “Jesus, this is exactly the kind of shit I try to avoid. This is why I don’t date guys who are in the closet.” Kevan starts pulling at his hair and then sinks back into the chair, picking Tim’s hand back up.
Tim has one arm in a sling against his chest to keep the joint stable. He must have gotten some good pain meds if he can sleep right now, because I know this injury is quite painful. I pat Kevan’s back, trying to reassure him, but Baxter isn’t one to offer soft words.
“Kevan, you have about five minutes to tell me what the fuck is going on with this whole fucking day before the paparazzi gets here,” he says, gesturing down the hall. “The guard definitely knows who I am and the staff probably knows who you are, so spill it before we’re on the top of everyone’s Instagram.”
“Tim’s story breaks my heart,” I tell Baxter, reaching for one of his fries in the cafeteria. We spent the past hour listening to Kevan explain how he and Tim grew up together, were friends all through high school. “Pence, Peterson,” Kevan said. “We were always together. Always.” Kevan has been out since elementary school, but Tim only admitted his feelings for Kevan senior year, after a drunken prom night.
Tim is absolutely terrified of losing his family, of losing their support, of what they’d say if they found out his true feelings for the boy next door. And so Tim and Kevan spent the summer before college hiding their relationship.
Baxter frowns into his fries and says, “Kevan said it was a relief when they went off to different schools. I don’t get that at all.” He takes my hand. “I could never be happy at a different school from my best friend.”
I shrug. “Yeah, but Kevan was probably exhausted from having to hide. At his other school, it sounds like he could date whoever he wanted and just be open about it.”
I swallow. Kevan said he tried to stay away from Tim when he transferred here to SCU, tried to give him space, especially when he learned Tim was still in the closet. Loving him is killing me, Kevan said, quietly crying in Tim’s hospital room. But being apart from him was killing me, too.
Kevan apologized for not being totally honest with Bax, that bringing him to the banquet was mostly a ploy to see if he could still make Tim jealous. It certainly worked, and it definitely didn’t make Kevan feel any better.
My breath catches as I watch Baxter take a sip of his drink and, holding me in an intense stare, Bax says, “Dating and fucking a string of randoms isn’t freeing, Olive. You think it’s going to erase what you’re really trying to hide, but it doesn’t work like that.”
The air is heavy between us and my hands start shaking. I want so badly to tell Baxter the truth—to stop hiding how I feel and just take that leap. Ask him what he’s trying to hide. Let myself be with him.
Down the hall, Tim is probably coming to and having to make a choice.
Baxter was right about the rabid paparazzi. Social media “influencers” and sports reporters flooded into the hospital as soon as Kevan was done talking. I saw online pictures from the banquet hall, with Kev stroking Tim’s hair in his lap after I set his shoulder.
Tim’s either going to have to lie to the media to keep up the ruse that he’s straight, or he’s going to risk losing his family to be with the man he loves.
Baxter and I both lost our families a long time ago. We know how dark that path can be. But right now, sitting across from him at the shitty hospital cafeteria, it doesn’t feel so scary to reach out and rub his leg. So I do. “Bax,” I whisper. He rests his hand on top of mine on his rock-hard thigh. “Take me home.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Bax
By the time I get Olive back to my place, she’s shaking all over. I don’t know if she’s cold, or if it’s the adrenaline. It’s probably both, if memory serves. I don’t say much in the car. Something definitely shifted with us after hearing Kevan’s story. The way she put her hand
