She nodded. “You are, though.”
He stilled.
“I know,” Steph said simply. “I blame it entirely on old age that I didn’t figure it out sooner.”
Jin’s voice rang out from the other room, clearly eavesdropping. “Queen, you’re gorgeous, and don’t look a day over 40!”
She laughed, “Thanks, honey.”
“How?” Wyatt asked.
“Johnny told me.”
Stunned, he sat back.
“It took about half a bottle of whiskey and Samuels and me berating him, but eventually he folded like laundry and couldn’t stop talkin’ about ya. I’ve never heard him talk like that about anyone. Not even Melissa.”
“Melissa?”
“His ex-wife.”
John never really talked about that past life—the one where he was married to a woman. And yet, he had. He told him that he had buried himself and all that he was after his brother’s death, trying to cope and be something that he wasn’t.
“I shouldn’t have been surprised Samuels already knew,” Steph chuckled, “That man was a bit too excited to hear that Johnny and his favorite cowboy were an item. Samuels likes you—so do I. So does Johnny.”
Wyatt didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. His throat had all but clammed up, and his bleeding heart was hemorrhaging in his chest. John had told his friends about them—whatever they were, he still didn’t know because they hadn’t talked since the attack at the hospital.
He gritted his teeth, jaw flexing.
Steph took a long sip from her canned cocktail. “You know, I’m a bit disappointed in you, Lawson. I thought you were more of a fighter than this.”
He tilted his head back as though she sucker punched him.
“What happened to the fearless cowboy running that horse like the devil was chasing him?”
He exhaled. “He grew up.”
“Or, maybe he got cold feet. We all do. But that doesn’t mean we don’t step back into that arena. You do it every day when you walk into the emergencydepartment. Gladiators is what we are. Johnny gave up for a while there. And every single one of us in that department felt the change in him when you took notice. You’re a tough son of a bitch. You took on a knife-wielding asshole and made it out alive.”
He leaned forward, baring his soul. “He doesn’t want me.”
Steph didn’t even blink. “Bullshit.”
“Doesn’t make it any less true.”
Steph shook her head, disappointed, eyes flickering to the window over Wyatt’s shoulder. “Melissa really did a number on him,” she raked her fingers through her thick dark hair, sighing. “They tried for years to have a kid. Painted a nursery and everything. Their therapist told them to create the space as though the baby were coming. And it never did. It devastated them both, but especially him. He couldn’t give her what she wanted. And I think…” Steph’s eyes watered, but the tears never fell. “I think Johnny lost himself during that. I think he believed that if he gave Melissa a baby, it would be enough. It would be enough to make up for the lack of love in their marriage. Because he didn’t love her. If he truly loved that woman, he wouldn’t have been working sixty, sometimes eighty hours a week.”
Steph drummed her fingers on her can. “The divorce was messy. It took another couple of years for Johnny to come out to me. But he still chose the safety of his job over finding a partner. I don’t blame him for it. Any one of us would’ve done the same thing…”
The swift pang of grief filled him, imagining the pain John must have endured. The loneliness of it.
“I love him,” Steph breathed, emotion tightening around her lips. “But he’s a fuckin’ idiot if he thinks that this job is better than the people around him who care. And maybe, I was hoping, a fearless kid like you would help remind him of that fact.”
She abruptly stood and pulled out a piece of paper from her purse, tossing it on the table.
“Sorry, not sorry, Lawson.”
He opened it and saw it was his FMLA paperwork, meant for Tanya.
