Khi grimaced as he also read the board. “My luck, it will be Mary. She’s a real stickler on the rules.”
We didn’t know all of the personnel at the hospital, but several of the nurses worked ER rotations enough that we knew many of them.
“So, I guess you won’t have to get a new partner. It looks like I’ll be good as new in no time.” I rubbed at the IV, already itching to get out of the bed and back to the comfort of my own home.
“Don’t even joke about that,” Khi said with a scowl.
I shrugged. “It’s not like we’ll be partners for the rest of our lives.” Not sure why I was being surly, I shifted in the bed and tried to get comfortable.
Khi pinned me with a hard gaze. “Maybe not at the station—I know you’ve got big things going to happen one of these days.”
My stomach flip-flopped. “What do you mean?” I was wondering if he’d bring up what I said in the car. Or at least, I thought I’d said it. Maybe I’d been too out of it and was imagining things.
Khi chewed the corner of his lip. “In the car, before the crew showed up, you said something.”
“Yeah?” My heart was beating so hard I worried the monitors would go off.
“I just have one question.”
I raised a brow.
“You think or you know?”
A shuddering breath escaped me and I swallowed thickly. “I know. I’m in love with you. And I’m sorry if that messes with our fuck buddies plan, but it happened and there was no way to stop it.”
Khi, not letting go of my hand, stood and brushed a soft kiss over my lips. “Stop. I’m in love with you, too. Definitely didn’t plan it, but it steamrolled me.”
It was probably the drama of the day or the pain medication, but my eyes stung with unshed tears. “I still can’t believe how dumb we were way back then. Did we fuck shit up and cause us to miss out on some great years?”
Khi kissed me again and smiled as he settled back into his chair. “We really were dumb. But I think we can blame it on immaturity and undeveloped teen brains. Honestly, though, I don’t think us getting together as teens would have been for the best. I truly think we needed that time apart and those life experiences to bring us to where we are. I think we’re both a lot smarter now. Personally, looking back, I can see that being jealous of your parents was ridiculous because they were absolute assholes. But at the time, I was so caught up in proving myself, I thought everyone had more than me in every aspect.”
I nodded. “We were both pretty caught up in ourselves, huh?”
Khi caressed my hand. “I’m not sure there was much else we could’ve been in our situations.”
“What did you feel you had to prove?” I asked.
“I was the gay mixed kid from the trailer park. Never white enough, never Black enough, always way too gay for the straight crowd, and way too straight for the gay crowd—if one can even say Bellville had a gay crowd. Smart, but not smart enough. Talented on the court, but not superstar material.” Khi leaned forward on his elbows and held my hand in both of his. “I’ve never tried to hide the fact I’m Black. Honestly, my mom leaving Gabby and me the way she did made me want nothing to do with being white. But embracing my Blackness put me in a position to wonder if I would turn out like my worthless father. Being Black and gay is a double whammy and I wasn’t prepared to handle it back then. Sometimes I still deal with the intersection of being Black and gay. I lucked out that my father wasn’t anywhere close to religious because I know that’s an even deeper hole to dig out of.”
I scoffed. “Yeah, definitely.” A feeling of connectedness—not from being friends, partners, or fuck buddies, but a real kinship—washed over me with Khi’s words. “The bias faced by Black gay men is a lot to deal with. Not saying we’re the only ones coping with marginalization and condemnation—I know trans people, especially Black trans women, face dangerous bias even more so. But growing up Black, in a religious home, and finally coming to terms that I’m gay was a lot. I’d never wish a drunk asshole father on anyone, but just the same, I’d never wish Bible-thumping homophobic parents on anyone either.”
Khi pressed his lips to my fingers. “I hear that.”
“It does get easier, but there are so many times that I wonder which the homophobic racists think is worse? Being a Black gay man or being a gay Black man.”
Khi snorted. “Yep, double whammy.” He frowned.
“What?”
He shook his head. “Just thinking, if we’d been in the position to have this conversation way back then, my undeveloped brain would have insisted at least you don’t have to also deal with not being white enough, and I realize now that it’s not a competition. We all have our own obstacles and challenges, personal demons we have to deal with. Doesn’t make anyone’s journey less just because it’s different.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “That’s a good way to look at it.”
The door swung open and I felt Khi’s hands grip mine.
“Visiting hours don’t start for five minutes,” Mary said, her hawk-eyed glare pinned on Khi.
I cracked an eye and watched Khi plaster on a beaming smiled. “My bad, my watch must be fast.”
Mary grunted and eyed Khi with a scowl. “I didn’t see you stop by the nurses station.”
“Must be my ninja-like quickness.” Khi winked.
Oh God, his powers of flirtation weren’t going to work on Mary. She was old-school, hard-ass, and deeply devoted to her wife of twenty years.
She narrowed her eyes and I saw her preparing to lay into him.
Luckily, a hand pushed the curtain aside and Anthony, the gorgeous LPN, appeared. “Hey, Mary.
