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“Good. I’ve got your six, man. Out there in the field, and back here.” Curly said the words, but Wes wasn’t sure he quite believed him. He might not be pissed at Curly, but it was going to be damn hard to trust him as a friend again.
“Coming up on the airport,” Shiny announced, interrupting whatever guilt-ridden thing Curly was about to say next and saving Wes the trouble of figuring out a reply.
“No time to park,” Bacon said. “Be ready to hop out in the drop-off line. And good luck, man. Praying for your family.”
“Same here,” Curly and Shiny echoed as Bacon merged into the departures lane, following a line of taxis before reaching the front of the airline’s terminal.
“Give ’em hell,” Curly said, right before Wes jumped out of the car, the second Bacon pulled up to the curb.
Security was a bitch as usual and then he flat-out sprinted to the gate, making it right as the gate attendant made the final boarding call for the flight to Dallas. He spent that whole flight, phone in his lap, waiting for a text that didn’t come.
Racing across the sprawling Dallas airport, his phone finally buzzed. Still in surgery.
Hell, she should be out by now. Mind churning, he took his seat on the flight into Raleigh. He scanned the rest of his messages—tons from the rest of the team promising thoughts and prayers, one from Bacon wanting to know that he’d made the flight, but none from the one person he most wanted to hear from.
You said no contact. Told him to delete chat. What did you expect? Dustin wasn’t going to risk his career to reach out, not when Wes had told him in no uncertain terms that this was just sex. This was the outcome he’d wanted, right?
But hell if he didn’t miss him. First thing, as soon as the news had come in, he’d glanced Dustin’s way, soul seeking him even as the rest of him knew better. He might need Dustin, but there was no question that Dustin was better off without him.
The flight was bumpy, making it hard to dwell on Dustin or Sam or anything other than hoping his empty stomach didn’t rebel against the black coffee he’d poured down his throat. His aunt met his flight, taking him straight to the hospital.
“Surgery went six and a half hours,” she reported on the drive to the hospital. “And it’s still touch and go. It’s in God’s hands now, but I know your parents are going to be glad to see you.”
In the surgical waiting room, his parents were sitting with his uncle and a few other family members. As luck would have it, James was in Guatemala on a school trip, not scheduled to get back until tomorrow.
“You made it.” His mother stood, tears spilling down her cheeks as she embraced him. And oh shit, now he was at risk of crying too, not enough sleep or food and too much emotion catching up with him.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” he said gruffly. “We landed and my buddies got me straight to the airport. I’ve got a few days’ leave. How is she now?”
“The doctors say she’s holding her own, which is about all we can hope for right now—surgery went much longer and more complicated than they hoped for, and they had a hard time weaning her off the heart and lung machine.”
Wes settled in next to them, nothing to do but wait. Someone brought him a sandwich, which he downed, not tasting it. Coffee appeared, making the rounds to everyone waiting. Some relatives tearfully headed home in search of sleep with promises to return in the morning. Wes knew trying to convince his parents to go home and sleep would be a futile battle.
So he sat there, drifting, not really dozing, but not all that awake either. And as he drifted on a haze of sleep-deprivation and depleted adrenaline, his gaze kept returning to his parents. His dad kept an arm protectively around his mother, seeming to know instinctively when she needed another coffee or a tight hug. And his mom kept patting his dad’s knee, turning the waiting room TV to the documentary channel Wes and his dad always liked and making enough comments here and there to try to draw his dad’s attention back to the show.
They were a true partnership, years of knowing each other’s habits and needs. Today might well be one of the hardest days of their lives, but at least they had each other. I want that in my life. Wes had seen them together his whole life, but he’d never really let himself articulate that desire before. He wanted a partner, someone to build a life with.
Dustin.
He wanted Dustin to be that person. He could so easily picture some alternate universe where Dustin was right here with him, telling him jokes and getting him food, and knowing exactly what to say. And he could envision the converse too—Dustin coming home after a long day, Wes taking care of him with food and sex, putting his man back together so that he could go forth and face the world again in the morning. Because that was what it was all about—finding that one person who made you stronger.
