Page 62 of Give Me What You Will

“I know. I know,” Wyatt shrugged. “I thought the same thing for a while. But he’s a cool guy once you give him a chance.”

“I’m okay. I’m fresh out of fucks to give.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

Sam shot the younger man a hard look.

Wyatt backed up, hands out in defense. “Sorry, not sorry. But you haven’t been the most pleasant to work with lately, just sayin’.”

He jabbed the pin code into his locker, yanking open the metal door and wanting to punch something.

“You know we’re here, right?” Wyatt said kindly. “Our door is always open if you ever wanna come by for dinner. Just… talk. Eat. Drink. Whatever you need.”

He swallowed, the dull ache in his chest expanding. He missed hanging out with his friends from the hospital. John especially. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he had gone to the Hot Dog Palace with everyone.

“John told me about your friend, and Steph mentioned he was here in February. Look, I know this is your business, but we love you, man,” Wyatt said. “We want you to be happy.”

Emotion welled inside him, and he sighed. “Thanks. I’m just… figuring things out.”

Wyatt nodded slowly, “With Frankie?”

Sam suddenly couldn’t breathe. Frankie’s name—the concern in Wyatt’s tone—all of it was just too much. He worked hard to keep his personal life outside of the ED.

“Not anymore,” he said roughly.

Wyatt hesitated. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I knew what I was doing and should’ve known better. Everything tends to blow up in my face when I let my guard down.”

He nodded. “Maybe it’s supposed to hurt.”

Sam’s busy hands stilled over his backpack as he glanced over to the younger man. “What do you mean?”

“You remember this?” Wyatt pointed to the scar on his arm from the knife-wielding dickhead that had come into the ED last year and had unexpectedly attacked Wyatt.

“Yeah,” Sam replied. “Hard to forget that day.”

Because that was the day John crumbled at Wyatt’s bedside. Sam had seen the love between them like a tidal wave, washing over them both and suspending them in a space entirely separate from Sam, even though he was in the room patching the wound.

“I told John how I felt that day. That I loved him,” Wyatt admitted, his smile soft and oddly sad. “And at the time, he wasn’t ready to hear it and ran. That hurt more than the fucking knife wound. It took a while, but I eventually realized that love is the messiest, most vulnerable emotion we have. Not hate, not fear. Love. And when we find it, we chase it. We grab it with both fucking hands, and we don’t let go until it's ours.”

“What if I can’t keep holding on anymore?” Sam asked quietly.

“Do you love him?” Wyatt asked. The question was direct but gentle.

Sam, refusing to say the words, nodded. He averted his gaze, wanting to sink into a dark hole, hating how much he loved Frankie, and terrified that he would love him for the rest of his life.

“So maybe,” Wyatt said. “You should do something about it. Love will eat us alive if we sit on it. If I’ve learned anything from the time I spent chasing John, it’s that we have to say yes—to jump—even when it scares the hell outta us.”

Two Months Later

He couldn’t breathe.

Literally couldn’t catch his breath.

Sam just started walking, phone clutched in his hand, nearly running up five flights of stairs before reaching the maternity ward. The second he opened the door, he was met with relieving fucking silence. He spotted the nurse he’d made friends with a few months earlier. She glanced up from her reading glasses and, without a word, pointed down the hall.

“Thanks,” he said, trying not to collapse right there.