Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The street was quiet in a way unique to Austin at night. Not so empty that his footsteps echoed off the buildings, but calm enough that TK could easily count the cars drifting lazily down either side of the road, their headlights like small gliding stars.

Every few seconds, beams of light swept past him, sometimes heading toward the sleek glass entrance of the luxury hotel across the street, where valets stood waiting under pools of soft, golden light. Other times, the cars turned into the driveway leading up to St. David’s Medical Center, the hospital that stood directly across from the hotel, its lights glowing steadily in the night.

It was from that hospital that TK had just emerged, rubbing a tired hand over his face as the not-so-warm Texas night air wrapped around him like a thin blanket. He was still dressed in his scrubs, the navy blue fabric feeling soft and a little rumpled after the long hours he’d spent working in the cardiology unit. There was a faint crease between his brows, the kind that lingered after hours of worrying over patients and watching monitors blink in the dark.

The night breeze carried the faint, mouthwatering scent of barbecued meat drifting in from some late-night food truck a few streets over. Neon signs glowed red and gold across the buildings, their reflections shimmering faintly on the pavement, while dry leaves rustled and skipped along the sidewalk in tiny, restless dances.

Today’s shift had been… well, normal. Or at least, normal by the standards of a cardiologist, which often meant a day full of controlled chaos. There had been a handful of patients with angina and a couple of heart attacks, plus one particularly stubborn case of pericarditis that had kept TK running back and forth between the cardiology unit and the ER several times. On top of that, he’d had his own patients waiting for him in the CCU and on the medical floors, all needing updates, check-ins, or just a reassuring word.

By the time he finally wrapped things up, TK felt like someone had wrung every last drop of energy out of him and left him running on fumes. But he reminded himself that he’d seen worse shifts. Compared to some of those days, today barely even registered as truly chaotic.

The rest of his day had been divided between professional conversations and the not-so-professional ones that inevitably happened with the hospital staff.

On the professional side, there was teaching the junior residents, giving orders and clarifications to the nurses and med students, and sometimes dealing with frustrated colleagues. Like earlier that afternoon, when the ER attending had snapped at him for taking too long to respond to a cardiology page. TK had tried to explain, with as much patience as he could manage, that one of the main hallways in the cardiology wing was under construction, forcing him to circle around the building more than once, or worse, jog down five flights of stairs because the elevators were blocked off.

Then there were the non-professional moments, the ones that could either lighten his mood or make the day feel even longer, depending on how you looked at it.

Like the endless questions from Nancy and Mateo, who seemed determined to figure out why TK was still single and why, in their opinion, he hadn’t ‘done something about it already.’ Or the way the three of them shared mutual eye-rolls every time a patient’s family member started complaining so loudly that their voices echoed down the hallways of the unit.

Or Leslie, the new ER nurse, who apparently hadn’t gotten the memo that TK was into guys, and who kept trying to flirt with him every chance she got, flashing bright smiles and tossing her hair over her shoulder like they were in a rom-com.

And then there was Scott, the second-year cardiology resident, who had once again tried to hit on him in the hallway, leaning in just a little too close and lowering his voice in that way he probably thought was charming. TK had simply given him a polite smile and kept walking, pretending not to notice the hopeful look lingering in Scott’s eyes. Nancy and Mateo hadn’t let that go either. Afterward, they’d both glared at TK like he was personally offending them by refusing to give Scott a chance.

But TK had only shaken his head, telling them firmly that Scott simply wasn’t his type. And besides, he’d reminded them—like he always did—that they all needed to keep things strictly professional while they were on shift.

Yet even as he’d said the words, part of him felt a pang of something he couldn’t quite name. A quiet wish that he didn’t always have to draw those lines so firmly, that maybe he could let himself blur them once in a while. But boundaries were safer. And his life already felt complicated enough without adding a hospital romance into the mix.

Despite being sort of new to the hospital, TK Strand had already earned a reputation as one of the youngest cardiology attendings on staff. He had been there for less than two years, but in a place where news traveled fast, it didn’t take long for word to spread. His medical knowledge was sharp, his instincts precise, and his calm ability to manage high-pressure cardiac cases had quickly earned him the respect of nearly everyone around him, from residents and nurses to even the more seasoned attendings who’d seen it all.

He brought a quiet discipline to his work. He was quick on his feet, focused in his decisions, and decisive when the situation demanded it. But that wasn’t all that defined TK Strand. He carried a kindness that was just as noticeable as his medical skill. He treated everyone the same way—patients, nurses, techs, custodial staff—with an easy, calm respect, as if he wasn’t the rising-star cardiologist whose name everyone seemed to whisper about in admiration.

And then there was his smile. It wasn’t flashy or forced; his smile was soft and warm, gentle enough to ease a patient’s fear or make a colleague feel seen after a rough shift. Yet there was something about it that seemed to ripple outward, like sunlight breaking through clouds. That smile alone could light up the entire floor, even in a ward filled with sick hearts, relentless monitors, and the shrill sound of alarms. It was that rare, quiet kind of magic that never demanded attention, but somehow always managed to draw it.

That was Dr. TK Strand’s power.

Now, after fourteen straight hours on his feet, he finally reached the bus stop a block away from the hospital entrance, his shoulders heavy with exhaustion but his steps still carrying purpose. All he wanted was to head home and, maybe—if he was very lucky—get seven hours of uninterrupted sleep.

That was, of course, assuming the hospital didn’t call him back first.

He lifted his gaze to the sky overhead, drawing in a slow breath as he tried to shake off the weight of the day. The Austin night had draped itself in a deep, dark blue, touched with streaks of pale cloud drifting past the soft glow of the streetlights. The air was cool, not quite cold enough to bite into his skin, but not gentle enough to stand there comfortably without a jacket for long.

TK tucked his hands deeper into the pockets of his sweatshirt as he made his way to the bus stop. He chose the far end of the bench, settling on the left side, where the shadows gathered thickest against the glass shelter. On the opposite end of the bench, a man sat alone, angled slightly away, his hood pulled up, the streetlights casting a faint glow over the curve of his cheek. TK shot him a quick glance, then looked away, pulling out his phone to check the time.

It was just past 9 p.m. and he’d missed the last bus by barely five minutes, again. The next one wouldn’t arrive for another twenty-five minutes, which felt like an eternity to his aching body.

For TK, this bench had become a familiar part of his routine. It was a quiet ritual he returned to after most shifts, whether the day had gone well or left him feeling hollowed out and wrung dry. He knew this would be the last bus of the night running along this route. It was almost always empty, and nobody seemed to ride it except him.

This neighborhood was too polished and too expensive for most people to even consider taking public transit. The towering hotel across the street, with its marble lobby, uniformed staff, and valet parking, had a way of making everything else around it feel smaller and slightly out of place. The streets here were lined with high-end bars and restaurants, each one spaced out carefully so they didn’t crowd each other, their names glowing softly in discreet neon.

Most of the people in this part of town didn’t wait for buses. They slipped into sleek cars parked at the curb or ordered private rides that whisked them away, vanishing behind tinted windows and quiet engines.

But not TK.

His life hadn’t always looked like this: walking out of a cardiology unit wearing scrubs that were usually more dirty than clean, with a bank account that definitely wasn’t big enough to buy a house nearby—or even a car to drive there. But he was here because of the choices he’d made over the years. Some were good, solid choices that he felt proud of. Others were choices he still carried regret for, like a shadow always following a few steps behind.

So he waited. And sometimes it felt like this lonely bus stop understood him better than most people ever could.

Tonight, though, something felt different. It struck TK as strange to see someone else waiting there with him.

A young man, around his own age, sat at the other end of the bench, dressed in clothes so obviously expensive that the designer labels practically caught and reflected the streetlight, glinting even from a few feet away.

TK’s eyes lingered on him for a moment longer than he meant them to, curiosity flickering quietly in his chest. The man wore a black cap pulled low over his brow, casting deep shadows across his face and hiding most of his features in darkness. The collar of his long, dark coat was turned up so high that it nearly brushed his cheekbones, as though he were trying to vanish completely behind layers of fabric, wrapping himself in anonymity and retreating into the night.

Yet even with half his face obscured, it was impossible not to notice the faint bruising along the edge of his cheekbone, a purple smudge stark against his pale skin. His entire frame seemed to tremble slightly under the neon glow of the streetlights, as if holding himself together required an immense effort.

He kept his right hand clamped tight around his left wrist, his fingers digging in hard enough that the knuckles stood out sharp and white, as though the pain threatening to buckle him might somehow be contained if he just held on tight enough. His right leg was stretched stiffly out in front of him, refusing to bend at the knee, as though even the slightest movement would send a jolt of agony through his body.

TK found himself staring for several seconds, unable to tear his eyes away as he took in every small detail: the man’s rigid posture, the visible injuries, the haunted tension coiled in his shoulders. Then, realizing that he was bordering on staring too long, that it was probably rude to be so openly fixated, TK forced himself to look away and fixed his gaze on the street ahead, which was no longer quite as empty as it had been a few minutes ago.

But even as he tried to redirect his attention, the image of the man burned itself into TK’s memory, refusing to fade. Because the stranger sat there like someone whose entire world had simply… stopped. He didn’t fidget, didn’t glance at his phone, didn’t lift his head to watch for the bus. It was as if he no longer had the energy to stand, or perhaps no longer had anywhere specific he was trying to go.

Yet there was something else about him that clung to TK’s thoughts and wouldn’t let go. Because even injured and trembling, the man’s clothes remained flawless. There wasn’t a single crease or stain, the fabric hanging smoothly over his frame, as though he’d stepped straight out of a boutique catalog only moments before ending up on that worn metal bench. A man like that didn’t belong at this bus stop. The man seemed utterly out of place, sitting on the wrong side of the neighborhood, as if he’d somehow slipped through a crack in the world and landed here by mistake.

Whatever had happened to him, TK could sense that it was an injury running far deeper than just bruises and stiff limbs. Something had shaken this man loose from the life he seemed meant for, scattering pieces of him across a night that felt too dark and too quiet. And TK couldn’t help wondering what kind of wound could do that to a person, what kind of pain would leave someone sitting so still, looking as though they’d forgotten how to move forward.

A few minutes slipped by in silence before TK turned his head again, slowly and deliberately, as though he was gathering courage with every inch of movement.

He was a doctor, after all. Before he’d specialized as a cardiologist, he’d trained for years to recognize all kinds of trauma—internal, external, physical, and even the more hidden wounds of the mind and heart. He knew the signs when someone was in pain, when something was deeply, quietly wrong. And if there was even the smallest chance that he could help this man, then TK couldn’t bring himself to let the moment pass without at least trying.

He braced himself and took a quiet breath, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as he steadied his resolve. He knew he might come across as ridiculous, intrusive, maybe even naive to a stranger who clearly wanted to be left alone. But TK also knew, with a bone-deep certainty, what it felt like to be the one silently hoping someone would notice, even if you’d never admit it out loud.

Clearing his throat softly, he finally let the words slip free.

“Last bus should be here in about twenty minutes.”

The man didn’t respond. He didn’t even flinch. He just kept his gaze fixed firmly on the road ahead, eyes hidden beneath the shadow of his cap, fingers still locked in a fierce grip around his injured arm. But TK saw the tiniest movement. A slight nod, like a fleeting spark of acknowledgment that could have easily gone unnoticed if TK hadn’t been watching so closely.

He hesitated only a moment before trying again, keeping his tone gentle, light, and careful.

“You usually catch this one around this time?”

TK wasn’t usually the type who felt the need to strike up conversations with strangers. He wasn’t pushy. More often than not, people came to him on their own, drawn in by the easy warmth of his smile or the spark of quiet mischief that sometimes danced in his eyes. But this felt different.

Something inside him itched, tugged insistently at his chest, telling him that he couldn’t just sit there in silence and pretend he hadn’t noticed.

It was painfully obvious that the man beside him had come straight out of some kind of fight, despite how pristine his clothes still looked. He was battered, visibly in pain, yet huddled into the corner of the bus stop bench as though trying to convince the world he didn’t exist.

And that only pushed TK further.

He half-expected the man to snap at him, to spit out a sharp ‘it’s none of your business’ or to turn away completely, shutting him out. But instead, there was only silence. Which, TK thought, wasn’t that bad. He let out a slow breath, feeling the edge of disappointment creep in. He was right on the verge of giving up, ready to retreat back into silence and let the man keep his secrets. And then, just as he exhaled and began to turn his face away, the man’s head tilted slightly, and he murmured a soft, almost ghost-like, “No.”

It was so quiet, so delicate, that TK wasn’t entirely sure he’d actually heard it, or if the word had only echoed inside his own head, born out of wishful thinking. He couldn’t even read the man’s lips properly, not with the coat collar turned up high and the shadows hiding most of his face. But that single, fragile word was enough to push TK to keep trying.

The man drew in a deep breath, but the movement seemed to tear through him like a blade. His face twisted in pain as though even the simple act of breathing had become something sharp and punishing.

Instantly, TK’s instincts kicked into high alert. That kind of grimace set off warning bells in his mind. A possible rib injury. Maybe fractured ribs pressing against muscle or even brushing too close to the lung. And that was not good. Not good at all.

“Hey,” TK said gently, leaning forward just a fraction, his voice soft but edged with urgency. “Are you hurt?”

The man turned his face toward him, finally, and stared at TK in silence, his eyes dark and wary, the kind of guarded look that spoke of old wounds deeper than any bruise. Up close, TK could see the pain etched across his features, written into the tight set of his mouth and the shallow, careful breaths he was taking, even though the man was clearly fighting hard to hide it.

TK tried again, nodding subtly toward the blocks ahead, where the hospital’s lights still glowed faintly against the night sky.

“You know there’s a hospital just down the street,” he said quietly. “You could go there if you want. They’d help you.”

But the man only shook his head slowly, his shoulders stiff as he kept clutching his injured arm tighter against his chest.

“I’m fine,” he said finally, his voice low and rough.

But TK wasn’t buying it for a second.

“You might think you’re fine,” TK said, his voice gentle but firm, “but you still need to see a doctor anyw—”

“I said I’m fine.”

The man’s words came out sharper than TK had expected. They were curt, final, carrying a steel edge, like the sound of a door slamming shut.

For a few seconds, TK didn’t respond. They simply stared at each other, locked in a fragile standoff, though TK still couldn’t see the man’s eyes clearly beneath the brim of his cap.

Cars passed along the street in front of them, their headlights sweeping, shifting shadows across the pavement. Somewhere in the distance, faint notes of a guitar still spilled from an open bar door, blending into the low hum of the city night.

But between the two of them, the air felt thick and heavy, charged with things unspoken. TK swallowed, his mind working quickly as he tried to decide whether to push further or leave it alone. He recognized this kind of reaction all too well. It was a defense mechanism, one he’d seen in countless patients over the years.

Some people pushed others away because they were afraid. Some because they didn’t believe their pain was important enough to deserve attention. And others—people like this man—because they were simply too exhausted to admit they needed help at all. So worn down that they’d rather sit in the cold on a nearly empty bench than speak the words ‘I need help.’

TK sat still for a few moments, considering his next move. Then, slowly, he rose to his feet.

Without saying anything, he stepped away from his spot at the far end of the bench and sat down again, this time closer, settling himself right in the middle. He closed the distance between them just enough for the space to feel a little less vast, a little more human.

Turning his body toward the man, TK moved with careful slowness, making sure not to startle him. When he spoke, his voice softened the way it often did with the nervous pediatric patients he sometimes passed in the hospital corridors—the ones who needed gentle coaxing before they’d let him near them with a stethoscope or an IV.

“Look,” he said gently, “I’m a doctor.”

The man turned toward him again, eyes flicking over TK with guarded caution. Now that TK had moved closer, his face was easier to see. The high collar of his black wool coat had slipped down just a little, revealing more of his features. Under the glow of the streetlamps and the shifting reflections from nearby shop windows and passing headlights, the man’s face appeared in fragments, lit and shadowed by turns.

And that was all TK needed. In those shifting scraps of light, he saw everything. The deep bruises blooming beneath the man’s eyes, the purple and yellow discoloration along his cheekbone, and the small tear at the corner of his mouth where dried blood clung stubbornly to cracked skin.

A knot of emotion tightened in TK’s chest, squeezing at his ribs as he took in the sight. He drew in a quiet breath, then let it out slowly, softening his voice even further and pouring every ounce of care he had into it.

“I just want to help.”

The man let out a sound that was half a laugh, half a scoff—dry, bitter, and brittle. But it twisted quickly into a wince as his wounded lip split again, a fresh bead of blood appearing on already torn skin.

“No you don’t,” he said, his voice low and hoarse, as though he was trying to convince himself as much as TK.

He turned back toward the street and tugged his coat collar higher with his right hand, burying his face once more as though fabric might somehow shield him from the world.

TK frowned, but he didn’t back down.

“Okay… maybe I don’t,” he said quietly. “But I still couldn’t forgive myself if I knew someone needed help and I just… didn’t try hard enough.”

He paused, waiting for another scoff, a rejection, or a glare that would slam the door shut between them for good. But none came. So he tried one last time.

“I won’t do anything if you don’t want me to. I promise,” TK said, his voice so soft it barely carried over the noise of distant traffic. “Just… at least let me take a look?”

The man turned his head again, slower this time.

And just before the silence between them could stretch too long, TK’s voice broke through, quiet and earnest. “Please,” he said softly, the word trembling with all the compassion he couldn’t hold back.

The man stared at him. He didn’t blink, didn’t speak. He didn’t frown or nod or move in any way at all. He simply held TK’s gaze, utterly still, like a statue carved out of shadow and silence.

The quiet stretched so long that a small ache formed in TK’s chest, disappointment creeping in like cold fingers wrapping around his ribs. He felt the sharp edge of defeat pressing at his resolve. Maybe that really was the end of it.

He didn’t even know why he cared this much. He’d dealt with people who refused help countless times before. In medicine, you could insist, you could plead, you could exhaust every angle you knew, but in the end, unless the patient wanted help, your hands were tied.

But there was something about this man that TK simply couldn’t ignore. Something hidden beneath the expensive coat, something raw and human peeking through the cracks. An invisible fragility that clashed so starkly with the cool, curated exterior he wore like armor. A guardedness in his posture. A quiet, brittle air that whispered of someone who had learned, maybe too young, that it was safer not to trust anyone at all. That it was easier to stay alone. Even if it meant suffering in silence. And yet, somewhere deep in TK’s chest, there flickered a fragile hope that maybe, just maybe, he could break through those walls.

He was ready to give up and let the silence win when the man did the one thing TK least expected. Slowly, the man lifted his left hand and held it out toward TK. He didn’t say a word but it was an answer. A quiet, trembling yes.

TK shifted closer on the bench, moving until his thigh nearly brushed against the man’s. As he leaned in, he felt the cold radiating off the man’s body, seeping through even the layers of winter fabric, a chill that spoke of hours spent exposed to the night air.

Gently, he took the man’s hand in his own. It was ice-cold, trembling faintly under his touch, and TK held it carefully, afraid that even the smallest pressure might cause more pain. With careful fingers, he pushed up the sleeve of the man’s coat.

He wasn’t surprised by what he found. The man’s wrist was swollen and inflamed, purplish bruises were starting to bloom around the joint like dark flowers pressed into his skin, the flesh tight and shiny from the swelling. Bruises that made TK’s stomach twist with questions he wasn’t quite ready to voice aloud.

“Can you move your wrist?” TK asked softly, his voice gentle but steady.

The man tried. He managed only the smallest, pained shift of his wrist, the movement stiff and sharply limited. His jaw clenched tight, muscles standing out along his neck as he fought to keep another grimace from crossing his face.

TK gently guided the man’s injured hand to rest on his own thigh, anchoring it there so he could keep it steady. Beside him on the bench, he unzipped the black backpack he carried to every shift. From inside, he pulled out a compact first aid kit and set it down carefully between them.

“It’s probably not broken,” he said softly before reaching for any supplies. “But it definitely needs an ortho to check it out, just to be sure.” He glanced up to search the man’s eyes, “Is it okay if I put some ointment on it and wrap it for now?”

For a second, he thought the man might refuse again. But after a tense, silent beat, the stranger gave a small nod, his shoulders slumping a fraction, as if the simple act of agreeing had cost him something significant.

TK let out a quiet breath of relief and pulled out a tube of anti-inflammatory ointment from the kit, then reached for a sterile gauze pad and a small bottle of saline.

He twisted the cap off the saline and poured a measured amount onto the gauze, his movements practiced and precise. Then he shifted closer, angling his body so he could see the man’s face better. He lifted the damp gauze partway but hesitated, his hand hovering midair.

“May I?” he asked gently, his voice so low it nearly disappeared beneath the distant sounds of the city.

The man didn’t speak. Instead, with a slow, almost imperceptible motion, he reached up with his right hand and tugged the high collar of his coat downward.

It was just a few inches of fabric shifting lower, but in that moment, it felt monumental. Like he was peeling back the smallest corner of the cocoon he’d wrapped around himself, offering TK a fragile glimpse beyond the darkness. Even so, the man’s expression remained closed-off, his jaw set tight, as though daring TK to make something of what little he’d revealed.

He’d built walls so high around himself that even lowering his coat collar felt like an intimate confession. And though he allowed TK this tiny opening, nothing in his posture suggested he’d be letting down the rest of his defenses anytime soon.

TK swallowed hard, feeling the gravity of the gesture. He lifted the gauze the rest of the way and gently pressed it to the corner of the man’s mouth, where dried blood had crusted over a small cut. His touch was feather-light, as though he were handling the sharp edge of glass, a delicate, precise pressure that wouldn’t shatter what already seemed so close to breaking.

He dabbed away the blood in careful strokes, taking extra care not to press too hard. Each swipe felt like moving across a fault line, one wrong move threatening to send the man retreating back into silence.

“It’s not deep,” he murmured, not so much for medical reassurance as to offer the man something warm to hold onto.

The man didn’t respond, but he didn’t flinch away either. He held perfectly still, as if caught between wanting to vanish and wanting to be seen.

And for TK, that was enough to keep going.

Now that he was this close, he could see more of the man’s face that was still partially hidden beneath the shadow of his cap. And it was then that TK noticed a thin, dark line of dried blood trailing from the man’s eyebrow down toward his temple. Without even pausing to ask permission, he lifted the gauze toward the corner of his eye, instinct propelling his hand before his mind could catch up. But the man recoiled instantly, flinching backward so sharply that his shoulders hit the metal bench behind him with a soft metallic clang. His eyes flew wide, and his entire body stiffened as if bracing for a blow.

TK jerked his own hand back the moment he realized, his heart squeezing painfully with regret.

“Sorry, sorry,” he blurted out, voice low and earnest. “Your eyebrow’s bleeding. I’m just trying to clean it up. That’s all.”

The man didn’t respond right away. For several tense seconds, he stayed frozen, eyes darting away from TK, jaw clenched so hard the muscles in his cheek twitched.

Then, after a tight, silent moment, he tilted his head forward again, lowering his defenses by the smallest fraction. This time, he reached up and pushed his cap back just slightly, revealing more of his forehead and the injury above his brow.

And in that tiny, hesitant shift, TK saw his eyes properly this time. They were large, warm brown eyes, so dark they were nearly black beneath the streetlights, and glimmering with a depth of pain and something heartbreakingly vulnerable.

It was the kind of gaze that seemed far too gentle for a man covered in bruises. Eyes that had clearly witnessed things no one should have to endure, and yet somehow still held a faint, stubborn spark of softness that TK couldn’t look away from.

A quiet hush seemed to fall over the bench as TK carefully dabbed at the dried blood near the man’s eyebrow, moving the gauze as lightly as a whisper. He worked in small, delicate motions, hyper-aware of how fragile this moment was, of how easily he could scare the man back into silence.

Though he couldn’t help stealing glances into those brown eyes, he also didn’t want to make the man feel exposed. So he tried to shift the mood, searching for something lighter to say.

“Are you… waiting for someone?” TK asked, keeping his tone as casual as possible, as if they were just two strangers chatting at a bus stop instead of a doctor cleaning blood from a battered stranger’s face.

The man flicked his eyes toward TK, then immediately glanced away again, staring back at the street like it was safer to look anywhere else.

“Yeah,” he said finally, his voice clipped and wary, “why?”

“It’s just…” TK gave a small shrug, a hint of a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “You keep watching every car that drives by.”

The man didn’t answer. He simply went still again, eyes locked on the blur of headlights sweeping past the glass shelter of the bus stop.

TK let the silence settle for a moment. He didn’t want to push too hard, didn’t want to shatter the tentative trust he’d barely begun to build. So instead, he focused on bandaging the man’s wrist, winding the gauze carefully around the swollen joint. He worked with gentle efficiency, his fingers nimble and precise. But his eyes kept flicking lower, drawn again and again to the man’s left leg, which was stretched out stiffly along the sidewalk in front of the bench.

He hesitated, then spoke up again, his voice soft.

“Is your leg hurting, too?”

The man’s jaw tightened for the hundredth time at the question. Slowly, as though trying to prove a point, he attempted to bend his knee the slightest bit. But the instant he moved, his breath hitched and a choked gasp escaped his throat. Pain knifed across his features, and he squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head.

TK winced with him, feeling a sympathetic ache in his own chest.

“Okay, okay, don’t force it,” He murmured quickly, holding up his hands in a gentle, calming gesture, “Listen… that needs checking out too. You should probably get an X-ray. Just to be safe.”

The man didn’t answer, but he left his leg stretched out as it was, clearly unwilling, or unable, to try moving it again.

The rest of the time passed in silence as TK focused on wrapping the man’s injured wrist. He gave the task his full concentration, even though his eyes occasionally flicked to the man’s long, elegant fingers. There was dried blood along the edges of his nail beds—thin, dark smudges that hadn’t been cleaned yet. But the nails themselves were neatly trimmed, the kind of detail that didn’t line up with someone who had just gotten into a street fight.

He didn’t ask about it. Instead, he kept his attention on the bandaging. Each loop of gauze was measured, firm but not tight. After every full circle around the wrist, TK slipped a fingertip beneath the wrap to make sure it wouldn’t leave pressure marks later or cut off circulation. His brow furrowed with quiet worry as he finished wrapping the gauze around the man’s wrist, sealing it with medical tape and smoothing it down with his thumb

And in the silence that followed, TK found himself wishing that he knew this man’s name. That he knew what had brought him here, alone and battered, hiding behind expensive clothes and stubborn silence. But for now, he settled for the small victories: a bandaged wrist, a cleaned wound, and the fragile beginnings of trust.

He looked down at the hand still resting on his thigh. Gently, he lifted it and returned it to the man’s own leg, letting it settle there with care, as if placing something fragile back into its proper place.

He packed the supplies back into the kit, his motions quiet, steady, methodical. Then, after a quick glance for permission, he reached once more, this time with a small dab of ointment on his finger, aiming for the bruising beneath the man’s eye.

The man hesitated. He didn’t flinch or pull away, but TK could see the hesitation rising in his shoulders, in the sharp inhale that followed. It was that same flicker of tension again, like he was suddenly unsure how much more of himself he’d already given away to a stranger.

“Just this,” TK said gently, “for the swelling."

The man gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of his head. And TK didn’t push.

“Okay,” he said, sitting back slightly. He didn’t want to take anything the man wasn’t ready to give. But he also knew, just from the way the man moved, that something deeper was wrong. An injury that was more than skin-deep, probably the ribs. He wished that the man would let him help a bit more and check for anything serious. So he softened his tone even further. “Can I just check for possible rib inju—”

He never finished the question.The man flinched hard and his entire body tensed like a spring coiling under sudden stress. His eyes snapped toward the street and his shoulders locked up with the unmistakable stiffness of fear.

“Stop,” he said sharply, voice low but urgent. “That’s enough.”

TK froze, hand hovering mid-air, confused by the shift.

“What?” he asked, not moving yet.

“I said back off.” This time the man’s voice was louder, harder. “Get away from me. Now.”

The command hit TK like a slap and before he could respond, the man turned toward him, grabbed TK by the shoulder with his uninjured arm, and shoved him back. TK slid across the metal bench with a scraping sound, landing near the far edge where he’d first sat. The force of the shove wasn’t enormous, but it was sudden and unexpected. And judging by the man’s choked cry of pain afterward, it had cost him far more than it did TK. The man immediately doubled over, his hand flying to his chest as a groan tore out of him. He curled inward, clutching his ribs as if the motion had ripped something loose.

TK’s heart clenched. He sat frozen, unsure what to do. Not because he was angry, though part of him was stunned, but because all he could feel now was guilt. Deep, heavy guilt.  He hadn’t meant to hurt him. He hadn’t even resisted the push. But watching the man fold in on himself, clearly in agony, made TK feel sick to his stomach. He opened his mouth, ready to say something, to ask what had just happened and why everything had shifted so suddenly, but he never got the chance. Because the man had already started to shut down again. His entire body folded back into its earlier posture like nothing had happened. He turned his face away, pulled the collar of his coat back up, dragged the long sleeve of his left arm down to hide the bandages TK had just applied.

And then, just before lowering his cap to hide his eyes again, TK saw it.

The direction of the man’s gaze.

From down the street, not far from the hospital’s front entrance, a large black SUV came to a slow stop directly in front of the bus shelter. It was sleek and expensive, the kind of car that didn’t belong to someone waiting for a bus.

Two men got out.

The first was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a sharply tailored black suit with a long coat over it, almost identical to the one the injured man was wearing. His shoes were polished, his posture stiff, almost military. The second man was kind of shorter, dark-skinned, and dressed in the same sleek style. They didn’t speak to each other as they moved; they just started walking directly toward the bus stop. Toward them.

TK’s stomach dropped.

He turned slightly, eyes darting toward the man on the bench. But his face was completely hidden again, swallowed up by the same protective armor he’d worn when TK first saw him. Like none of what had happened between them had ever existed.

“Where the hell have you been?” the taller man demanded, his voice booming with a thick accent and an edge of fury that made TK’s entire body tense.

“I don’t know,” the injured man shot back, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Ask my bodyguard.”

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” the shorter man snapped, stepping forward, his tone sharp and impatient.

“It’s broken.”

“Again?”

The injured man finally lifted his head properly, pushing his cap back just enough for the light to hit his bruised and battered face. The moment his bruises and cuts—which TK had already cleaned—came into full view, both newcomers froze, anger flashing across their faces like sudden lightning.

Without a word, the taller man surged forward. He reached out and yanked the cap off the injured man’s head, revealing the mess of dark curls beneath. Then he tilted the man’s chin upward with a firm, almost possessive hand, turning his face this way and that as though inspecting fragile merchandise for damage.

The injured man didn’t resist. He just stayed slumped against the bench, expression vacant, eyes drifting off into the distance like none of it mattered. Like he’d either gotten used to this routine or gone completely numb to it.

“I’m fine,” he murmured before the tall man could even form his next question. His voice was flat, dismissive, eager to shut down the conversation before it could even start.

A heavy shadow from the tall man fell over his face, blocking TK’s view. Instinctively, TK looked away, glancing down at his phone and flicking through screens he wasn’t really seeing. He didn’t want to stare; it felt invasive and rude, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from darting back to the scene beside him.

And even when he tried to look away, he couldn’t ignore the details that kept catching the edge of his vision. The tall man shifted again, and for the first time, seemed to notice the bandaged wrist and the stiff, outstretched leg. His gaze darkened, his jaw clenching as his voice dropped into something fierce and protective.

“What the fuck happened?” The question hung in the air like a spark waiting to ignite.

Then, as though just realizing someone else was sitting there, the tall man turned abruptly toward TK. His eyes narrowed into slits, his whole body tensing with sudden suspicion. For a few tense seconds, he simply glared at TK, his stare sharp enough to cut glass. Then he swung back toward the injured man, jerking a thumb in TK’s direction.

“He did this to you?”

The injured man’s expression hardened. He shot a withering look at the taller man—who TK now guessed was some sort of bodyguard—and snapped, “No. Leave him alone.”

“Do you know him?” the bodyguard pressed, his voice tight and insistent.

“No, Judd!” the injured man barked, exasperation creeping into his tone. “I’ve been sitting at a bus station waiting for my bodyguard to show up. Sorry that some people actually come and sit here to wait for buses!”

He waved one hand at the shelter around them, as if to emphasize how utterly normal the setting was, even though nothing about this moment felt normal at all.

The bodyguard—Judd—threw a glance over his shoulder at the second man, who stood a few steps back near the SUV, his posture rigid, eyes scanning the street as if ready for trouble. The man by the car gave Judd a short nod. A silent approval. A signal.

Judd turned back to the injured man, then shifted his gaze to TK again.

There was something in his stare that felt invasive, like he was trying to look past TK’s skin and reach into his bones to rip out whatever secrets he might be hiding. It was the kind of look that made a person’s spine go rigid, the kind of look meant to remind you exactly how small and insignificant you were.

TK felt his own heartbeat start to thrum faster. He met Judd’s eyes, then flicked his gaze toward the injured man, wanting to say something or to defend himself. To explain that he was a doctor, that he’d actually been helping this stranger, not hurting him.

He opened his mouth to speak. But then he caught the tiniest movement. A subtle shake of the injured man’s head—so small, so careful that Judd and the other man didn’t seem to notice it at all.

Don’t say anything.

TK hesitated. He closed his mouth again. Maybe silence was the smarter choice right now. The injured man probably knew these people and how best to handle them.

Judd studied him for another long moment, as though weighing whether to press him further. But finally he seemed to let it drop. The two bodyguards stepped closer to the injured man, one on each side, reaching out to help him stand.

“Anywhere else you’re hurt? Are you in pain?” The dark-skinned man asked as they eased him to his feet.

The injured man drew a shallow breath. His jaw twitched slightly.

“Pretty sure I’ve got a couple of bruised ribs.”

“Jesus Christ.” Both bodyguards cursed under their breath.

TK heard it and felt a sharp pang of guilt twist in his chest.

He’d suspected as much earlier—long before the bandages, before the quiet conversation on the bench. He’d seen it in the way the man grimaced every time he tried to take a deep breath, or even made the slightest movement. And if he’d somehow doubted it, the way the man had nearly cried out in pain after shoving TK off the bench had left no question.

Despite how distant and closed-off the man had been, he’d been listening. He’d even defended TK when the bodyguards tried to pin the blame on him. He hadn’t needed to do that. TK was a stranger. But in the middle of all that pain and chaos, he’d protected him.

That counted for something.

A tiny flicker of warmth stirred in TK’s chest, even as the tall man kept shooting him suspicious looks, like he was seconds away from demanding ID or calling the cops.

TK kept his head down, pretending to scroll through his phone. But under the screen’s glow, his eyes kept drifting back to the man between the bodyguards.Because no matter how many walls the stranger tried to throw up around himself, TK couldn’t ignore the truth: This man was in pain. And whether he admitted it or not, he’d let TK help him, even if only for a few fleeting moments.

Now the other bodyguard had his arm firmly wrapped around the injured man’s waist, carefully helping him toward the car. The taller one lagged behind just slightly, but before following, he turned and shot TK a final look. It was a look that made TK’s blood run cold.

There was no mistaking what that stare meant this time. It was dripping with menace, full of unsaid threats, unspoken questions, and what felt like genuine, seething hatred. There was something in it that made TK’s skin crawl. Like he’d just been marked. But the look was nothing compared to what came next.

As if he couldn’t help himself, the tall man changed direction and stormed back toward the bus stop. His steps were fast, deliberate and dangerous. TK barely had time to react before rough hands grabbed both sides of his jacket collar and yanked, hard. In an instant, TK’s body jerked forward. If the man had pulled even a fraction harder, TK might’ve been lifted clean off the ground.

The man’s face was only inches from his, breath hot with fury as he spat the words.

“If I ever find out you touched him, and I mean even brushed against him with a fingertip, I swear to dear God I’ll make your life—”

“Judd, what the fuck?” The voice cut through the dark like a bullet. It was the injured man. His tone was sharp and furious, louder than TK had ever heard it. A voice that was not just angry, but commanding. He stood half-turned beside the open door of the SUV, one hand braced on the frame, pain clear in the tightness of his posture, but his eyes burned. “Let him go. Right. Now.”

Judd froze. His fists clenched for a beat longer before, slowly, he loosened his grip and dropped his hands from TK’s collar. Then, with a deliberate motion that felt more like mockery than apology, he smoothed the front of TK’s sweatshirt, as if erasing the evidence of what he’d just done.

TK sat frozen in place. His heart was hammering, his breathing shallow. His hands trembled slightly as adrenaline surged through his veins. He wasn’t sure whether to speak, stand, or stay absolutely still.

He didn’t move. He couldn’t.

The bodyguard turned and walked back to the others without a word. And for a brief second, TK’s eyes met the injured man’s one last time. It was only a glance, but in that glance, everything was there. A silent apology. A flicker of regret in the deep brown of his eyes, tinged with something softer. Something broken. Something grateful. That single look said more than all the words they hadn’t shared.

I’m sorry you got caught in this.

Then the man gave a faint nod, almost imperceptible, before he ducked into the SUV. The shorter bodyguard followed and slipped into the back beside him. Judd slammed the door after him and took the front seat.

TK watched as the engine growled to life. The black SUV pulled away from the curb with smooth precision, gliding through the city night like a shadow. And he sat motionless on the bench, watching its taillights grow smaller, swallowed by the city’s endless blur.

They were gone. Just like that. Whoever the mysterious, battered man really was, he’d vanished into the Austin night, leaving behind nothing but a quiet ache and a hundred unanswered questions. That last look from the man still hovered in TK’s mind, vivid as a light flickering in the dark. Those big, dark brown eyes were full of soul, a soul that was bruised and battered but somehow was still there, alive, breathing, beating.

He knew that the small, clumsy care he’d offered might already be forgotten, swept aside by the man’s chaotic world. By all logic, TK shouldn’t have wanted to see him again. Why would he, when the man’s bodyguard had practically threatened to kill him simply for touching him? TK was still shaken, still feeling the echo of breath trapped in his chest from when the bodyguard had grabbed his collar and squeezed so hard it seemed to crush the air out of him—a breath that hadn’t fully come back, still lodged somewhere deep and raw behind his sternum.

The tall bodyguard’s eyes had held nothing but cold hatred. Sure, it was his job to protect his boss, and if he’d believed even for a moment that some random stranger at a bus stop was responsible for those brutal injuries, the reaction would’ve been far worse. But TK sensed that this wasn’t just about suspicion. It was a message, a silent warning.

I know you didn’t hurt him. But don’t you dare come close again.

And TK hadn’t planned to. He was certain the man was gone for good. A man with a bruised face and a fractured wrist, dressed in expensive clothes, driven around in a multimillion-dollar SUV, surrounded by trained and towering bodyguards. That world was miles away from TK’s own.

He told himself that by the time he fell asleep that night, all of it would fade from his memory. After all, he’d helped countless strangers in the streets and outside the hospital before. This encounter should be no different.

Then why did it feel like something special? He couldn’t answer that.

Later that night, against every expectation, TK couldn’t erase the man’s face from his mind for even a moment.

He kept thinking about him on the bus ride home. The entire journey, he found himself thinking about the blood-stained gauze still tucked into his bag, waiting for the moment he could throw it away. Even as he slid his key into the lock and stepped into the silence of his apartment, his mind was still racing. Who was that man? Why was he so important? Why was he hurt?

And long after midnight, at three in the morning, as he lay wide awake in the dark, tangled in sheets he couldn’t settle into, he found himself wondering where the man was at that very moment. And the thought that he might be out there somewhere, hurt again, unable to defend himself, made a fiery ache burn through his chest.

He kept replaying the memory of those eyes, of a gaze that seemed to hold so many unspoken words. Words that felt like a silent plea.

I have to go…but don’t let me go.

He thought about the pain in his face, the coldness in his eyes, and the way his body trembled as he tried to stand up. He was just a stranger.

And yet…

Why did it feel as if TK’s entire world had caved in on him?

Chapter Text

“Well, well, Prince Charming’s fan club has been busy.” Nancy’s voice rose over the low hum of monitors and keyboards from behind the nurses’ station. Her voice was not quiet at all; in fact it was loud enough that several nurses, a couple of med students, and even one of the respiratory therapists all turned to look as TK walked toward the desk with a large coffee cup in hand. “Guess who got flowers againnn?”

The hospital felt almost deceptively calm that day. It was one of those mid-shift lulls where the overhead lights glowed softly and the scent of antiseptic blended with the faint bitterness of burnt coffee. Phones rang intermittently. In the distance, the rolling wheels of a gurney echoed along the tiled floor.

TK was technically on cath lab rotation today, sharing duties with another cardiologist. Two other cardiologists were covering the CCU, doing rounds across different hospital floors, handling emergency consults from the ER, and responding to pages from other departments. That was how the hospital liked it. Cath lab days were high-stakes, but strangely less exhausting than the ‘roaming’ days. At least you stayed mostly in one place, even if your hands were elbow-deep in the business end of people’s coronary arteries. And today had been a relatively light day by cath lab standards.

Five hours into the shift, TK and the cath lab team had already completed several angiograms, placed a handful of stents, and managed a couple of tricky cases involving high-risk lesions. But TK felt wrung out, as if he’d been running for twenty straight hours. Because for three days now, he hadn’t really slept. Not since that night at the bus station. The memory of that man hadn’t stopped chasing him. Fear from that encounter knotted inside him, leaving him restless and hollow-eyed.

That was why, now, TK found himself shuffling out of the staff lounge, clutching his third cup of coffee like it was a lifeline. His shoulders sagged under the weight of exhaustion as he made his slow way toward the nurses’ station, each step heavy with weariness. The rush of the earlier cases was finally tapering off and he thought maybe he could sit down for even a few minutes and catch a brief moment of peace.

But the truth was, TK was rattled to his very core.

He was still haunted by the threats from that bodyguard. He could still feel the ghostly pressure of those powerful fingers clamping around his collar whenever he tried to breathe too deeply or move too fast. The skin over his throat looked fine, but sometimes it felt swollen and bruised beneath the surface. And his mind replayed it all again and again. The brutal force of those hands, the cold, hard warning in that man’s eyes, the chilling realization that he’d stumbled into something far darker and more dangerous than he could have ever imagined.

He didn’t want to think too hard about who those men were, or what kind of world they belonged to, or why they’d been there that night. But deep down, TK knew that men with expensive coats, grim bodyguards, and bruises hidden beneath fine clothing didn’t belong to ordinary lives. And whatever their world was…it wasn’t a safe one.

So he was doing everything he could to push that night out of his mind. Maybe a little shameless gossip with his coworkers would help distract him. Anything to quiet the relentless churn of anxiety that gnawed at his chest. But just as he stepped up to the counter, he heard Nancy’s words.

“What?” he asked, blinking in confusion.

Nancy reached across the nurses’ station and grabbed a flower arrangement from beside her monitor. She carried it over and plopped it right onto the counter next to TK’s coffee, and she stood up, maybe to shield it from prying eyes, but making sure it landed right in front of him.

“Special delivery,” she declared, raising her brows dramatically.

“For me?” TK stared at the bouquet as though the flowers might suddenly explain themselves. He didn’t know much about flowers or their different types, but the harmony of colors was undeniably beautiful, striking enough to make him pause.

“Yeah,” Nancy said, spinning the bouquet with a flourish, her grin widening as she gave TK a teasing look, “Some guy just delivered it a few minutes ago.”

The scent of fresh flowers rose around TK in a gentle cloud, sweet and unexpected. It was strong and sweet, flooding the air between them, and for a second, it made the antiseptic tang of the hospital vanish. He shot Nancy a bewildered look, his brow furrowed in suspicion, as he reached out and pulled the bouquet closer to himself. He shifted the bouquet onto the outer counter of the nurses’ station—a section that was lower than the main counter, low enough to keep the contents out of sight from curious onlookers passing by.

Attached to the bouquet was a small white envelope tucked among the stems small card, simple and white, the words “For Dr. TK Strand” neatly printed on its surface.

A box of flowers from someone he didn’t know. That was strange. Not that receiving gifts was unheard of in their line of work. Far from it. In the cardiology department, they dealt daily with patients whose illnesses were chronic, complicated, and sometimes terrifyingly acute. Some patients spent weeks, even months, in the hospital, forging connections with the staff during long recoveries. It wasn’t unusual for those patients or their grateful families to express thanks with flowers, boxes of pastries, or small tokens of appreciation once they were well enough to go home.

So gestures of gratitude weren’t anything new to TK or his colleagues. But this was different. Because in the past few days, there hadn’t been any such patient. No recent discharge, no tearful family hugging him at the elevator, no grateful hands clutching his in relief. Nothing that would explain why someone had sent him this elegant arrangement of blooms. As he stared at the flowers, an uneasy weight settled in his chest. Because deep down, he suspected exactly who it might be from, and the thought sent a chill racing down his spine.

“New boyfriend?” Mateo teased with a mischievous glint in his eyes, but TK didn’t even glance at him.

Receiving flowers from boyfriends—or, more accurately, ex-boyfriends—wasn’t exactly unfamiliar for TK. Even though he’d always been careful to keep his personal and work life separate, there’d been a time, back in med school, or during his residency, when dating felt simpler. Back then, he didn’t care or didn’t try hard enough to set boundaries, maybe because he mainly didn’t know that mixing romance and hospital hallways was a dangerous game. He’d learned that lesson the hard way; it was like a brutal, painful experience he still carried like a scar, and he’d promised himself he’d never repeat the same mistake.

But sometimes gifts were hard to avoid. No matter how many times he told the men he dated not to send flowers or surprise deliveries to his workplace, some of them insisted. Partly because it was sweet, it was a small romantic gesture by the way, and partly, TK suspected, it was as a silent message to anyone else in the hospital who might be interested in TK or considering making a move. A message saying He’s taken.

So while he’d usually sigh and roll his eyes when an extravagant bouquet showed up, a tiny part of him couldn’t deny he liked the thought behind it. He’d even come to expect it from his last boyfriend, though that relationship had fizzled out before it could become anything serious.

But again, today felt different.

TK examined the bouquet carefully, scanning every inch of the artfully arranged flowers, running his fingers between the petals and stems as if he might uncover a hidden clue. Something about this felt… off. Then his searching fingers brushed against a slim piece of cardstock tucked behind the blooms. He pulled it free and flipped it open. His eyes darted across the neat handwriting.

“Thank you for your help.

I hope this small gift eases some of the discomfort

 my bodyguard caused you the other night.”

And just like that, TK’s chest constricted. The words hit him differently than he expected. He could feel his pulse drumming against the base of his throat as memories of that night crashed over him again. The shadows of the bus stop, the glint of headlights on the pavement, and those huge hands closing around his collar, yanking him off the bench as if he weighed nothing at all. And it terrified him how easily that stranger, that bodyguard, had threatened his life just because TK had helped someone he wasn’t supposed to. He hadn’t been able to shake the images. He hadn’t been able to sleep properly or even eat like a normal person. His life felt suspended, trapped somewhere between fear and the echo of those dark, pleading eyes.

Until now, after he’d seen this card, he’d almost convinced himself that man had forgotten all about him, that someone like that man, with wealth, power, and bodyguards, would have no reason to remember a random doctor who happened to help him on the street. Why would a man like that spare TK a single thought when he’d looked so heartbreakingly used to pain, so accustomed to hiding his bruises and scars?

Three relentless days he’d been trying, and failing, to push those memories out of his mind. Three nights of half-sleep, of waking up drenched in sweat, of replaying every detail over and over again, unable to stop the loop. And receiving the gift did nothing to ease his condition, it even made everything worse. The moment his eyes landed on the words written on the card, he felt his heart lurch into his throat. It was as if a switch flipped inside him, and suddenly he was right back in that bus station all over again—the cold metal bench beneath him, the bite of winter air against his skin, and the faint trace of the injured man’s cologne and his blood clinging stubbornly to his hands.

Now, his breath caught in his chest. His pulse thudded in his ears as he stared at the neat handwriting on the card, feeling the weight of what it implied. All he’d done was offer a little medical help. Just a bit of ointment, some gauze, a gentle hand cleaning blood from a stranger’s face. But somehow that small kindness had been enough to entangle his life in something dark and dangerous, a world that felt so far from the sterile halls of his hospital.

Nancy, who had been studying TK’s shifting expression, leaned closer to Mateo and, with her signature mischief, quipped, “Or maybe an ex-boyfriend?”

Her voice carried that sing-song tease, TK didn’t even blink. He barely heard her voice at all. His brow furrowed, eyes fixed on the card in his hand, scanning every curve of the letters as if searching for some hidden clue. He spun the bouquet again, sifting through petals and leaves, hoping desperately to find a name, a phone number, any clue that might finally tell him who the hell this man really was, and whether there was any way he could reach him.

But there was nothing. No signature, no initials. Just that message, hanging between them like a fragile, invisible thread that connected two worlds which were never meant to touch.

A big part of him felt relieved there was nothing because maybe that meant he wouldn’t be dragged any deeper into whatever game those people were playing. Not that he’d done anything wrong. He hadn’t asked questions, hadn’t crossed any lines. Hell, he didn’t even know if there was a game. Maybe they were just obscenely wealthy people tangled up in their own dramatic messes. But TK’s mind, like it always did, spiraled toward the worst-case scenario.

And yet, the most confusing part that he didn’t dare say out loud was that some small, quiet piece of him was glad that the man hadn’t forgotten, that he remembered TK’s help and his bodyguard’s terrifying aggression. Maybe that meant the man wasn’t entirely a product of that cold, powerful world. Maybe, just maybe, he was something more than it.

“Dr. Strand?” It was Grace’s voice this time as she arrived at the nurses’ station, but TK was too busy overthinking to notice her. Her tone was softer than Nancy’s teasing but edged with unmistakable concern.

Grace, along with Nancy and Mateo, was one of the few people in the unit with whom TK shared a bond that went deeper than polite professional courtesy. In the years since TK had moved to Austin, they’d weathered countless late-night shifts together, impromptu coffee runs, and those precious post-shift drinks when the hospital finally loosened its relentless grip.

Back during his residency days, Grace had always had a soft spot for him, especially when he’d first arrived from New York, new to Texas, still wrestling with his past, his trauma, his mistakes, and his addiction, dutifully attending mandatory AA meetings. Later, as Nancy and Mateo, and Marjan from ER got to know him better, they embraced him even more, folding him into their lives like family. It hadn’t taken long for them to slip naturally into the roles of sister and brother in TK’s world, the kind of found family who made the chaos of hospital life a little more bearable.

Even though now TK was an attending cardiologist, with heavier responsibilities and a schedule that sometimes seemed to belong to another universe altogether, the friendship never faded. Outside these sterile walls, they were as close as family. And because they knew him so well, they could read him like an open book—especially Grace, who’d been quietly observing him this shift.

“TK,” she repeated, gently. “You okay?”

TK blinked, dragging his eyes away from the flowers. He finally looked at Nancy, then at Grace. He hadn’t even registered the teasing questions Nancy and Mateo had been throwing at him moments ago. Instead, he pointed toward the bouquet, his voice low.

“Did you see who delivered this?”

"Uhmm… not someone I know. Nancy let out a slow breath, glancing at the flowers as if hoping they’d somehow provide the answer. “He was big. White guy. Taller than me, wore a black suit, black shirt, all black everything.” She paused, noticing how TK’s frown was deepening between his brows, and her usual teasing tone faded away. “Oh, and he had a tattoo on his right hand. That’s all I got.”

“You know the dude?” Mateo asked, tilting his head, his earlier grin fading as Nancy’s description sank in.

TK shook his head slowly, his eyes drifting back to the flowers.

'My nightmare,' he said to himself.

He was glad he hadn’t been there when the bodyguard delivered the flowers. He didn’t want to see him again, and even though he knew the hospital was a place where the bodyguard couldn’t do anything, the thought of being in the same room with that tall, menacing man still terrified TK. Without his boss around—the one TK wasn’t sure had really stopped him—who knew what the bodyguard might do? Maybe beat him senseless, threaten everyone and everything he cared about, or worse... kill him.

But TK, that foolish and kind-hearted guy from New York, found himself wishing just for a brief moment that he hadn’t slipped away for that quick coffee break in the lounge. If only he’d stayed, maybe he would’ve seen the bodyguard, whose name he now knew was Judd. Maybe he could’ve talked to him, asked how the injured man was doing. Had he been properly checked? Were his ribs really broken? How was his wrist? His leg? So many questions that TK knew he probably shouldn’t ask, but there he was, standing and wishing he could know.

Grace reached out, resting her hand lightly on his forearm.

“Hey,” she said quietly. “Is there something we should call security for?”

TK swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. He shook his head again, though a part of him longed to spill everything, to finally let someone in on the weight he’d been carrying. But the truth felt too vast and too dangerous to share. For now, it was a secret he had to bear alone. Taking a slow, steadying breath, he forced himself to regain control. This was his burden, his personal storm, and it belonged outside these sterile white walls, beyond the glass doors and the constant hum of beeping monitors. Here, in this hospital, where lives depended on focus and precision, he couldn’t afford distractions.

He owed it to himself, to his patients, and to the people relying on him to push those fears aside. No man, no threatening bodyguard, and no shadow from his past could be allowed to steal his concentration or derail his purpose. He needed to be present, grounded, and ready.

“No, no, not at all…” TK said quickly, slipping the card into the pocket of his scrub pants. He forced a genuine and bright smile that was practically a trademark of TK Strand and his gentle, precious soul. “Just a patient.”

“Which one?” Nancy pressed, arching a skeptical brow, clearly unconvinced.

“Someone you guys don’t know,” he said at last, his voice softer. “I helped a man in the street the other day. He was hurt.” He couldn’t bring himself to lie to them completely; there was no real reason to. But even if he tried to explain the truth, he wasn’t sure he’d have the right words. And besides, who would even believe him? And if they did, none of them could possibly grasp what he’d been living with since that night. “Nothing serious.” He added. That, definitely, was a lie.

Nancy wasn’t about to let it go. She leaned forward, bracing both elbows on the counter so she was eye-to-eye with him, her expression halfway between playful and genuinely curious.

“Do you always go around telling strangers which hospital you work at or what days you’re on shift, Doctor?”

TK rolled his eyes again, more sharply this time. On any other day, he would have joked right back, letting Nancy’s teasing lift his mood. He usually loved moments like that. it was a bit of fun in the middle of busy hospital life. But not today. Not when Nancy’s comment came way too close to the truth.

Because the truth was, TK hadn’t told the man where he worked. He hadn’t shared the name of his hospital, his own name, or what exactly he did. He’d only said he was a doctor. But deep down, he knew it wouldn’t have been hard for someone to figure the rest out. His scrubs, the tired look on his face, the hospital just a few blocks from that bus station. It wouldn’t take much for anyone, especially men who lived in secret worlds, to learn exactly who he was. And the thought that those dangerous people might now know his name, where he worked, and maybe even more, made fear squeeze so tight in his chest that he could hardly breathe.

Maybe the man thought he could make things right by sending flowers and apologizing for his bodyguard’s behavior. Maybe he believed that one small gesture could erase how violently wrong things had gone that night. But what he didn’t realize was that every passing minute and every time TK’s mind replayed that dark night at the bus station only made the fear grow sharper. Now, with the weight of the secret hidden behind those flowers and the words on the card, and with his personal information clearly in someone else’s hands, TK felt like he was sinking deeper into something he couldn’t control.

“Whoever this guy is, he seems loaded… and pretty powerful, too,” Grace murmured, her calm voice doing nothing to calm the storm twisting in TK’s chest. Still, he was quietly grateful to her for giving him a way out of having to answer Nancy’s questions any further.

TK already knew the man was wealthy and influential. It wasn’t just the tailored clothes or the sleek, expensive car waiting at the curb that night; it was also the quiet, controlled urgency of the security team, the way they moved like shadows around him. But hearing Grace say it out loud somehow made the mystery feel bigger. And it sparked something sharp and curious deep inside TK.

“How so?” he asked, his voice dropping a little, careful, as though the answer might be dangerous.

 “See these three tulips with white petals and red flame-like streaks?” Grace gestured at the flowers.

TK followed her finger, eyes widening slightly as he took in the unique blossoms he’d barely noticed before amid all the colors and blooms.

“They’re called Tulip Semper Augustus,” she explained. “They’re a recreated variety of an extinct flower from the seventeenth century. You can’t buy them just anywhere. Each bulb can cost several thousand dollars. They’re usually grown for private collectors.”

Her words hit the nursing station like a bomb. There was an immediate chorus of whistles and astonished gasps. Voices erupted around him.

“Damn, Doctor, you better marry this man. That’s your ticket to early retirement!”

Mateo, grinning, nudged TK’s arm. “Seriously, just save his life one more time and you’ll never have to work a shift again.”

A nurse on the other side of the station leaned forward, eyes sparkling. “So what’d he look like, huh? Tall? Dark hair? Was he hot?”

A third-year resident waved a hand dismissively, laughing. “Who cares what he looks like as long as he’s loaded?”

Nancy, who’d been hanging on every word, finally huffed and pointed a finger at TK. “Don’t tell me you didn’t even get his number. Ugh! TK!” She smacked his arm lightly as she saw him shrug. “You blew it!”

The whole group was half-joking, half-serious, spinning wild fantasies about the mysterious, wealthy stranger who had apparently entered TK’s orbit. And TK found himself laughing with them, bantering back, the sound easing some of the tightness in his chest. For a few minutes, it felt good to be surrounded by familiar voices, the safe walls of the hospital, the people who made this grueling job a little less heavy. This place was his refuge, the one spot where he could count on laughter and a feeling of family strong enough to keep him standing even when the rest of his life felt like it was spinning out of control.

But he also knew when enough was enough. This was still a hospital, and as fun as it was to get caught up in the chaos, the chatter couldn’t go on forever.

“Alright, enough!” He finally called out, putting on the mock-serious voice that always made the others grin. “This is over. I’m not dating some random guy just because he’s rich or sends me flowers. We have patients to manage, people!”

He waved them off with an exaggerated shooing motion, more serious this time, and though there were still a few giggles and whispered comments, one by one, his colleagues returned to their stations and tasks, falling back into the rhythm of work. That was the thing about TK Strand; he could be warm, friendly, and open-hearted, but when it came time for business, people listened. There was discipline behind his charm, and the staff respected it.

As the laughter faded and the nurses moved away, TK lingered for a moment, staring at the flowers again. Even though this had been a bright, funny moment that had cut through the heaviness of their day, for him, none of it was really a joke. The fear still coiled tight inside him, hidden beneath his easy smile, reminding him that maybe he got himself into something that nothing could bring him back from.

He tried to convince himself that if he hadn’t insisted on helping that night… if he’d just kept his head down and minded his own business, he wouldn’t be living in this constant state of fear. But right on the heels of that thought, his conscience screamed back at him. Because if he hadn’t helped, maybe that man would’ve been far worse off than he already was. Maybe he’d be dead. And he knew, in the deepest part of himself, that he’d never be the kind of man who could turn away from someone in pain. His regret faded as soon as he remembered those pleading brown eyes, full of pain and loneliness. The way the stranger’s empty eyes looked at him, but still holding a small, desperate hope.

And there was one thing he knew with absolute certainty. If that night replayed a hundred times, he’d make the same choice every single time. He’d help a stranger who was hurt and desperate. Even if it meant ending up right here—in the middle of chaos that he kept imagining, afraid, rattled, and still desperately wondering about the man with the wounded eyes.

-----------

It was around four in the afternoon when the heavy silence of the house was broken by the quiet click of a key turning in the front door, followed by the soft thud of it closing again.

From the direction of the entryway, low voices began to drift in—men speaking in clipped, direct tones. Carlos could hear instructions being given, responses murmured back. The conversation wasn’t loud enough to follow, but words were all over the place. You didn’t need to hear every word to know who was in charge.

The voices came from the open-concept kitchen just beyond the hallway. The space was designed in sleek, neutral tones; cool grey cabinets, matte white counters, and polished stone surfaces that reflected the warm light from the pendant lamps hanging over the island. The floors were pale oak, smooth and wide-planked, and the sound of measured footsteps echoed through the stillness of the house.

Moments passed. The conversation turned quieter and more fragmented until the sound of footsteps headed toward the door again. The men left as they’d come—organized, quiet, and firm. The door closed behind them with a low finality, and once again, the house settled into silence.

The light was softer and warmer now, as the sun moved into the early evening. In the patio at the center of the house, sunlight came through the partly covered wooden pergola overhead, making patchy shadows on the gray stone floor. Large potted plants stood quietly in the corners, their big green leaves unmoving. The area felt more like an enclosed garden than a part of a modern home.

Carlos sat in one of the minimalist black metal chairs, a soft grey cushion supporting his back. His body was reclined just enough, his spine aligned with the backrest, his head tipped back in weary surrender. His eyes were closed, not in sleep, but in retreat. As if seeing was simply too much right now. and hearing was… enough.

A sleek black cane leaned against his chair. His right leg was stretched out and propped on the low wooden table in front of him. The patio itself was enclosed on two sides by tall black partitions that gave it privacy, while the other two opened it to the house: one to the master bedroom—its wide glass door was left open as the soft breeze rustled the sheer white curtain beside the door—and the other bordered by floor-to-ceiling windows looking into the living room. From almost anywhere on the first floor, you could see into this space. And while the world outside was muted by the tall trees and surrounding buildings, inside, the light poured in. A narrow hallway ran along one side of those windows, mostly hidden from view. It led straight to the master suite, cutting it off from the rest of the house like a quiet, private corridor.

Everything in this home was pristine, deliberate. But Carlos was not. His body radiated exhaustion, not just physical but soul-deep. Something in the tight set of his jaw, in the way his fingers curled around the chair’s armrest, betrayed the heaviness he carried. The light filtering through the patio only seemed to make that darkness inside him more visible. The house was alive. It breathed. It moved. But the man in the patio… it was as if he didn’t belong to that life anymore. He only listened. He only breathed. He only waited.

The glass door to the living room slid open with a soft hiss, letting in purposeful footsteps on the smooth stone tiles. Carlos didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t need to. He’d memorized them without meaning to. He knew exactly who it was from the weight of those steps alone. They belonged to the only person who had ever managed to mix protectiveness with barely restrained exasperation in every stride.

And maybe he’d never admit it out loud, maybe he didn’t even show it on his face, but Carlos had always found a kind of peace in that sound. Even now, even when he was angry, even when his chest was still full of pain and his body still carried the bruises of what had happened, that sound meant something.

It meant someone was coming for him.

“I sent them to go,” Came Judd’s voice as he stepped out onto the patio. His voice was even and low but edged with that slight gruffness that always clung to him when he was annoyed. He was talking about the four temporary bodyguard who had come in to take his place for a few hours while he’d handled other pressing matters. They were professionals, trained and silent, but still not Judd. And Carlos had noticed the difference immediately.

“Good,” Carlos murmured, still without moving a muscle as he was resting in the metal-framed chair. “They’re loud.”

There was a pause. Judd stood just a few feet behind him, but far enough to keep his presence from pressing in too hard. His arms hung stiff at his sides; hands curled into tight fists. Even in the safety of this well-secured home that kept being watched 24/7, protected by layers of security and staffed by vetted professionals, Judd never truly let his guard down. He was never off duty. Never entirely still. Not when Carlos was sitting exposed on the patio like this. Not after what had happened the other night.

Judd stared at Carlos for a long second. The man didn’t look back. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he didn’t want to.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said eventually, quieter but firmer this time.

Carlos didn’t answer right away. For a moment, the only sound was the breeze slipping through the trees outside the patio walls and the soft rustle of the sheer white curtain near the open door behind them.

“You can go too,” he said finally, calm but dismissive, but still motionless. “If you want.”

Judd’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he stepped forward just as Carlos tried to shift in his seat. The movement was stiff and forced. Carlos placed his hands on the armrests and attempted to sit up straighter, easing out of the slouched position he'd been in for the past hour. As he pushed himself upright, a low hiss escaped through clenched teeth, his jaw tightening instinctively. The sharp and sudden pain flared along his ribcage and the back of his neck. That sound was all it took for Judd to move.

Without a word, he was at Carlos’s side, slipping a steadying arm beneath his shoulders. He didn’t ask if Carlos needed help. He never did. Once Carlos was sitting upright again, Judd carefully repositioned his injured leg, lifting it just enough to slide the cushion underneath into a better angle. He was so gentle and careful not to jostle the still-healing knee.

It wasn’t like him, actually. Judd wasn’t gentle at all. Not with Carlos, and not with anyone else. Usually, he acted like Carlos was some reckless kid who needed constant correcting, someone who had to be told to sit still, keep quiet, or stop being difficult. Their conversations were often tense, filled with eye rolls, sarcasm, or the kind of gruff warnings that came from frustration, not concern.

That’s what made this moment different.

He wasn’t barking orders, wasn’t throwing accusations. Just this quiet gesture done with so much care, made something in Carlos ache. It made the moment feel strange and important, like it didn’t belong to their usual rhythm. It wasn’t ordinary. It meant something. And Carlos felt it deep in the part of him that still hadn’t decided whether he deserved this kind of care at all. Though he knew part of this behavior came from the pity of seeing him in this condition.

When everything was aligned and Carlos no longer looked like he was gritting his teeth to stay silent, Judd stood upright again, his eyes drifting to the patio walls, to the sky, to anything but Carlos. And Carlos didn’t say thank you. He rarely did. But when Judd finally moved and sat across from him in the matching patio chair, their eyes met for a beat, and something silent passed between them. A kind of acknowledgment.

Judd leaned back, exhaling through his nose. His broad shoulders filled the seat as he settled in, but his eyes stayed alert, flicking occasionally to the rooftops beyond the high patio walls, then back to Carlos.

“Nah, can’t do that,” he said finally, his tone firm. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out the small handgun he always carried and placed it on the table between them, next to Carlos’s outstretched leg. The move was casual, but pointed.

“I left you alone for three damn hours that night, and look where it got us.” His hand gestured toward Carlos’s body, the bruises still staining his cheek, the dressing around his wrist, and the stiff angle of his leg. “So shut up and quit pretendin’ you don’t need me.”

His Southern drawl laced each word with a rough kind of affection, one Carlos was used to by now, but still never quite prepared for.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Carlos said quietly. His eyes didn’t move from the gun lying between them on the table, its matte black surface catching the soft afternoon light. There was no heat in his tone, just a low, tired certainty, like someone repeating a line they’d said too many times to believe anymore. He wasn’t trying to start a fight, but the words still hung in the air like something heavier than they should’ve been.

“No, dumbass, you need a bodyguard,” Judd said, crossing one ankle over the other, his voice flat. “And that’s me doin’ my job.”

“Oh really?” Carlos snorted—a sharp, humorless sound that cut through the quiet like glass cracking under pressure. His eyes met Judd’s again; there was fire in them now, anger, but also with something softer underneath. Hurt. Vulnerability. Exhaustion that no amount of sleep could fix. “So your job is to lock your boss inside his own house for no reason?” He continued, voice rising ever so slightly. He leaned forward just a little, the tension flaring in his jaw.  It wasn’t the first time he’d said something like this. But this time, it landed heavier. “Aren’t you supposed to take orders from me?”

“I am following your orders,” Judd said as he nodded toward the patio door. “You told me to deliver the flowers. And I did.”

There was a small pause. Judd’s tone wasn’t angry, but there was something clipped in it, something tired and maybe a little resentful. He didn’t like being questioned for following instructions, especially not when those orders had forced him to do something that felt awful, something like locking his own boss inside his home. But Carlos had been so hurt and so broken that Judd hadn’t felt like he had a choice.

Because Carlos wasn’t just injured on the outside. He was wrecked on the inside too. And Judd had seen enough to know that letting him walk out that door would’ve been reckless. Not just because of who hurt him before, but because of what Carlos was carrying now. The people who’d done this to him weren’t strangers. They’d been business partners, polite, friendly even. And yet, they’d nearly destroyed him and if they could do that, anyone else in the streets or even in the business could. But the worst part wasn’t what they did. It was what it left behind. That now Carlos wasn’t acting like himself. He wasn’t even acting angry, not in the way Judd knew him to be. It was like something had gone quiet inside him like he didn’t care anymore, not about his safety, not about what came next. And Judd knew what that looked like. He knew the signs. He’d seen it before.

That’s why he kept him in the house and ignored every protest. Because he was well aware that when a man stops caring about what happens to him, there’s no way to guarantee he won’t end up hurting himself, or worse, committing suicide. You don’t take that risk and let him go out alone or even with a bodyguard. Not when his eyes look that empty.

“And the doc said you need to sit your ass down and rest,” Judd added as he gave a small shrug, “So that’s the deal. You rest,” he pointed at Carlos without much formality, “I guard,” he jabbed a thumb toward his own chest. “Everyone’s happy.”

That didn’t sound happy.

“I can’t stay here forever. I have an appointment tomorrow.”

“No shit?” Judd let out a dry, humorless laugh, clearly annoyed by how insane his boss could be sometimes. “And you really thought you could show up looking like this?”

“I’m fine.” The words came out flat. Too flat. Carlos didn’t even look at him when he said it; he just stared past the edge of the table like the tiles out there held more truth than the man sitting across from him.

“The hell you are.” Judd scrubbed a hand down his face, rough and slow, like he was trying to push down the frustration building behind his eyes. “Even if you were, you ain’t goin’ nowhere. Your daddy’s order.”

Carlos’s expression didn’t change right away, but then it froze. A muscle in his jaw twitched. Something sharp flickered in his eyes, the kind of flash Judd had seen only a few times before, when words hit deeper than they were supposed to. For a long second, the air between them grew even heavier. And then—

“Oh,” Carlos said, voice cold with sarcasm. “So that’s what this is about. Since when does my bodyguard betray me and take orders from my father?”

Judd didn’t blink.

“Mind you, I was his bodyguard before I was yours. Don’t you fucking go telling me that I need your damn permission .” He sat back in the chair, folding his arms across his broad chest. “I do what’s best for you. Whether you like it or not.”

 “I don’t think that gives you the right to go behind my back and make plans with him.” Carlos snapped, his non-injured hand flying up in frustration. Judd knew this would piss him off, but he didn’t care.

“I did it because you stopped talking to him.” Judd said, voice flat as concrete, “Paul didn’t exactly spell it out for him. So I went cause somebody had to let him know you’re still breathing.”

Carlos flinched. “As if he cares,” he muttered almost to himself, letting out a bitter laugh. His words sounded like defiance, but underneath, they were hollow.

Silence followed, settling into the cracks between them like water in dry stone. A breeze stirred the ivy climbing the outer wall, and somewhere far off, the soft hum of traffic filtered in.

Carlos leaned back again with a slight wince, his body stiff with pain. The fire from earlier had drained out of him, leaving only the echo. He closed his eyes, breathing slow and controlled, and let the silence stay.

Judd stared at him for a few seconds. His brow was furrowed and his jaw was tense, but he didn’t say anything. He looked like he was biting back words, maybe holding himself in check for once. Maybe he didn’t want to push Carlos too far this time. Or maybe he was just tired of arguing. Because the man sitting in front of him wasn’t the same Carlos he used to spar with. Not the sharp-tongued, always-in-control version of him. This Carlos… looked wrecked.

The bruising under his left cheekbone had darkened since yesterday, the edges turning sickly shades of green and yellow. Three days had passed since the incident, but the damage had bloomed wider across his face instead of fading. The cut on his lip had started to scab over, still raw, but less angry. His left wrist was still wrapped in thick white gauze, and his right knee was cracked in more than one spot. The medical team had recommended a cast after reviewing the X-rays, but Carlos refused and said he’d rest and it would heal on its own. Typical.

Carlos lifted his gaze to the sky. His eyes tracked nothing in particular. Just the shifting clouds, or maybe the past playing behind them. He was starting to get cold, but Judd didn’t comment about it. But from where he sat, he could see the way Carlos’s eyes welled just for a moment and then the way he blinked hard and fast to force the tears back in.

That sight made Judd angry. Not at Carlos, but at whatever made him feel like he had to hide his pain and fake his emotions. Like he had to pretend everything was fine, especially now that nothing was. Judd knew better that Carlos wasn’t fine. And he would’ve burned the whole city down if it meant erasing that haunted look from his eyes.

“Did you see him?” Carlos’s voice broke the silence. It was quiet this time, low and calm, as if he wasn’t even sure whether he wanted to ask the question or hear the answer.

Judd’s eyes moved slowly from the skyline back to Carlos. He didn’t answer right away; he just watched him, waiting, and giving him space to continue. Carlos gave him a look that meant, ‘You know who.’

“At the hospital,” He added softly.

Judd sighed through his nose and pulled at the hem of his jacket, smoothing it down over his thigh, brushing some invisible dust from the cuff like he needed something to do with his hands.

“Kind of,” he said. “I gave the flowers to a nurse. Waited around to make sure he got them.”

“And?”

Judd hesitated for a second, then met Carlos’s eyes head-on. “He saw the flowers, but I don’t think he liked ‘em.”

“How do you know?” Carlos frowned, something sharp flickering across his features.

It wasn’t that Carlos truly cared whether a stranger liked his gifts or not. That wasn’t the point. He had sent the flowers for a reason, to say sorry, not to be liked. But still something inside him didn’t let him not care. He did care. He cared when he picked out every single flower, when he argued with the florist because he had to have Tulip Mania in the bouquet. He cared that they looked expensive and elegant, but not too flashy or showy. Not something that screamed, ‘Look how rich I am,’ but instead whispered, ‘I meant this.’

He cared, even though he told himself he shouldn’t. And now, the man’s reaction was important to him too, even though he knew the guy would be shocked. Carlos had known it from the start. All that man had to say that night was that he was a doctor and wore scrubs, and they’d traced him from there. That was all it took, and Carlos knew it wasn’t fair. They’d done a full background check just to send flowers and an unsigned note. It was invasive, it was cold, and it crossed a line.

But there hadn’t been another way. There was no phone number. No last name. No normal path to an apology. So this was what he had done, to cross that line and expose the truth, just to say I’m sorry in the only way he knew how. And it didn’t matter how justified it felt in his head. Deep down, he knew what it looked like. A stranger tracking you down to say something you didn’t ask to hear. It was unfair. But then again, Carlos didn’t know what being fair meant; his whole life had been unfair. This was just one more piece of it.

“Not that he didn’t like them,” Judd said slowly, choosing his words carefully. “He just… lost it a bit. Didn’t seem like he expected ‘em to come from you.”

Carlos’s face darkened instantly. His jaw tightened so much it looked like it might crack. “You heard what he said?”

Judd shook his head. “I headed for the exit after he got it. But hell, the boy just froze. He zoned out for a sec, like the whole world went quiet.”

“Of course he was shocked.” Carlos brought a hand up to rub his face in frustration, his curls falling forward and brushing his forehead. “Christ, Judd, I told you not to dig into him like that. You scared the hell out of him.”

Judd’s eyes flashed with irritation. “Oh, so now it’s my fault”?

“Whose fault do you think it is?” Carlos spun back around, his voice rising, frustration breaking through the usual calm. “Which part of ‘send flowers’ sounds like ‘track him down and dig through his entire life’? He was just trying to help, he didn’t ask for any of this. And now he knows we know everything about him. Can you even imagine how that must feel?”

Judd sat up straighter, his tone hardening, voice sharp as steel. “I had to know who he wa—"

“No, you didn’t,” Carlos cut him off, voice loud and furious now. “He was just a doctor. A random guy who was caught in the wrong place at the worst possible time. He helped because he thought someone needed it. And you treated him like a suspect. Like he was some kind of threat. He didn’t deserve that.”

His breath was uneven now. His face tightened with a flinch as pain spread through his ribs and chest. He lifted a hand and pressed it gently over his sternum, like maybe steadying his breathing would help calm him down. The movement didn’t go unnoticed. Judd was alert, half-ready to stand, either to grab his painkillers or end the fight right there, but for now, he held still. He wanted to hear him, even if it meant taking the most blame himself.

“If you didn’t lose your damn mind every time someone got near me, maybe none of this would’ve happened. Maybe we wouldn’t even need to reach out again and apologize to that man.” Carlod paused, jaw tight. “What if he files a report now? Or sues? Or something worse?”

“He won’t. I made damn sure of it.” Judd’s voice dropped cold and flat.

“Oh yeah? You threatened him again? You’re gonna do that to everyone who comes within five feet of me now?” He gave a bitter, humorless laugh. “Funny, because I don’t see you this worked up over the bastards who actually did this to me.”

He didn’t mean to say it. Or maybe deep down he did. But once the words slipped out, they just hung there between them, heavy and undeniable. His voice cracked at the end, and the knot in his throat that had been swelling since that night finally pushed through.

For three days, he had been trying to swallow the memory of what happened. Trying to make it small and manageable. He told himself it was just another attack he used to face, that he’d faced worse, that he could get through it like he always did. But the truth was, he hadn’t done anything that night as if it didn’t matter. He hadn’t fought back, screamed, or even flinched when the worst of it started. He felt… nothing. And that was what scared him the most. Because he used to think he was built for this. That the politics, the secrecy, and the violence were all part of the game in their business. He told himself if something like this ever happened, he’d be ready. But he wasn’t. Not even close. And in that moment, the one he never wanted to talk about, he realized something horrifying, that he didn’t even care if he lived.

Of course, he’d thought about death countless times in countless ways before, in the dark, in the middle of his meetings, in his sleep. He always thought about the pills hidden in his drawer, the roof of a tall building, or even a river, if it came to that. But he never did it. Not because he wanted to live, but because of the mess it would leave behind. Because Judd would go through hell to find him. And his mother would bury him. And his father would be ashamed, but only because of the headlines.

He didn’t die that night, though, but something inside him did.

“You don’t know anything, Carlos,” Judd said, his voice quiet but firm. He looked at him differently now, not with anger, not like before. There was something softer in his eyes like regret or maybe even guilt. Like he wished things had gone another way.

What happened to the man sitting in front of him wasn’t something Judd could joke about or argue over. He couldn’t meet Carlos’s pain with sarcasm or attitude. Not when it came to this. Because this was too heavy. Too wrong. It wasn’t just a mistake. It was a damn disgrace. Something that would never stop haunting either of them. So he forced himself to stay calm, even if part of him was falling apart inside. He wanted to make Carlos feel safe. Like things were under control. Even if that was a lie. “It’s being taken care of. The less you know about them, the better.” he said after a long breath, the words slow and tired.

Carlos didn’t look at him. He just shrugged as much as his bruised ribs would allow.

“I don’t want to know anything, to be honest,” he said, his eyes fixed somewhere past the edge of the patio, staring into nothing. “Too late now,” he added under his breath, soft enough that it wasn’t meant to be heard, but still loud enough to reach Judd and make him look away, heavy with shame.

Carlos didn’t care anymore. He didn’t care if those men came back. Didn’t care if he saw them in a boardroom next week or caught their faces on a security feed next month. It wouldn’t surprise him if his father blamed him for it, or punished him for being weak and letting the cracks show.

But none of that mattered now. Not the apologies, not the revenge, not justice, and not even any amount of justice or blood would undo what had been done to him for the past ten years. That night had only been the breaking point.

Carlos swallowed down the tight knot forming in his throat again, closed his eyes, and pulled in a long, shaky breath. He hated crying, but what he hated even more was the idea of breaking down in front of Judd. Not that there was anything Judd hadn’t already seen, but the last thing he wanted was to turn his bodyguard into a caretaker for his feelings, too. It was hard enough for Judd to protect him physically. Carlos didn’t want to add the weight of his emotional wreckage on top of that.

Deep down, he knew Judd had changed since that night. He could feel it in the way he moved around him now, quieter, more careful, like he was watching something fragile that might shatter at any moment. He knew Judd blamed himself for what had happened, for not staying, for walking away when Carlos had asked him to, for trusting that Carlos would be safe. And that was the worst part. Because Carlos had insisted and told Judd that it was fine. That he could handle it and there was no need to worry.

And Judd, who was torn between his instincts and the orders he was given, had finally stepped back even though he hadn’t wanted to. Carlos remembered that clearly now, the way Judd had offered one last time to go with him to the appointment, had asked if he was sure, but Carlos had brushed him off and reminded him of the protocol, that they had to follow the rules and no bodyguards were allowed to enter the meeting.

He had gone in alone, just like he was supposed to. And now they were both living with the aftermath.

And it was exactly because of that guilt that, since that night, Judd had stopped truly listening to him. He acted quietly, stubbornly, and without hesitation on whatever he thought was right, regardless of Carlos’s protests, regardless of whether it meant defying a direct order from his boss. And they both knew what that meant. Judd knew damn well he could be reprimanded, suspended, or worse. But none of that seemed to matter to him now, not when Carlos’s safety was on the line, not when his own conscience was still bleeding over the choice he’d made that night. The choice to listen and leave Carlos with those monsters.

That was why now that Carlos told him to go home or switch shifts with others or take a break, or just to give him a few minutes of privacy to breathe, he didn’t budge. He simply stayed, as if he had anchored himself to Carlos’s side with chains no one could see.

The only time he’d left Carlos alone in the last three days was earlier that day, in the morning, when Carlos had insisted he personally deliver the bouquet. The one Carlos had spent a few hours picking out flower by flower, adjusting every detail, folding the message card with shaking fingers, writing each word in his own uneven handwriting. Judd had done what he was ordered to do, but Carlos suspected that delivering the flowers wasn’t the only errand he’d run while he was gone. It had taken him hours to come back, which was why he had left behind a full team of four to cover him. Four armed, professional men, just to watch one injured, sleepless man sitting quietly on his own patio.

Carlos knew all of that. And yet, what stuck with him most was that moment in the examination room, when even the private doctor, who Judd normally respected, had asked for the room to be cleared and Judd didn’t leave. He didn’t even move. Just glared at the man with eyes full of anger, until the doctor shut his mouth and went on with the exam in silence.

And now, Carlos could feel the weight of his whole life pressing down on his chest like a hand he couldn’t push away. He was furious with himself. Furious that he’d let things get this bad. Furious that Judd, of all people, had to bear the fallout. Judd didn’t deserve any of this, not the exhaustion, not the sleepless nights, not the endless pacing outside Carlos’s bedroom. He deserved a normal and decent life. A job that didn’t ask him to throw himself in front of bullets—emotional or otherwise—for someone who no longer even knew if he was worth saving.

Carlos had ruined his own chances a long time ago. There was no normal left for him, no safe path to return to. And the worst part was, maybe that night at the bus station, he’d dragged someone else into this mess too. Someone who had nothing to do with any of it. Someone who might now be caught in the same dirty game, just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He closed his eyes and let the heavy guilt roll over him. He was drowning in it, and what terrified him most was that a part of him didn’t even want to swim anymore.

He found himself thinking about those bright and steady eyes of the doctor, again. He remembered the way in the middle of all that darkness someone had reached for him with a kind of gentleness that didn’t belong in that night. A hand had wrapped a bandage around his wrist with a care so delicate and so intentional as if the man believed he was tending to something rare and precious, something that might shatter under the slightest pressure. He could still feel the way soft fingers had brushed the blood from his face and the corner of his mouth without a word of complaint or hesitation. Just quiet hands, steady breath, and a presence that had made something deep inside Carlos stop bracing for the next blow.

The doctor had spoken softly, in a voice that barely rose above a whisper, like he feared anything louder might break Carlos open even further. There had been no pity in his words and no push for answers. Just warmth, calm, and patience. As if Carlos wasn’t a stranger, as if he hadn’t been cold and distant and nearly silent the entire time. As if it didn’t matter that he hadn’t answered the man’s questions or even looked him in the eye. The doctor had simply stayed and offered comfort in the only way he could, through the quiet insistence of his care.

And now, three days later, Carlos still couldn’t shake the memory off him. Couldn’t forget the feel of that touch or the sound of that voice or the weight of those eyes watching him. Something that had followed Carlos through every room of this house since then, like the faint trace of a scent that refused to fade.

He knew the man’s name now. TK Strand. A cardiologist, working at the hospital across the hotel that Carlos had driven past a thousand times without a second glance. His mind, the part of him that still clung to logic, told him he should regret what had happened, that he should feel nothing but shame for the way he had let someone in that night, even for just a moment. For the way he had let his guard down and allowed himself to be vulnerable and to be seen. And it was true. He had been vulnerable. He was barely holding himself together, but that didn’t mean he should’ve let someone get close enough to see it.

And yet, somewhere deep in his chest, in a part of him he’d spent years trying to silence, a quiet longing still remained. It ignored reason. It ignored the pain. It ignored the voice that warned him about dragging innocent people into his mess of a world. That small and foolish, and desperate part of him wanted nothing more than to see TK Strand again one more time. Just to look at him without fear that he’d cause more damage. Just to say thank you. Or maybe not even that. Maybe just to look, and to feel that calm again, even if it lasted only for a moment, before the world pulled them apart again.

He took a deep a long, and tired breath to shake the weight off his chest. He looked up and saw Judd sitting still, absently rubbing a hand over his tattoo, his eyes sharp but tired. Carlos knew arguing with him or blaming him for anything wasn’t going to fix a thing. Judd had made his choices, just like Carlos had made his own. Carlos didn’t like thinking too hard about what ‘taken care of’ might mean. He didn’t want to imagine what Judd might’ve done, or worse, what orders he might’ve followed.

He knew his father and Judd shared a deep connection built on years of trust and loyalty. He knew Judd would do anything now to protect him, especially if it meant carrying out his father’s orders. He’d been his father’s most trusted shadow before he was Carlos’s bodyguard. But what Carlos doubted was that his father would suddenly grow a conscience big enough to punish his own partners just because his son had almost died. That wasn’t the man Carlos knew.

But none of it mattered. Not now. Not today. Not ever.

So he gathered every last thread of strength he had left and finally moved to get up. He groaned as he lifted his bad leg off the table and placed it carefully on the floor, the pain flaring instantly through his thigh and ribs. His hands gripped the sides of the chair to brace himself, but the second he pushed down with his left wrist, a white-hot bolt of pain shot up his arm, and a broken sound escaped his throat.

Judd was on his feet before Carlos could blink, already at his side. His hands landed on either side of Carlos’s waist, steady but careful, to lift him up without putting pressure on his fractured ribs or injured leg.

"Easy," Judd said, low and firm.

Carlos turned his head toward him, face contorted in pain, his breathing ragged from the strain. That simple motion had knocked the wind right out of him. But Judd had forgotten something important. That Carlos was now in a lot of pain, and he was definitely a stubborn, hard-headed son of a bitch.

“Just... don’t.” His voice cracked under the weight of it, raw and too honest. “Please.”

He didn’t want to be touched, to be looked at, and to be helped. Right now, he couldn’t even stand the idea of someone’s hands on him, not even Judd’s. He could barely stand to look at himself in the mirror, let alone ask someone else to look at him like this. To see him like this.

Even changing his bandages felt like too much.

The only time he’d really looked at them was three nights ago, just past midnight, when his personal physician had come by and tried to open the dressing on his wrist to see the damage. Carlos had refused. He couldn’t explain it, not even to himself, but there was something about the way it had been wrapped that night that made him want to leave it untouched. It was so precise, so clean, and so gentle that it felt like it still carried the imprint of someone else’s care.

Of Dr. TK Strand’s care.

And of course, the next day, he’d eventually let them replace it. Reality didn’t wait for sentiment. But still, it stayed with him.

Now Judd stepped back immediately, pulling his hands away and holding them up in front of him, palms open in a silent gesture of surrender. He didn’t say a word or didn’t try to touch Carlos again. Then he took a step back, feet planting shoulder-width apart, shoulders square. He laced his hands in front of him, lifted his chin, and just like that, the Judd who’d been his friend that had been holding him up a second ago was gone. What stood in front of Carlos now was Judd Ryder, the bodyguard. Detached. Professional. And cold.

“At least call your mama. She’s been trying to reach you since that night.” His voice was void of emotion, his eyes fixed somewhere past Carlos’s shoulder, at the stone walls of the patio. As if this were just business. As if he hadn’t spent the last few days hovering like a ghost between Carlos’s shadow and his silence.

Carlos didn’t answer. He didn’t even look back.

He reached for his cane, forced himself upright with a soft groan that he didn’t bother to hide, and without a single glance at Judd, he turned toward the sliding glass doors. He stepped through them slowly, disappeared into the master bedroom, and closed the door behind him with a quiet click, leaving Judd out there on the patio, still standing like a soldier, still pretending like none of it meant a damn thing.

Chapter Text

TK had never thought that one small decision on a seemingly ordinary night, something he would’ve done without a second thought in any other situation, could leave him like this. Restless. Unsettled. Aching in ways he couldn’t explain. And yet, here he was, two weeks later, still carrying the weight of that night, unable to push the memory out of his mind no matter how hard he tried.

Two weeks had passed, and life for TK had mostly returned to its regular rhythm. He had returned to his shifts and leaned into the steady pulse of hospital life that always gave him something to hold onto. He still found peace in his work. He always did. There was comfort in the repetition, in Cath Lab, or in the controlled chaos of the ER. The hospital was full of pain and miracles, sometimes both on the same day. Losses that broke your heart, like the quiet death of someone who fought too hard for too long, and joys that filled your chest, like the soft, relieved smile of a patient being discharged after weeks in bed.

But the one thing that hadn’t fallen back into place was TK’s thoughts. They were scattered, unfocused, and a few times they’d gotten the better of him. He had made small mistakes. Nothing catastrophic, but noticeable, and maybe embarrassing for someone like him. Like the time he got his sides mixed up during an echo and wrote ‘right’ instead of ‘left’ on the chart, or when he completely forgot to check on the patient in bed four and made the agitated lady wait for too long. Nancy had given him a quiet look that said more than words, and Grace had gently asked if everything was okay. He’d brushed it off and even laughed and said he was just tired.

Except, he wasn’t tired-tired. He kept showing up at work, doing what he always did. He kept smiling at patients, making jokes with coworkers, and reading charts like everything was normal. But every time someone on his shift asked about the flowers, where they came from, who sent them, or why they looked like they belonged in a royal wedding, his stomach twisted. And as soon as he stepped out of the hospital, when the air hit his face and the distractions fell away, the thoughts came rushing back like they’d just been waiting at the door.

He tried to keep those thoughts away. He didn’t let them in easily, and he refused to let his personal life spill over into his work. But sometimes those thoughts came anyway, no matter how hard he tried. The face of the man, the silence, the blood, the weight of what hadn’t been said. It wasn’t constant. Not in the middle of a code or when he was deep in a procedure. They showed up when he was tired and when the hospital hallways grew quiet. When he was pouring a cup of coffee or sitting in the staff lounge with his head tilted back against the wall with nothing to distract him, they would come creeping back in.

And the hardest part wasn’t even the thoughts themselves; it was pretending they weren’t there and he was fine.

And the truth was, TK was fine. He was going on with his life, just like always. Nothing had really happened to him. He hadn’t been hurt. He hadn’t been in danger. Two whole weeks had passed and no one had shown up. There’d been no follow-up, no strange calls, no signs that the story wasn’t already over. So why couldn’t he shake it?

Helping a stranger wasn’t new to him. He’d done it a hundred times. He’d treated people he didn’t know, people who didn’t thank him, people who sometimes even pushed him away. That was part of the job. But this was different, and he couldn’t explain why. There was something about that man that he couldn’t forget—his face, his voice, even the way he looked sitting there, bleeding, in those clean, expensive clothes that still somehow looked like they belonged on a magazine cover.

And maybe TK could have moved on if it weren’t for the flowers. Because that bouquet changed everything.

The moment he saw it, something in him twisted. It wasn’t a thank-you gift. It wasn’t a polite gesture. Imported tulips, arranged perfectly, custom-wrapped. It was too personal. Too precise. Too expensive. No one sent something like that to a stranger unless they had the money and the power to track him down first.

And that’s exactly what they had done.

Now they knew where he worked. They knew his name and probably more. They had found him easily, and something about that scared him more than he wanted to admit. These weren’t just rich people. They were the kind of rich who had people to do this sort of thing for them. The kind of rich who didn’t blink at spending hundreds of dollars on a bouquet for someone they might never see again.

And maybe that would have been the end of it, too, if it hadn’t felt so... intrusive. It hadn’t just been unsettling. It had felt like something had crossed a line.

That was why, on the same day TK received it, he called his mom in New York to check in on her. He didn’t tell her why; just that he just needed to hear her voice. And later that evening, he stopped by his dad’s place, even though they hadn’t seen each other in a while due to their busy work schedules and personal issues. He didn’t say much to him either, but the need to feel anchored to something familiar had been too strong to ignore. So he ended up staying until the next day, receiving strange looks from his dad, that he had to reassure him several times that he was fine, but didn’t feel like going home, that was all.

What bothered him the most was that he had tried to show kindness and hadn’t expected anything in return. Not gratitude, not recognition, nothing. But this? He hadn’t signed up for this. Not for an expensive bouquet full of unspoken meaning and show-off elegance. Not for the cold fear that crept under his skin and made him double-check every door and window before bed. Not for the way he’d started keeping a baseball bat by the side of his bed, just in case.

It was hard. But he could handle it.

If he was honest with himself, it wasn’t even the man he kept thinking about. He hadn’t even seen his face properly. That hat had covered most of it, and TK had only caught glimpses of a bruised jaw, pale skin, blood at the corner of his eye and lips. It wasn’t the man’s face that haunted him though. It was everything else.

It was the way the man had looked. He was so still and so checked out of his own body. It was the way he hadn’t reacted to the pain at all, like it didn’t matter. Like he didn’t matter. TK couldn’t stop thinking about that. About what could make someone hate their own body so much that they didn’t even flinch at the damage. What kind of life led someone to that place? And what kind of world was this man living in, where he had bodyguards, but not one of them seemed even surprised that he’d been hurt? Not one of them acted shocked. No panic. No guilt. No urgency.

TK kept going back to the way they’d found him. That man was left alone on a bus stop bench like he didn’t belong anywhere, like someone had dropped him there and walked away. He was there with no phone, no ID, and no protection.

What kind of bodyguard lets that happen?

And maybe what unsettled TK even more was that when the guards had finally shown up, the first thing they’d done was to come at him. As if it were his fault. As if the easiest way to make sense of the whole thing was to attack the only stranger nearby.

Why?

All of those questions, the unease, and the anger were what had been churning in him ever since. It wasn’t just that he’d been dragged into something. It was that he didn’t even know what part he’d played in it.

And he wasn’t stupid. He knew that man was powerful and dangerous, maybe. You could see it in the way those men moved around him. In the kind of silence that followed them. He felt that even thinking about them, about him, would make them come after him and kill him or even torture him to death. Still, despite all of that, it was the man’s face that wouldn’t leave him. That blankness. That hollow look, like nothing was left inside. Like he’d already stopped expecting anything from the world.

How could someone like that, someone who looked like all he’d ever known was pain, be dangerous?

TK moved through the locker room and changed into regular clothes as his scrubs had become dirty at the end of the shift and he hadn’t bothered changing them. He grabbed his things and put them into his backpack as he headed toward the exit doors at the far end of the hospital hallway. His shift today had been spent mostly in the cath lab, and just like always, that part of the job drained him more than the patient consultations and visits or therapy sessions ever did. The long stretches of silence, the sterile air, the hum of machines—it all left him feeling more tired than he liked to admit. But it was part of his job, and so, with one hand tucked into the pocket of his soft hoodie he threw on over his shirt, he stepped outside into the night air.

As usual, he walked alone toward the bus stop.

Most of his coworkers own cars. Those who didn’t either shared rides, splitting off into their separate lives, or caught other buses or walked to their places. But TK always found himself taking the walk alone, and honestly, he preferred it that way. His route home was different from everyone else’s anyway, and there was a strange kind of quiet comfort in the way the bus rumbled along the streets, letting him disappear into his own thoughts for a little while.

Once outside, his eyes flicked instinctively across the street to the hotel facing the hospital.

It was impossible not to notice it. An enormous, striking building, all glass and angles, elegant in that cold, expensive way that seemed designed to keep people at a distance. TK had always found it fascinating. He’d spent enough breaks in the hospital courtyard to pick up on the rhythms of the place: the steady rotation of black town cars pulling up to the entrance, the steady stream of guests dressed in sleek suits and glittering dresses, people who lived in a completely different world. He’d seen celebrities walk through those doors, important-looking men whose names he only knew from news headlines, and sometimes people who didn’t look like they belonged there at all, shifty glances, too many bags, moving like they didn’t want to be seen.

He made his way toward the bus stop, head bent over his phone as he scrolled through his playlist, trying to pick something that would carry him through the ride home. Something familiar that didn’t ask much from him.

He was running about thirty minutes behind his usual time tonight. The hospital had gotten busy near the end of his shift, and he’d had to stick around longer than expected to help finish up a few things, paperwork, patient transfers, little tasks that piled up faster than anyone noticed. It wasn’t a big deal, just another part of the job. Still, as he walked down towards the bus stop, the familiar quiet of the evening settled over him like a weight, and the ache behind his eyes reminded him just how long the day had been.

As he reached the bus stop, he slowed down and looked more carefully. There was someone already sitting on the bench, a figure not entirely unfamiliar, yet not fully known. It was the kind of presence that had haunted his mind for the past two weeks, pulling at the edge of every quiet moment, stealing more peace than he cared to admit. This time, there was no black cap pulled low or a sharp black uniform that made his identity obvious. Instead, the man wore a simple white sweater beneath a black jacket and black jeans—something more ordinary, and more human. Yet somehow, that only made TK’s pulse pick up more.

This is it, he thought. This was the night those people decided to come after him. Maybe to threaten him further, maybe to torture him to death because he’d witnessed something he never should’ve seen. This was the end of him, and he was sure.

He stopped a few feet away, lingering near the corner of the shelter, unsure whether to sit or turn back. He knew he should wait for the bus. But the sight of the man stirred something in him, not fear exactly, not of the man himself. It was something murkier, more tangled. A fear that maybe his own presence and just being here was a problem. That perhaps, simply by existing in the same space, he was somehow a threat.

The man looked up.

The light from the shops across the street now softly illuminated his face, allowing TK to see him truly. His dark curls were styled with deliberate care, framing warm brown eyes brimming with emotion, despite his effort to appear calm and numb. Long lashes cast delicate shadows on his cheeks whenever he looked down. He now wore a beard, a stark contrast to the clean-shaven face TK had seen fourteen days ago. This time, his face wasn’t hidden or worn down as it had been that night.

The man rose slowly to his feet.

A second later, the tall, grim-faced bodyguard stepped out from behind the shelter, where he’d apparently been standing all along. He moved silently, positioning himself just behind the man, close enough to protect but never looming.

The injured man—who didn’t seem injured anymore—was not small. He had broad shoulders and a strong build, nearly TK’s height, maybe a bit taller. But he looked small next to the bodyguard. And yet he stood straight now, almost steady on both feet. The only sign of injury left was the sleek, polished cane in his hand, which looked like it cost more than TK’s entire life.

"Hello, doctor."

His voice was quiet and smooth. The faintest smile tugged at his lips, so faint that if TK hadn’t been looking straight at him, he might’ve missed it completely.

Behind him, the bodyguard let out a low, contemptuous snort at the way his boss addressed TK. But before TK could even react, the man turned sharply and shot the bodyguard a glare cold enough to shut him up. The bodyguard straightened slightly and fixed his gaze back on TK.

TK stood still, unsure what to say or what this even was. Should he have been scared? He didn’t know. For now, he just held the man's gaze and waited. The bodyguard wore a frown so serious and solid that just his presence seemed to freeze TK’s tongue and make him nervous. He was worried that even speaking might provoke the bodyguard again, yet afraid that if he stayed silent, he would take it as disrespect and lash out. He remembered how the man’s temper had flared the last time, and TK even suspected the injured man had arranged that flower delivery and made them seem like they were kind of from the bodyguard as well. But judging by the bodyguard’s cold and unreadable expression, he didn’t look really satisfied with sending any sort of apology. There were no signs of regret or remorse.

TK gave a slight nod in response to the injured man’s greeting with a small “hey”, then subtly scanned him from head to toe, as if silently assuring the man he had noticed how much his injuries had improved. He wanted to ask how he was feeling, whether he was glad to be standing on his own two feet again, since besides the cane in his hand, there seemed to be no sign of the wounds and bruises anymore. But TK didn’t want to seem overly familiar or intrusive. Still, a strange pull kept his gaze fixed on the man, an inexplicable tension that made it hard to look away.

He was still terrified of what was about to happen and what those people were about to do, but a part of him was oddly calm, maybe because of the man’s small, polite smile, maybe because of the way he had looked back at his bodyguard to behave, or maybe because of his presence. There was something really calm and soothing about him that kept TK from being scared or angry for the past two weeks, even though he had felt like hell the whole time.

Instead, he relied on his usual defense mechanism, the caution he’d learned to wear like armor. After all, all his personal information, his name, his workplace, even his daily routine, was now in the hands of these two men, and probably a few others unknown to him. He couldn’t risk bringing harm to himself or his family by making a wrong move, not even for the sake of approaching the mysterious injured man.

“Can’t be waiting for the bus this late, right?” TK said, trying to lace his voice with a teasing edge, kind of expecting the bodyguard to bristle at his tone and react. But instead, the young man’s expression softened, and his faint smile deepened.

“No, we’re not,” he replied quietly, shaking his head, “we’re here to apologize.”

TK frowned. They had already apologized before, and it was more than enough. It was too much, actually.

“I got the flowers. It’s fine.” It wasn’t fine at all. TK wasn’t fine, and he wasn’t even sure why.

“Not for that.” The man shook his head again.

TK raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“My bodyguard doesn’t trust anyone.” The man took a slow breath and stepped closer as he saw the crease of worry between TK’s brows. “That’s why he ran a background check on you without your permission, and without me knowing. I think after everything that happened that night and the trouble we caused you, we owe you another apology.”

TK was caught off guard by the man’s sincerity and the genuine care in his words. Still, that didn’t mean he could just let it go.

“Do you always run background checks on everyone you meet on the street?” his voice came out sharper than he intended, bitterness creeping into his words like a shadow hiding weeks of sleepless nights and fear. He glanced at the bodyguard, who raised a brow and shot TK a dangerous look, as if he was held back only by his boss’s presence, ready to pounce and tear TK apart the moment he got the chance.

But the man with the cane looked genuinely ashamed. He bowed his head and shook it gently.

“No. That’s why I’m deeply sorry.” his voice was so soft and low that TK might not have heard him if they weren’t standing just a meter apart. He looked up and met TK’s eyes, holding his gaze with quiet intensity. “I don’t expect you to forgive us, but if there’s anything you need, I hope I can do something in return to make it right.”

The bodyguard let out a sharp breath, his fists clenched tight at his sides. With a bitter, restless chuckle, he tipped his head back and looked up at the sky as if silently pleading for patience. The annoyance on his face was unmistakable and his whole posture was tense like he couldn’t stand being part of whatever was going on. As if all of this standing around, exchanging apologies, and this quiet tension seemed embarrassing to him.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered under his breath.

But this time, his boss didn’t even glance back. He didn’t flinch or seem to hear him. His gaze remained steady, fixed on TK with a meaning that made it clear he wasn’t going anywhere until he got a response.

TK didn’t even want to ask them anything. He didn’t want them—especially that bodyguard—anywhere near him. He had nothing to do with them, and if the man was being polite and apologetic, TK could only accept that and maybe forget about that night. But he wasn’t gonna ask them anything.

“It’s alright, man. I’m not—“ he tried to brush it off.

“Please. I insist. Anything I could do for you,” the man said, his voice calm and pleading. Either he was genuinely kind and eager to help TK, or he felt so guilty that he needed to do something to ease his conscience. TK was sure there was nothing dangerous in the man’s tone. The bodyguard might be dangerous, but TK didn’t believe the man himself harbored any sinister intentions.

He could think of a dozen things to say. He could ask them to delete every trace of his information from their systems, or tell them to stop showing up near his workplace like this. He could demand they never send anything to his hospital again, or tell them outright to stay away. His life had been calm for a while before all of this. It was peaceful and quiet, without shadows lurking behind his steps.

He’d worked hard to reach that kind of peace. And then that night had happened.
That man had happened. TK hated complications. He hated unpredictability. He’d lived long enough with chaos to know he didn’t want it anywhere near his life again. So why the hell couldn’t he look away from him now?

Why did part of him want to drag this conversation out, just to hear that voice a little longer?

The man had said he’d do anything to make it right. Anything TK asked. So before TK could stop himself, before the cautious part of his mind could pull the brakes, his mouth moved on its own.

“There’s a coffee shop down the street. Wanna grab some c—?”

“No.” The Bodyguard’s voice was sharp and immediate. He cut TK off before the word was even fully out. There was no mistaking the anger behind his tone and the way his eyes narrowed again.

The man didn’t react right away. Instead, a small, surprised smile appeared on his lips at TK’s offer before he finally turned to look at the tall man behind him.

Something passed between them in silence, a moment too quiet and too full. A conversation without words. And then he looked back at TK. It was clear that he didn’t expect that. Maybe he’d expected a demand, some price to pay, some favor to grant and be done with. But not this. Not an invitation to sit, drink, and talk.

The man studied him for a moment, his eyes steady and unreadable. And TK stood under the dim light of the bus stop, refusing to break the gaze. He couldn’t tell what the young man was thinking, but he noticed the hesitance in his posture—the subtle shift of his weight.

“You know what? That’s a great idea.”

There was something too casual in the way the man said it, like he knew exactly what effect it would have, especially on his bodyguard. TK could see it in the slight tilt of his head and the small lift at the corner of his mouth. It was obvious he wasn’t just responding to TK; he was trying to get under his bodyguard’s skin.

TK had always thought the tension between a person and their bodyguard was just something in the movies or books. He never imagined someone in real life would go out of their way to annoy the person meant to protect them. But watching this play out in front of him, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

“No. It’s dangerous. Too many eyes.” The voice came sharp again, but different this time. It wasn’t sarcastic or dismissive anymore. It was professional, clipped, and edged with real concern. The shift in tone was enough to make TK glance up, surprised at the change.

The man turned his head slightly, just enough to catch his bodyguard in his periphery, and answered in a soft, almost calm voice.

“Judd, it’s okay,” he said more gently, turning his head a little further as if to ease the tension in his bodyguard’s shoulders.

The whole time, TK just stood there, uncertain. Each time he opened his mouth to say something to take back the invitation, to say it was a bad idea, that it wasn’t worth the risk, but he couldn’t say the words. He didn’t even know why he’d suggested it in the first place.

He didn’t want more of this mess. He didn’t want more of the anxiety, the sleepless nights, the uncertainty that had followed since the moment he laid eyes on that injured man. But still, the words had left his mouth and were now hanging between them like something heavy. And now that they were out there, he couldn’t seem to take them back.

He watched them both as they locked eyes again, as if the man was getting permission from his bodyguard, then he gave a slight nod which caused the bodyguard—Judd—to finally step back a few paces to give them space.

The man tightened his grip around the handle of his cane, adjusted his stance, and gave TK a small gesture to start walking. As they fell into step side by side, TK couldn’t help but notice the way the man favored his left leg, carefully keeping weight off his right one as they walked. He didn’t make a sound or didn’t wince, but TK could see the tension in his jaw and the subtle lines forming around his eyes. He was still in pain.

He also noticed how the bodyguard stayed a few meters behind them—far enough to give them some semblance of privacy, but close enough to act if anything happened.

TK saw the black SUV that had been idling by the curb finally pull out and pass them slowly on the street. TK watched it glide forward, likely heading around the block to park closer to the café.

They walked side by side down the sidewalk. The street wasn’t as quiet as it had been that first night they met. Cars moved steadily up and down the street, their headlights flickering fast, while clusters of people streamed in and out of restaurants, brightly lit-up bars, and flashy storefronts on both sides of the street. The foot traffic made things more complicated for the bodyguard, who had to keep his eyes moving, scanning for threats in a sea of moving strangers.

They walked in silence for a while. The coffeshop wasn’t far—maybe a two or three minute walk—but it was long enough for the silence to start feeling heavier than it should have. It wasn’t quite awkward, but it wasn’t easy either.

“I’m glad to see you’re doing better.” TK was the one to break the silence as he kept his eyes forward.

He didn’t expect much in response; it just felt like the right thing to say. The man turned his head and looked at him. For a moment, he didn’t say anything; he just held his gaze.

“I am,” he said finally. “Thanks to you.”

That made TK glance over. And when he did, he caught something in the man’s face he hadn’t expected, something uncertain. Like he wasn’t entirely sure of what he’d just said. As if he knew his body was healing, but wasn’t sure anything else was. There was a tiredness in his features that hadn’t been there the night he was covered in bruises and broken bones. TK didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he offered a faint smile, one of those soft, unbothered ones that made people around him feel warmer somehow.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said, waving a hand as if brushing the whole thing.

The man looked at him again, that small, faint smile never leaving his face.

“You did a lot.” he said gently. And after that, neither of them spoke again as they walked the rest of the way.

When they reached the coffeeshop, just a few steps from the door, the bodyguard suddenly stepped ahead of them, pushed the door open, and slipped inside first. TK stopped just short of the entrance, exchanging a quick glance with the man, who also waited patiently by the door.

It was only a few seconds, but it felt longer. They watched through the glass as the bodyguard walked in, scanned the room with sharp eyes, noted the exits, the faces, the corners, everything. Then he came back to the door and held it open without a word, nodding for them to enter. TK had to fight the urge to roll his eyes.

What was this man, a king? Who needed this much protocol to grab a late-night coffee? But he kept his mouth shut.

Inside, the bodyguard pointed toward a specific table tucked against the wall in a far corner of the coffee shop, out of view from the windows. It was the kind of spot someone would pick only after analyzing every angle. They moved toward it quietly, and once they reached the table and sat down, the bodyguard retreated to a spot a few tables behind TK, directly in the man’s line of sight. From there, he could see the entire room, and most importantly, the man he was guarding.

 TK silently noticed all of this. He didn’t say anything, though. He just let his eyes wander across the coffee shop. It wasn’t crowded. It never was at this hour. The place wasn’t big either, just enough for a handful of tables, bathed in warm lighting, with the soft hum of music and low conversation.

TK had been here plenty of times, sometimes after long shifts, when he had a few minutes for the next bus to arrive. Other times before a shift, stopping in for coffee to carry to the hospital. There were always the same kinds of people here this time of night. The ones who preferred this over the noise of a bar or the expense of some glossy restaurant date. People who just needed a moment of quiet, something warm in their hands, maybe a conversation that didn’t require pretending.

He looked across the table, carefully studying the man now seated opposite him. His cane leaned casually against the edge of the table. His posture was relaxed but not careless. And though he wasn’t speaking, his eyes moved slowly over the place, watching, assessing.

“You’ve been here before?” the man asked, his voice low, like he didn’t want to disturb the calm of the place.

“Yeah,” TK nodded. “It’s kind of my in-between place. Sometimes before work, sometimes after. Depends on the day.”

“It suits you.” The man gave a thoughtful hum.

TK blinked, “What does?”

“This place,” he said, glancing around. “It’s... quiet, and honest. No one’s pretending here.” he paused, “And among all these fancy bars and restaurants, you’ve chosen this place as your favorite. It’s fascinating, actually.”

TK didn’t answer right away. The way the man said it felt less like a compliment and more like he’d been sizing him up, like he already knew this was TK’s kind of place. He leaned back slightly in his seat and smiled.

“Well, I don’t know, maybe it’s because I don’t drink.” He shrugged, then narrowed his eyes playfully, “But you know, for someone who doesn’t talk much, you’ve got a real talent for reading people.”

The man just gave a small smile. “Comes with the territory.”

TK tilted his head. “What territory is that, exactly?”

The man was quiet for a moment, then shrugged. He didn’t meet TK’s eyes as he answered softly.

“Meeting people. Work. You know, business.” He just looked back down at the table for a moment, then up again, his face unreadable.

TK sensed there was more behind that look. Something dangerous and… off. But again, he didn’t say anything.

A few minutes later, after they'd placed their order—green tea for both, nothing fancy, just something light—they settled into the kind of silence that didn’t feel like it needed to be filled. TK let his fingers drift around the edge of his cup, watching the man across from him with a quiet kind of curiosity.

“Your bodyguard definitely hates me,” he said with a smile, his voice low and playful as he tipped his head slightly toward the man sitting behind him.

There was a flicker of amusement in the other man's eyes. He glanced over TK’s shoulder where Judd was undoubtedly watching them like a hawk, then looked back with a soft chuckle.

“He hates everyone.” Then, a pause. His voice dropped just slightly. “Honestly, I’m not even sure he likes me.”

The corner of TK’s mouth twitched. He almost wanted to say something like ‘you’re wrong, he cares about you, it’s obvious’, but he didn’t. He had seen the sharp, tense way Judd watched every move around the coffee shop. That wasn’t just professionalism. There was something else there: worry, loyalty, maybe even something closer to love. But TK let the silence stretch instead, their shared stillness feeling soft rather than uncomfortable.

There were so many questions held tight behind his ribs, all the things he had wanted to ask for two weeks now. He had imagined this moment in the back of his mind so many times. What would he say when they got the chance to meet again, how he would demand answers, how maybe it would all finally make sense. But now that he was here, he didn’t want to ask anything. Not yet, and maybe not at all. Sitting here, across from him at this small, worn table in a place TK came to for cheap coffee before long shifts, somehow made all of it feel less like a mystery and more like a moment he didn’t want to break.

Maybe this was enough. Just this. Just… being here.

His eyes lifted to the man’s face. He was handsome in a quiet, refined kind of way, a little tired around the eyes, with dark brown eyes and darker hair. There was the same unreadable weight in his expression that TK hadn’t been able to stop thinking about. There was something there he couldn’t name. Pain, maybe. Or just the shadow of something unfinished.

The man barely looked at TK. His gaze drifted more to the room around them, sometimes flicking to the bodyguard sitting just behind TK. Whatever he was scanning for, TK couldn’t tell, but something in those deep brown eyes cast a quiet shadow over his features. And before TK could make sense of it, he finally turned back to him and spoke after a long silence.

“I’m Carlos. Reyes.”

It came out so unexpectedly and unceremoniously that it caught TK off guard. He blinked, surprised by how straightforward it was. He hadn’t expected the man to share anything about himself, let alone begin the conversation by telling a stranger his name. TK raised an eyebrow, then gave the man a warm smile with just enough edge to let a little of his lingering irritation show.

“I guess you already know me,” he said lightly, reaching across the table, “I’m TK Strand.”

Carlos’s expression softened. And this time, it wasn’t the polite, distant kind of smile he’d given before. His face actually changed, cheeks lifting slightly, eyes warming in a way that made TK pause for a second. It felt like this was the first real thing TK had seen from him.

Carlos reached out and shook his hand. They held it a few moments longer than necessary while their eyes were quietly locked. Nothing was said, and neither of them moved to pull away. The moment felt oddly grounding, like both of them had needed this small, physical confirmation that the other was real. Eventually, they let go and the silence returned, but now it felt thinner and less heavy. And this time, it didn’t last long.

 “I can’t imagine how it must feel,” Carlos exhaled softly, “realizing someone out there knows everything about you… and you don’t even know their name.”

TK studied him for a second, then nodded slowly.

“Yeah, it… It’s terrifying,” he admitted. “The worst part was realizing there are people out there who can access your entire life like it’s nothing.” he hesitated for a beat, “I mean, you're not the president’s son or anything, right?” It came out with a dry chuckle, enough to lighten the moment, but not enough to fully mask the discomfort under his words.

“Afraid not.” Carlos gave a half-smile. It was a quieter one this time, something between apology and amusement. Something shifted in his posture as he looked down briefly. He hesitated before speaking again, his voice lower now, like he was weighing every word.

“You might’ve heard the name Reyes before.”

TK tilted his head, then shook it.

“Not really,” he lied. He’d heard it in passing. The name kept coming up here and there around the hospital, usually in hushed, admiring tones. TK knew the family was powerful, wealthy, and possibly influential in ways most people realized. But it had never meant much to him. People in Austin knew the Reyes name, especially in this part of town. But TK wasn’t originally from here. He was from New York, and though he’d really tried to fit in, the cultural distance was always there. He was used to the rhythm of the city, to the people, to the weather, but Texas, with all its charm and strange warmth, still didn’t feel like something he could fully belong to. Even if it was his home now.

He knew the name, but he didn’t want to express that he’d been judging the family by the gossip, or make Carlos ask him about what he’d heard. He didn’t know much about them, actually, and he wanted Carlos to tell him about the family himself, though TK knew he wouldn’t tell what he wanted to hear..

“My family runs a hotel group,” Carlos said carefully. “Not just in Austin. All across the state. Some in other states too.”

TK leaned back slightly. “The hotel…” he gestured toward the direction of the hotel across the street from the hospital, “that’s yours, right?”

TK knew the answer before Carlos could reply. After all, on that first night, Carlos’s bodyguard had come from that hotel to the bus station, and everything had unfolded from there.

Carlos nodded, and suddenly everything made sense. So that’s why the Reyes name had crossed paths with the hospital so often. It was a matter of proximity. Business. Two neighboring institutions that just happened to belong to different worlds, and yet, here they were, colliding at their edges.

Carlos nodded slowly, “It’s... basically mine,” he said, sounding almost ashamed to admit it, and lifted his right hand slightly, his fingers brushing the side of his cup.

“Wow! That’s a big ass hotel to own, man.”

“Yeah,” Carlos replied with a chuckle, a hint of hesitation buried beneath the words, “we have... connections.”

“I figured.” TK gave a small nod, his voice steady but calm. Those three words carried a lot of meaning, and TK wasn’t the type to miss that kind of hint.

Carlos took a small sip of his tea, then glanced briefly at TK before lowering his gaze again.

“I already guessed you worked at the hospital,” he said, motioning with his thumb toward the end of the street where the hospital building stood. “I asked Judd to go there and ask about you, so we could make sure to send the apology to the right place.” There was a pause, a shift in the air as he exhaled. “But he did something else and went further. I didn’t know, and still I don’t know how he got the details.”

“It’s fine,” TK said softly. And it was strange, because maybe just thirty minutes ago, that exact sentence would’ve been impossible to say. He’d been on edge, spiraling in panic over the breach of his privacy. But now, sitting here across from this man, hearing his voice properly for the first time, something in the chaos of the past two weeks had begun to loosen its grip. “It’s not like my personal information is all that useful to anyone anyway.”

Carlos looked up sharply at the statement, “It was wrong. And I’m sorry.”

TK smiled faintly, shook his head, and took another sip from his own cup.

“But I want to promise you something,” Carlos added after a moment, his tone more deliberate now. “No one will have access to any information about you. Not me, not Judd, not anyone.”

“Thanks,” TK murmured. He was surprised by the care and dedication this man showed to a stranger. It wasn’t strange, but it meant so much. TK didn’t think this was a lie or a trap or anything. He didn’t even know why, but he believed Carlos completely. There couldn’t be any evil or lie in those big brown eyes, could there?

The silence that settled then wasn’t cold or uncomfortable, just thoughtful. They went back to their drinks, sipping silently as they both were thinking about the other’s presence. But eventually, TK found himself speaking again, asking a question he already knew he probably shouldn’t.

“You’re more than just the hotel business, aren’t you?”

TK spoke again before he could stop himself, uncertain where that question came from. Maybe that two weeks were catching up to him now, in suspicious questions and teasing sarcasm.

Carlos lifted his head immediately, locking eyes with him. There was nothing in the man’s gaze, no surprise, no shift, no spark of anger. Just stillness. Then he raised one eyebrow in the smallest movement, which made TK’s breath catch. For a second, TK wondered if he’d crossed a line he couldn’t step back from. If the wall that Carlos had momentarily lowered to join him for tea had just rebuilt itself, higher this time.

“I—It’s none of my business,” he blurted out, his voice awkward now. “I don’t even know why I asked that. I’m sorry.”

Carlos wasn’t looking at him anymore. He was gently turning his teacup between his hands, the polite smile returned to his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes this time. It didn’t feel like a real smile, not like the one TK had seen earlier.

“It’s fine,” he said quietly.

But TK wasn’t naive. Maybe the hotel empire was the public face or the presentable cover. But behind it there had to be something more, something heavier and dangerous. You don’t bring guarded and stone-faced men like Judd just to go for coffee. You don’t call in favors and breach hospital records just because you are curious. This is not how hotel owners operate.

If TK had any doubt about that, Carlos’s silence and his reluctance to meet TK’s eyes again only confirmed it. Still, it wasn’t something that TK could go around and ask about especially now that he felt like that man, who was injured so badly TK’s heart had clenched for him, who was still emotionally hurt by the way his gaze was uncertain sometimes and distant, had started to lower his walls for someone like him to see the smallest crack of his true self behind that armor sheild.

“You’re right,” Carlos said eventually, his voice lower. “The bodyguards and the security make people think things.”

“Still,” TK replied gently, “I didn’t have the right to ask.”

A few quiet minutes passed. Carlos didn’t say anything else, and TK sat there wondering if he’d just ruined everything. Maybe Carlos would give Judd a subtle signal, and the man would stride in and escort TK out of the coffee shop, or worse. Or maybe, TK thought with a knot forming in his chest, maybe they’d use the information they had on him after all. Twist it somehow and use it as leverage. The possibility of that creeping panic—the same one that had haunted him every hour of the past two weeks—made his skin feel too tight.

But then he remembered what Carlos had promised him. He wanted to trust him. He needed to trust him. Even if, with just one reckless question, he might’ve already shattered the fragile understanding between them.

Carlos was the one who broke the silence again.

“So… cardiologist, huh?” he asked so casually that it allowed the breath TK had been holding to finally escape.

TK nodded, a faint smile flickering at the corner of his lips. He took a deep breath and silently thanked everything he believed in because Carlos didn’t seem like the type to hold things against him.  “Yeah. Long days, short nights, lots of paperwork. But when it’s good… It’s really good.”

Carlos tilted his head slightly, inviting more with a little “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” TK replied, glancing down at his cup, “I guess there’s something about seeing someone walk out of the hospital on their own two feet. Especially when a few hours earlier, their heart was about to give up.” He gave a small shrug. “That part doesn’t get old.”

Carlos hummed. “Sounds like a lot to carry.”

“Sometimes it is. But it’s worth it.” TK met his gaze. It really was worth it.

Another silence stretched between them, this one more comfortable than the last. TK leaned back, resting his hand lightly on the edge of the table. He kept glancing at the counter, where the bakery staff were still busy, then at the bodyguard, who was drinking something, tea or coffee, TK couldn’t tell. Finally, he looked back at Carlos, who returned his gaze with those soulful eyes, his expression a mix of regret, or shame, or maybe simply the ache of wanting something he couldn’t have. TK could feel it too. He wished this moment could last and the coffee shop could stay open forever so they could sit here and talk, even if it was awkward as hell and they’d already crossed boundaries with their questions. But it felt familiar, warm, and kind. TK wasn’t ready to let it go, though he knew he had to. He wanted to ask Carlos more, to find out what happened that night, whether Carlos was truly better, or if they ever caught those who did that to him, or why he was still limping.

There were so many questions, but he knew this conversation couldn’t continue longer without them being rude or unbearably awkward. He kept looking at Carlos, but neither of them was ready to move on. The staring contest stretched until one of them had to give in. TK had to let go first, not wanting to wait for Carlos to look away and break his heart. So he looked down at his mug, now empty.

This was it.

“Umm... I’m gonna go see if they have some cookies, I’m starving actually,” he said, motioning toward the counter. “Can I get you anything?”

Carlos shook his head. “I’m good.”

TK stood, pushed his chair back slowly. “Be right back.”

He moved toward the counter, the sound of his shoes soft against the tile floor. He didn’t take long, maybe a minute. Just enough time to ask for some chocolate cookies and exchange a quick smile with the baker. But when he turned around and walked back to the table, the seat across from his was empty.

His eyes flicked instinctively toward the back of the coffee shop. The table where Judd had been sitting was also vacant now.

The man was gone, just as TK had expected.

There was no note and no goodbye.

Just the lingering warmth on the chair cushion, and the traces of a few drops on Carlos’s now cold half-finished tea.

TK sat down slowly. He looked toward the street through the glass windows, but there wasn’t any sign of the black SUV either. They were gone, maybe forever.

He looked at the empty seat for a moment, then let out a quiet breath through his nose. He never really expected him to stay. He knew this was maybe the last interaction with the man, and though they had like forty minutes to talk, TK felt like he still knew nothing, and he felt like he didn’t ask enough.

He knew the man wouldn’t stay or leave a way to contact him some time later, but still, why did it feel like a part of him was gone, too?

Chapter Text

The moment the warm water touched his skin, Carlos let out the breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding since last night. He tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and let the water run down his face, over his shoulders, his spine, and his whole body, until it covered every part of him. As if it could wash away more than just the dirt and sweat, like maybe it could also rinse away the heaviness sitting inside him.

The heat soaked into him like a balm, softening the tension he had been carrying for the last twelve hours, pressing against the careful mask he had been wearing. The mask that let him stand straight, speak politely, and look like none of this touched him, even while a part of him inside was slowly, quietly falling apart.

He felt dirty.

Not in a way water couldn’t touch. It wasn’t the kind of dirt you could scrub off. It was something deeper, something that clung to bone. Every inch of his skin remembered things he didn’t want to remember. Hands that didn’t ask for permission, fingers that left bruises, mouths that didn’t shut up, and eyes that crawled over him like he was something for sale.

New bruises were forming along his ribs and neck, faint ones on his hip. They weren’t the worst he’d ever had, but they were enough to remind him, every time he moved, of what had been done. Enough to make his chest tighten with that old mix of anger and shame, the kind he never let anyone see.

This wasn’t new.

And yet each mark and each fresh humiliation chipped away at him. Made him meaner. Colder. More careful. He hated what he was becoming and what they’d made him become. His thoughts drifted to the life he was tied to. A life soaked in power and money and quiet trades. In secrets and polished lies. In rooms that always looked perfect and clean, while beneath the shine, they were already rotting.

The penthouse terrace was just on the other side of the room. He didn’t need to do much, just step out of the shower, cross the suite, open the doors, and take one step outside. After that, gravity would take care of the rest. It would all be over, and the pain would finally stop. This thought had come to him many times before. Yet every time, he gave himself one more chance to be better, to do better. Today, before even stepping into the shower, he was completely certain he would end it all. But then, something inside him held back. Something small, fragile but stubborn, had shifted.

Maybe it was the coffee shop. Maybe it was the doctor. Maybe it was simply that TK didn’t ask for anything in return, didn’t pull away, didn’t look at him like he was something to pity. Carlos didn’t know exactly what it was, but he knew one thing: that he wasn’t quite ready to disappear yet. Not today. Not now. Not before he gave himself a chance to do something for himself, for his heart and soul. He owed himself that much. To want something different, not for his father, not for the business, not for survival, but just for him.

He finished rinsing off, going through the motions like muscle memory. Shampoo. Soap. Conditioner. Rinse. These small rituals gave him a sense of control when everything else around him felt chaotic and out of reach. When he finally turned off the water, the quiet of the suite settled around him, like a second skin, familiar and unyielding.

With a towel around his waist, he stepped out of the bathroom. The room had been cleaned while he was in the shower. Sheets replaced, clothes gathered and folded, every stray item tucked out of sight. Everything was in its place. Everything was untouched, professional, sterile, and neat. Judd must have arranged for housekeeping, he thought. But, as always, none of the staff asked questions. No one ever did. They were used to it.

Carlos stood by the tall window that stretched from floor to ceiling, looking out at the skyline of Austin, still covered in the soft gold of morning light. The sun was climbing slowly, finding its way between the buildings, casting long and steady shadows over the almost empty streets below. Most people had already started their day, the traffic had settled into a quieter rhythm, and the city seemed to be in that gentle pause that comes between one rush and the next.

He knew he should be out there. After almost a month of being away from everything and cut off from the world, this was the moment he was expected to return. Not quietly and not in small steps, but with the certainty of someone who had a name to reclaim, a rhythm to rebuild, and storms to set in motion.

 And he would.

He turned away from the window and let his eyes drift back to the bed. His phone was sitting on the nightstand, but before he could reach for it, his gaze caught on something else—a worn, brown wallet that he immediately knew wasn’t his.

His brow furrowed as he picked it up, flipping it open without much interest, only to sigh when he read the name on the ID inside. Of course. Of course that man had left it behind. He exhaled sharply, tossed the wallet onto the mattress with a flick of his wrist, and muttered under his breath, “Fucking idiot.”

He finally reached for his phone and tapped on the first name in his favorites list, the same name he had called over and over during the past month and no one else. It didn’t even take a full ring before the line was answered, as if the man on the other end had been waiting for it.

“Sir,” came Judd’s voice, steady and clipped, carrying that clean edge of formality that had been drilled into him over the years.

Carlos raised an eyebrow. So that was the tone of the day, no dry humor, no faint grumble about whatever mess Carlos might be dragging him into this time, just the cool and polished professionalism that was part of the job.

“Where are you?”

“In the lobby.”

Of course he was. Carlos didn’t lay eyes on him that night, but he didn’t need to. He knew Judd well enough to be certain the man had been somewhere nearby all along, ignoring every order to stand down, staying within earshot of the suite, listening for the smallest sign that something might be wrong. He had probably stepped inside more than once in the middle of the night to check without a word if Carlos was still there with the man, if he was fine, and if everything was as it should be. So hearing he had been there all night was hardly a surprise.

Carlos said nothing about that. He just ended the conversation with one sentence.

“Be in my office in ten.” And he didn’t wait for a response before hanging up.

He dressed quickly, his movements automatic, pulling on a black shirt with a crisp collar and black suit pants, rubbing his hair dry with a towel as he crossed the room again. A few minutes later, he ran a comb through it, slid into his black jacket, and stepped toward the door. There was no point in delaying, no space for a slow start. If he was going to step back into the world, it would be on his terms with his focus sharp, his mind clear, and every move planned ten steps ahead of everyone else.

It didn’t matter that he hadn’t slept. It didn’t matter that the weight of the night before was still settled deep in his muscles and bones. And it didn’t matter that the worn brown wallet was still lying on the bed behind him, a quiet reminder of who he was and why he wasn’t a good man, why he would never be the man people might wish he could be.

Judd was already in the room by the time Carlos stepped into his office. The space took up most of the tenth floor, sitting high above the city with its wide, slanted glass walls and clean steel edges, a design chosen on purpose so it would stand apart from the ordinary hotel floors.

Like the other executive suites in the El Tesoro Hotel, his office had its own private elevator, a quiet lobby, and a receptionist whose main job over the past month had been to let Judd in or to keep everyone else away. The rest of the floor held offices for shareholders who sometimes stayed in the building or for companies absorbed into the Reyes empire over the years. Legal or otherwise.

Judd rose to his feet when Carlos entered, the movement smooth and precise, the kind that came from years of habit. But the way his eyes scanned Carlos up and down wasn’t routine. It wasn’t a check for weapons or threats. It was instinct, like a quiet worry wrapped inside careful observation. Carlos noticed it instantly. He always did. If it had been anyone else looking at him that way, he would have told them to leave or had one of his men make sure they never tried it again, whether by a warning, a scare, or something much worse. But Judd wasn’t just anyone. He had never been. There was nothing about Carlos that Judd hadn’t already seen for himself. That was the thing with Judd: he didn’t need to ask questions. He just knew. So Carlos didn’t bother pretending.

“I’m fine,” he said at once, not even looking at Judd as he crossed the room and moved behind the desk. He sat down the way he always did, with that quiet kind of confidence that came from years of acting like nothing in the world could get to him.

“I didn’t say anything.” Judd didn’t budge. He gave a little shrug, one eyebrow lifting, still adjusting the sleeves of his jacket as he answered without lifting his eyes. Then his tone shifted, softer now. “But I’m glad you’re okay.”

Carlos huffed a short breath through his nose, using the oldest trick in his book: turn the moment into something lighter, colder, or sharper before anyone could dig too deep.

“Why wouldn’t I be? It’s not like this is my first time sleeping with old dangerous men.”

The words hung between them like smoke, slow and heavy. Judd didn’t respond right away. Carlos couldn’t tell if it was because he didn’t care or because he didn’t dare. He then replied with a quiet “No, it ain’t” almost too low to catch.

Then without warning, he eased back into the chair across from Carlos, his body language looser now, as though the usual lines between them didn’t matter as much as they usually did. And Carlos, who had never cared much for titles or the unspoken rules of rank anyway, stood and crossed the space between them. He sat in the opposite chair, one leg folded neatly over the other, his voice steady but carrying a faint trace of thought beneath the surface.

“Speaking of…”

He ran a hand through his hair, still slightly damp, the curls not yet fully formed. It was rare for Carlos to show up at his office with his hair in its natural state. Even stranger now, dressed in a perfectly pressed suit while his hair slowly dried, the waves beginning to take shape. He usually never let anyone in the business see his curls, as if they were something private, one of the last untouched pieces of himself in a world built on shadows and performance, something he didn’t offer just anyone. But it seemed that today he’d been in such a rush to get to his office that he’d broken his own rule.

“What do we know about this Tyson guy?” He leaned back slightly, studying Judd with that calm, deliberate look of his.

Judd raised an eyebrow, his hand pausing mid-adjustment of his jacket. “Did he do something? Did he hurt you?”

Carlos looked at him. “No.”

From anyone else, the question might’ve sounded like idle concern, a way to fill the air. But from Judd, it landed heavier. It was the kind of care he didn’t often voice, and even after all these years, Carlos still wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“No,” he repeated, quieter this time. “It’s business. I think I got something useful out of him last night. I want to know what we already have on him and his company.”

Judd didn’t answer right away, and Carlos could see from the way his eyes narrowed slightly that he was going through what he knew, sorting through old reports and half-remembered details in his head as if he was leafing through a stack of invisible files he had memorized a long time ago. When he finally spoke, his voice was even and steady, giving Carlos a clear picture without wasting words. The man in question, Billy Tyson, had first made his name in the health technology business, one of those quick-profit industries that thrived on promises that sounded impressive but rarely delivered. From there, he had moved into clean energy, chasing new trends and pulling in government funding, before shifting again more recently into construction and hotel industry. The way he jumped from one industry to another, always at just the right time, was too deliberate to ignore and suggested someone who was very careful about how he moved his money.

Judd went on to say that the man’s name had appeared in a few small investigations over the years, mostly related to money laundering, but nothing had ever been proven. He seemed to have a way of keeping himself just far enough from trouble to avoid being caught, yet leaving behind small traces for anyone who knew exactly where to look.

Carlos already knew some of this, but a criminal record wasn’t what he was after; what he needed was something that could give him an advantage. And he had it now—thanks to a few careless words slurred in the haze of late-night arrogance and too much alcohol. The man had spoken too freely, letting slip that he was about to make a large investment in a huge development project. Carlos hadn’t needed to push for details; the man had already given him enough, and that was all Carlos needed.

He told Judd to start digging, but to do it quietly and with precision, like a careful operation that left no trace. He wanted him to find out everything there was to know about the project—who was involved, how the money moved, where the weak points were. Once they had all the details, the plan was straightforward. They would release just enough information to make people suspicious, feeding it to trusted journalists, familiar contacts, and media outlets they could rely on. It would have to seem like an accident, or at most a routine industry investigation, nothing that could be traced back to them.

If they played it right, the damage would come fast. Investors would lose confidence, lawyers would get involved, and the whole thing would start to slow down. Small delays would build on each other until the project was stuck in a mess no one could easily fix. While everyone else scrambled to save what they could, the Reyes family would already be moving in the background, using intermediaries, offshore accounts, and smaller holding companies to quietly buy up pieces of the project. Bit by bit, they would take over until they held a controlling interest.

And once they were in control, once the noise had faded and the market had steadied, they would rebuild the project from the inside, raise its public value, and sell at the peak when everyone wanted a piece of it again.

Judd didn’t ask for explanations because he never needed to. Still, Carlos could feel the weight of his gaze, the way he was studying him as if he understood exactly how dangerous the quiet parts of Carlos’s mind really were. This wasn’t about revenge, and it wasn’t about personal rivalry. It was about power, about territory, about keeping control.

Carlos knew exactly what people thought about the Reyes name. There was a myth around it, a story of wealth, silence, and shadows. They weren’t criminals in the usual way, but they weren’t clean either. They moved carefully and with purpose. If someone tried to build a hotel too close to Reyes property, that person would quietly disappear from the conversation. If anyone tried to break their network—whether in real estate, nightlife, or any other business—they would be buried under lawsuits, crushed by debt, or bought out so smoothly that they wouldn’t even realize they had lost until it was too late.

And when something truly dangerous happened—when someone tried to push drugs where they didn’t belong or shift power without permission—the Reyes family made sure that person never tried it again. This was how things worked for them.

Carlos didn’t like chaos. He liked to keep control. He never shouted or made threats. Instead, he moved the pieces quietly and efficiently, so that by the time anyone noticed, the board had already changed.

This new project would be no different.

And Judd, as always, would make sure every step went exactly the way it was supposed to.

“You gonna tell your father?” Judd asked as he folded his arms across his chest. There was something beneath his tone, like he already knew the answer but still needed to hear it out loud.

Carlos didn’t say anything. He just sat there, running a thumb along the carved edge of the chair’s armrest, his eyes distant and calculating as if weighing every possibility.

“I will,” he said finally, “but not yet. I want to have everything perfectly lined up before I bring it to him.”

Judd gave a small nod, one Carlos had come to know over the years. Approval without questions. He expected this from Carlos, the son who often tried to escape his father’s shadow, yet when it came to business, never made a move without carefully considering how it fit into the Reyes legacy.

“Alright then,” Judd said, leaning forward a little. “I’ll head down and start making the calls.”

He began to stand, but Carlos’s voice cut through the space between them, low and firm.

“No. You won’t.”

Judd froze halfway, brow furrowing as he sank back down into his seat.

Carlos didn’t look at him. His eyes were on the wood grain beneath his fingertips, tracing invisible lines, the way he did when he was thinking two, three moves ahead.

“There’s nothing to do right now,” Carlos said, his voice calm. “We do what we have to, but when the time’s right. Not now.” He glanced up then, and this time his tone shifted. It was firm, not much though, like it lost its sharp business edge, but also calm and soft. “And I won’t need you until the end of next week.”

Judd narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“Time off. Go see your family.”

Judd scoffed, instantly defensive. “No. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“You will. And you are leaving today.” Carlos’s tone left no room for argument, but Judd was never one to give in easily.

“Like hell I am!” Judd snapped, waving a hand in frustration. “There’s no way I’m leaving you alone in the middle of this, especially after everything that happened.”

“I’m fine, Judd. I really am. It’s been a month.” Carlos leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his gaze steady and calm. “I’m back at work, and I’m not bleeding out in the street. You don’t have to keep burning yourself out just to keep me alive.” He paused, letting his words sink in. “And I won’t be alone. There are others that you trust. Let them cover you for a few days.”

He watched as Judd hesitated, his expression a mix of frustration and concern, so without really thinking, Carlos did something he never did, something that surprised them both.

He reached out and placed a hand on Judd’s knee. It was a small movement, steady and calm, but it carried more honesty than anything he could’ve said. Carlos Reyes didn’t do this. He didn’t show softness, didn’t offer comfort like this. But something about this moment and everything they’d been through this past month made him set that rule aside for just a few seconds.

Judd stared at the hand for a long beat before lifting his gaze. There was surprise in his eyes, but no trace of mockery, no smugness, just a quiet acknowledgment. After a moment, he gave a small nod.

“I know your family misses you,” Carlos continued, his voice low. “And I’m sorry you had to be away from them all this time, because of me.”

“This is my job, Carlos,” Judd replied, his tone gentler now. “They’re used to this.”

Carlos let his hand fall back and leaned into his chair with a sigh. “Still… I’m sorry.”

Judd studied him, his expression hard to read, then gave another small nod.

“Thanks.”

Carlos understood that Judd’s thanks wasn’t only for the apology; it was also for the rare moment when Carlos had shown that he was aware of, and cared about, the fact that Judd had been away from his family for so long. Even though they understood each other well, Judd had never expected his boss to offer any kind of mercy, kindness, or personal concern about his home life, and that was why the gratitude in his voice felt so genuine, why there was a quiet happiness in his eyes that he didn’t try to hide.

For a few seconds, they just stared at each other without saying anything. It wasn’t an awkward silence, more like a space where both of them could breathe without having to fill it with words. Without admitting it out loud, they both knew exactly what the other was thinking, the way two people who had been through enough together could read each other’s thoughts without effort. So they stayed that way, just sitting in the same room, sharing that unspoken understanding.

“Oh, and by the way,” Carlos broke the silence eventually, “that bastard left his wallet in my room.”

Judd nodded, already knowing who he meant. “I’ll take care of it.”

Not long after, Judd drew in a deep breath and let it out in a sharp exhale, as though closing the page on the conversation. He placed both hands on his knees and pushed himself up from the chair, his posture changing instantly into the disciplined stance of a professional bodyguard. Standing tall and straight, his fists resting neatly in front of him, he looked forward, gave a respectful “Sir,” and started to turn toward the door.

Carlos watched him for a moment, and then, as if suddenly remembering something, he hesitated. It was clear he was weighing whether or not to speak, as though gathering the courage to voice something he had never said in all the eight years they had known each other—a request he had never allowed himself to make. For once, he wanted to listen to the quieter voice in his mind, the one that didn’t speak in the language of business or danger, the one that didn’t echo with the heavy responsibilities of power.

What he wanted now was something simple: a life without constant pretenses, without the cold shine of wealth, without the noise of the world pressing in. And maybe, just maybe, that wasn’t too much to ask.

“Before you go,” he said softly. Judd stopped mid-step and turned back toward him. “I need you to do me a favor.”

---

The emergency room was unusually chaotic today. At the central station, nurses, doctors, and staff were checking monitors, writing orders, and hurrying from one task to the next. Another part of the ER, filled with critical patients and trauma rooms, was equally full, or the staff inside were busy tending to patients. The noise and activity were so overwhelming that TK’s footsteps, as he headed toward the elevator, were lost in the frantic pace of the ER. It wasn’t even 10 AM yet, but it was the third time that shift he had been called into the emergency room to assist with heart-related cases. One was an MI case, which the ER staff was already prepared for, but the presence of a cardiologist was always essential. The next was a pericarditis case, and the third was a patient, a 30-year-old, who had been stabbed in the chest during a fight. Though the ER staff had their hands full with this one, they had called for a cardiologist to be there. Of the three, one was sent to the cath lab, while the other two went to surgery.

TK was just heading toward the elevator when he got paged for a cardiology consult in the nephrology department. On days like these, when he was on rotation, the routine was mostly the same. Visiting patients in cardiology-related wards like CCU, post-cath, and surgical CCU, plus the various subunits of cardiology. There were also consultations and visits for patients in other departments, many of whom were in the ICU or general wards. Many patients needed cardiac consultations before surgeries, and others before discharge. It was common practice that patients needed a pre-consultation before undergoing procedures.

And, of course, the most crucial part of his job during the rotation was dealing with emergency situations. Whenever a patient with a heart condition came in, the ER staff would call for a cardiologist, and it was his responsibility to be there as quickly as possible, as the patient’s life was at risk. All of this work fell on two cardiologists who were responsible for the rotation, while two others were stationed in the cath lab.

Though the days on rotation were incredibly exhausting and draining, TK preferred them far more because he could interact with people, ease their worries with a smile, talk to them, listen to their stories, and ultimately, it was the patients who made him feel better.

He was on his way back to the central station in the CCU, not even knowing how many consults he'd already done that day. That center of the unit where Grace, Nancy, and Mateo were usually stationed too, had started to feel more like his home base than anywhere else in the hospital. It was the place he always circled back to, no matter how chaotic the day was.

He moved down the hallway, offering quick nods to passing nurses, answering questions almost without thinking, his body slipping into that easy, practiced rhythm of hospital life. It was the kind of flow that let his mind wander, at least a little, while his hands kept working.

Then his phone buzzed in the pocket of his scrubs. Without even glancing at the caller ID first, he pulled it out, ready to answer or read whatever it was while still walking. But as soon as his eyes landed on the screen, he stopped. Just stopped, right there in the middle of the corridor, like the air had gone still around him.

‘How was the cookie?’

His brows pulled together, the words instantly catching him off guard.

No name. No greeting. No explanation. Just that one small question sitting on his screen like it belonged there, like it made sense. But TK knew better. Only one person would send something like that. Only one person had been there the last time he ate a cookie that wasn’t just a cookie, the last time it meant something. And that had been two weeks ago.

Carlos.

Reading it again didn’t help. If anything, it made something inside him tighten a little more. It was almost ridiculous, the way Carlos never seemed to enter his life in a straightforward way. It was always at an angle, always out of nowhere, as if even his greetings had to come through shadows. Like hiding in the dark corner of a bus stop instead of just walking up and saying hello. Like sending a bouquet that could probably cover someone’s rent.

And now. This. A quiet message with no warning that somehow landed exactly where it would hit hardest. TK turned the phone screen off and slid it back into his pocket. Not because he wanted to ignore it—God knew he’d been waiting for something from that man, in some strange, twisted way—but because he had no idea what to say.

What could you possibly say to a man who had made it very clear that his world was dangerous? That he was dangerous? Someone who looked like money and power but carried all of it under a quiet sadness that never seemed to lift?

The truth was, Carlos never left TK’s thoughts for a single moment since their last conversation. Not during his shifts, not in the rare quiet moments at home. But somewhere along the way, something inside him had changed. The fear that used to rise in his chest whenever Carlos crossed his mind had shifted into something he wasn’t sure he could trust. Curiosity, maybe. Or worse, something that felt dangerously close to wanting to know him. Wanting to see what was underneath all that calm, to understand the grief and the sharp edges, and the reason he carried himself like every word and movement had been weighed before it left him.

And still, TK had nothing to say. So he kept walking, pretending the message was just another part of the day. Pretending he hadn’t just been knocked off balance by a single line of text from someone he should have kept far, far away.

But of course, Nancy had noticed.

She raised a brow from across the station, her gaze following him with a mix of curiosity and the kind of quiet amusement that always meant trouble. Grace looked up too, though in a much more discreet way, her eyes flicking to him for only a second before returning to her chart.

Nancy was the first to speak. “I wonder what that was about.”

TK kept walking toward the station, shaking his head like he could just brush it off. “What?”

“You stopped walking like someone pulled your plug out of the wall. You looked pale as hell.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He barely finished before Nancy opened her mouth again, probably ready to dig deeper, but Mateo’s voice carried across the unit before she could.

“Hey, Nance, patient in fifteen needs to go to the bathroom.”

Nancy looked like she was going to wave him off, distracted and already halfway focused back on TK. “Okay.” Then she blinked. Something clicked in her brain as she stepped out from behind the nurses’ station, her voice rising just enough to reach Mateo without drawing the attention of every patient in the ward.

“Wait—what? No! She’s CBR.”

The ward was split into three subunits: CCU, post-surgery, and post-cath. Most patients fell into two categories: conscious or unconscious. The unconscious ones were, obviously, bedbound. But even the conscious patients had specific mobility orders. They were either CBR—confined to bed rest—or they were cleared to move around the unit with supervision.

Sometimes nurses helped them walk. Occasionally, if a patient was stable and the staff trusted them enough, they could go for short walks. Even medical students or junior residents pitched in now and then.

But whatever the situation, those orders were absolute. They weren’t suggestions, and they weren’t up for negotiation. And judging by Nancy’s tone, she had no intention of letting the patient go without lecturing her on her state.

With Nancy finally gone from the nurses’ station and heading off to deal with her patient, TK settled into one of the monitors, releasing a breath so quiet it could have been mistaken for a simple shift in posture. He wasn’t hiding anything in particular, not really, but the way his coworkers seemed to pick up on even the smallest change in his demeanor left him feeling exposed in a way he couldn’t quite shake.

Grace seemed to notice it too, the faint relief that softened the lines of his face, the way his shoulders eased once no one was pressing him for explanations he wasn’t ready to give. She slid her chair a little closer, her voice carrying a gentleness that never felt forced.

“Hey. You okay?”

TK kept his gaze fixed on the screen, fingers moving quickly as he typed in a few notes before finally glancing her way with the trace of a smile. “Yeah,” he said, his tone light but not entirely convincing. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Grace rolled her chair another few inches nearer, careful not to draw any attention from the others, but close enough to make the space between them feel private, almost sealed off from the hum of the station.

“You know,” she said quietly, “if something is going on, you can talk to me, right?”

His fingers hovered over the keyboard for a beat too long before he asked, “What do you mean?”

She paused, as if considering whether to say it or not. “You’ve been… different, TK.” She tilted her head slightly, her voice soft but steady, “For weeks now. You’re quieter than usual, and you’re not quite yourself. Did something happen?”

This time, he looked at her properly, taking in the way her eyes stayed on him, not with curiosity for its own sake, but with genuine care, the kind that made it harder to brush her off with a casual joke. He exhaled slowly, running a hand over his face before lacing his fingers together, his thumbs tugging absently at the skin around his knuckles. For a moment, he didn’t speak at all and when he finally did, his voice was low, almost reluctant.

“It’s nothing serious,” he said. “Just… personal stuff. I appreciate you asking though.”

Grace studied him for a moment longer before asking, “Is your mom okay?”

TK smiled softly at the thought of his mom, and, of course, at how everyone knew he was a mama’s boy. They always checked to make sure she was doing well and asked if TK had heard from her, since she was living in New York. 

“She’s fine,” he replied with a soft smile, his gaze dropping back to his hands.

Another pause.

“You’re not in trouble, are you?”

That question made him look up quickly, caught off guard. “What?”

“The bouquet, the message you just got.” Her expression was pointed but still warm. “When you checked your phone, your face was just like it was when you received the flowers.”

He froze for the briefest second before instinct pushed him back into familiar territory. It was a deflection. Turning toward the monitor, he began typing again with an ease that was just a shade too deliberate.

“You sound just like her, Grace,” he said with a fake annoyance.

Grace chuckled softly, reaching out to pat his shoulder before leaning back again, choosing not to press further.

“Maybe that’s because I am a mom,” she said, her voice carrying that same quiet steadiness. After a moment, she leaned in again, and this time, there was something soft and heartwarming in her voice that TK couldn’t ignore. “I’m just worried about you. If you need anything, I’m right here, okay?”

“Speaking of… How come we still haven’t met your husband and daughter, Grace?” Before he could reply, Marjan’s voice rang out from behind the station as she delivered another patient from the ER to their ward, already handing over the details. Although she worked on a completely different floor in another ward, she always maintained a friendly connection with them. She was at all their gatherings and was as much a sister to TK as Nancy and Grace were.

“You’ll meet them soon enough.” As the words left Grace’s mouth, she lowered her head slightly, her focus turning back to the screen in front of her as if hoping to slip past the question without anyone noticing.

TK noticed, though. He didn’t say anything, but he watched the way she eased herself out of the moment with quiet precision, the move so subtle it could almost be missed, practiced in the same way he had learned to practice it himself.

Minutes passed in silence between them until TK finished his charting. When he was paged for another case in the ER, he stood up from his seat, took a deep breath and offered Grace a small, reassuring smile to show he was fine. Then, he headed down the hall, his focus already shifting to the next patient waiting for him.

Behind him, deep in the pocket of his scrubs, the message on his phone remained exactly as it had been for the past few minutes. Silent, unread, and still unanswered.

He didn’t get another chance to check his phone until nearly two hours later, and somewhere in the middle of bouncing between cases, he decided he should reply to the message if only to avoid looking like some overly sensitive, ridiculous person who was sulking just because someone had tracked down his number. So by the time he finally thought he had a moment to breathe, he typed out his answer while walking back from ortho, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He hadn’t dared to open his phone earlier while he was still around Nancy or the rest of the unit. God forbid they caught him texting again and launched yet another round of nosy questions.

‘It was great, actually. If you’d stuck around, I might’ve let you have a bite.’

There was, in TK’s mind, a fine balance to strike between being cheeky and crossing into rudeness, especially with a man like Carlos, and while part of him couldn’t resist the urge to poke at him just enough to see what kind of reaction it might stir, he also didn’t want to risk sounding pushy or bratty. What he was aiming for was something lighter, easier, and playful.

The reply came twenty minutes later.

‘Sorry about that.’

TK was back behind the nurses’ station by then, charting again. He saw the notification on his phone, and without giving it much thought, tapped out quickly.

‘It’s fine.’

A few minutes passed before the next message came through, and TK could tell immediately from its measured tone that Carlos had taken a little time to compose it.

‘Are you free tonight?’

This time, the smile that curved TK’s mouth was unguarded, soft, and genuine. His shift was technically over at six, but in reality, he often stayed well past that, finishing charts, helping out with last-minute cases, tying up the loose ends no one else wanted to deal with. On most nights, he didn’t get home until eight or nine, and on the rare evenings when he managed to leave early, he often found himself lingering in a café or deliberately taking the long way back just to avoid the hollow quiet of his apartment.

But tonight felt different. Tonight he could make it work. If he really wanted to, he could hand off his patients and wrap up the notes before the clock hit six. So instead of inventing some half-excuse, he went with the truth.

‘I’m off at six.’

The response came quickly.

‘I didn’t realize you were working. You’re probably tired.’

There was a pause long enough for TK to start typing ‘It’s okay, I’m not that tired’,but before he could send it, another message appeared.

‘But I was hoping we could get dinner.’

Dinner.

Not coffee. Not ‘meet up for a bit’.

Dinner.

Carlos didn’t waste time with warm-up acts. He never had.

TK hesitated for half a second. He didn’t know if this was a date. Or if it could be a date. He wasn’t even sure if meeting up with Carlos again was the smart thing to do. In fact, it might be the opposite, the kind of decision that looked like a bad idea waiting to happen. He didn’t even know the man, but it was too late for second thoughts.

For the past month, he had thought about Carlos more days than not. Wondering where he was, what he was doing, and whether he ever thought of TK in return. He hadn’t expected a message today. He hadn’t expected one at all. But now that it had come, now that Carlos had cracked the door open even a fraction, TK wasn’t the kind of person to let it go.

‘Sounds good. Where?’

The reply didn’t come immediately, and when it did, it was just two words.

‘Your pick.’

TK raised an eyebrow at that. Interesting.

He’d expected Carlos to name a place. Maybe one of those impossible-to-get-into restaurants downtown that you had to reserve weeks ahead. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Carlos had a standing table somewhere, or if he sent a driver to collect him.

That’s what rich men did in movies, anyway. But Carlos didn’t seem to be flashy like that.

Sure, he had money. That much was obvious from the suits, the car, the bodyguards, and the smooth way he moved through the world like every space belonged to him and his family. But there was nothing performative about it, nothing that felt like a show. If anything, Carlos seemed to underplay it. And still, TK found it interesting that he was leaving the choice to someone else. Just like he had with the coffee shop last time.

Before TK could decide on a reply, a nurse called him over to look at an agitated patient, and after that one consultation bled into another until more than an hour had slipped by. When he finally returned to the station and checked his phone, there was one new message waiting.

‘I won’t disappear this time. Promise.’

The smile that spread across TK’s face wasn’t the polite kind, or the careful one he sometimes wore when he wasn’t sure how much to give away. It was the kind that rose from somewhere deep in his chest and unfurled easily, warmly.

‘You better not.’

He added that he would text Carlos the name and time later. The rest of the day passed in a kind of bright, hazy fog that TK couldn’t entirely name. Excitement, nerves, uncertainty, they all ran together until it was impossible to pick them apart.

What he did know, what he felt as clearly as anything in his gut, was that beneath Carlos’s words, beneath the unexpected text, the tentative invitations, and even the quiet promises, there was nothing that felt manipulative. No game. No hidden hook.

And TK wanted to believe in that. He wanted to believe that maybe, just maybe, behind the fine clothes and the bruises and the quiet sorrow that seemed to live in Carlos’s eyes, there was simply a man with a good heart.

And for now, that was enough.

---

“Your daddy wants to meet you at—”

Judd's voice floated up from the stairs as he climbed the wide, polished steps of Carlos’s two-story penthouse, his tone casual but carrying just enough weight to suggest it wasn’t something that could be brushed aside. He was still speaking when he reached the open doorway to Carlos’s bedroom, but the words trailed off the second his eyes landed on the scene inside: Carlos, standing before the tall mirror, his posture straight and his movements measured, quietly working his fingers through his hair as though nothing in the world required more of his attention.

Carlos was already dressed for the evening in a tailored light blue button-up shirt and navy blue pants with clean lines and soft colors that somehow sharpened the intensity of his presence. Matching camel-colored shoes that were already on, while on the doorknob nearby, a long camel coat hung neatly in place, waiting to be worn as the final piece of the outfit.

Judd stepped into the doorway and leaned his shoulder against the frame, folding his arms in a loose, almost idle way that still didn’t hide the fact he was watching closely.

“Goin’ somewhere?”

Carlos didn’t answer right away. His gaze stayed fixed on the mirror as his hand moved with deliberate care, coaxing a single curl into place and smoothing it a little. Tonight, he wasn’t trying to straighten his hair or comb it back until every wave disappeared. He just tamed it slightly with a bit of gel, letting the natural waves settle into something clean and intentional.

It was impossible to tell if he had ignored Judd’s words, hadn’t heard them, or had simply chosen not to respond. The only acknowledgment came when he turned his head slightly, just enough to catch Judd’s reflection in the mirror, before returning to the task at hand without a word.

Judd, meanwhile, looked different tonight too. No all-black suit, no sharp lines, no cold presence that made him feel more like a shadow than a man. Instead, he was wearing a dark green and white flannel shirt, the sleeves pushed loosely above his wrists, tucked under a pair of worn jeans. A brown leather belt sat comfortably at his waist, he carried a light jacket draped over one arm, and his hair which was usually parted and combed flat, was now messily pushed back. The wedding ring on his hand glinted slightly under the light when he shifted his arms. The overall effect was almost startling—less like a threat stationed at Carlos’s side and more like a man on his way to somewhere ordinary, somewhere that didn’t require walls or weapons.

“Why are you still here?” Carlos asked, his tone calm and almost casual. As if he wasn’t in the mood to deal with Judd, or any of his men right now.

Judd didn’t bother answering the question. Instead, his eyes swept over Carlos in one quick, assessing glance.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re going out? And—” he replied, his gaze drifted briefly down the sharp lines of Carlos’s outfit before returning to his face, “—like this?”

Carlos placed the comb down on the vanity, running his fingers through his hair one last time until the waves fell into place exactly as he wanted them. Only then did he take a small step back, giving his reflection a final, measuring look in the mirror. Whatever he saw seemed to satisfy him, because when he turned toward Judd, there was the faintest lift of one eyebrow, his voice light, almost indifferent.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re about to meet your boyfriend.”

Carlos’s eyes narrowed, a sharp, cutting look passing between them, but Judd only gave a small shrug, refusing to meet it. His attention drifted instead to the rest of the suite, his gaze moving over the room’s warm gold lighting, its massive chandeliers, and the dense, patterned wallpaper. It was impossible to miss how different this place was from his own quiet house in the suburbs—a modern villa with clean white walls, open windows, and air that smelled of grass after rain.

Carlos spent most of his downtime at his real home. It was a place known only to himself and a handful of his most trusted bodyguards. Hidden away in a quiet neighborhood, shielded by tall trees and broad lawns, it was a pocket of fresh air untouched by the stink of business or the reach of the underworld. There, in the stillness of the back patio or in the deep quiet of the garden, he could let the weight slide from his shoulders. He could sit for hours with a drink, watching the light change through the leaves. He could walk the winding paths until nightfall without speaking to anyone. On rare nights, when no one else was there to see, he could even let the tears come.

That house had been his whole world for nearly three weeks after the night he’d been brutally injured, leaving only once to see TK and have a late-night tea with him, and once more for a short visit to see his mother. It was cold in its design but warm in its safety; a place that belonged to him in a way nothing else did.

The penthouse, by contrast, was never truly home. It was business dressed up in luxury, the very highest point of the building’s twenty-five stories, draped in velvet and crystal, carrying the lingering scent of money that had not been earned cleanly. The air here still held the echoes of late nights he’d rather forget. The heavy laughter that wasn’t real, the touch of hands he hadn’t wanted, the feeling of skin he’d wanted to wash away.

Carlos kept almost nothing personal here, only what was necessary for a few days’ stay, a week at most. Still, Judd made sure the place stayed stocked and ready, as if it were just as lived-in as the house no one else knew. It was, in its own way, another tool and a controlled setting for meetings that couldn’t happen anywhere else, a space where Carlos could set the terms.

But warmth? No. That belonged to another address entirely.

“You still haven’t answered my question. Why are you here?” Carlos asked as he walked into his walk-in closet, his voice even but edged with that quiet impatience that made it clear he already had a guess.

Judd followed him inside, glancing briefly back toward the bedroom, which was spotless. The bed was perfectly made, the sheets carrying a faint trace of some expensive detergent, the kind of neatness that looked as though no one had touched it in hours. It was nothing like what Judd had seen just a few hours earlier.

The closet, on the other hand, looked like a small storm had passed through. Carlos had clearly torn through it in search of this particular look, pulling half his wardrobe onto the floor in the process. It was unusual for him. Normally, he stuck to his all-black signature without much fuss. This chaos was different. This mess screamed that he had a specific meeting in mind.

“Had to run some errands,” Judd said, watching Carlos dig through a drawer of watches until his fingers paused on one with a large navy-blue face and a tan leather strap, a choice that fit perfectly with the rest of his outfit.

“Does ‘running errands’ mean you finally set up that meeting with my father so we can drop by together?” Carlos asked without looking up.

Judd closed his eyes for a second and took a long, slow breath, irritation already settling in. What the hell was wrong with this kid?

“No, smartass. Your daddy told me to dig up more on that fella from last night. And he also said he wants to see you tonight.”

Carlos froze in the middle of fastening the strap, his gaze snapping toward Judd.

“Why the hell would he want that info?”

“I don’t know.” Judd shrugged. “Maybe ‘cause he told you not to take any new appointments after what all happened, but you went right on ahead and booked one anyway.”

A bitter, humorless laugh escaped Carlos.

“I doubt he even remembers what happened to me. It was his people who were sent to rape and kill me that night,” he said. There was no emotion in his voice; it was completely blank.

“And you’re stupid enough to think your father was the one who sent them?” Judd’s voice hardened. “That’s some real brainwork, you know.”

“I don’t know anything, Judd,” Carlos shot back, sharper now, frustration cutting through each word. “Just drop it, okay?”

Judd exhaled, shaking his head. He let it go, partly because pushing now would only make Carlos dig his heels in deeper, and partly because he had no interest in wrecking the mood entirely. He crossed the room and started pulling the curtains shut one by one. Even with the walls made of floor-to-ceiling bulletproof glass, privacy was as important as security, and in Judd’s world, Carlos’s safety always came first.

For a while, neither of them spoke. Carlos adjusted the cuff of his sleeve, took one last look in the full-length mirror, then grabbed his phone and wallet from the vanity.

“You planning to stay here until tomorrow?” he asked as he slipped the wallet into his pocket.

“You’re not gonna see your father tonight, are you?” Judd countered.

“Did he tell you to drag me into his office no matter what, with threats or force or… I don’t know, whatever it takes?”

Judd shook his head. “No.”

“Then no,” Carlos said simply, his tone final. “I have more important things to do right now.”

Judd pulled Carlos’s jacket from its hanger and handed it to him. “Oh yeah? Like meeting that pretty doctor?”

Carlos stopped mid-reach, turning to glare at him with a sharp, wordless look. He didn’t confirm it. He didn’t deny it. He just held Judd’s eyes in silence, saying more without speaking than most people could in a paragraph.

“Don’t call him that.”

“So that’s a yes,” Judd replied, one eyebrow lifting in the exact way a parent does when they’ve caught their kid red-handed. The only difference was that Carlos wasn’t his kid, and unlike most kids, he didn’t bother pretending to be polite.

“Yes. And?” Carlos’s tone was almost confrontational, as if he couldn’t see why he should have to justify something so trivial.

It was easy to forget that Judd wasn’t just his father’s friend or his long-time bodyguard; over the years, as Carlos’s relationship with his father soured, Judd had also become the one to try and keep him from drifting too far off course. Not because Carlos was reckless in the way people assumed, but because Judd, in his own quiet and stubborn way, actually cared.

“You know this is a bad idea, right?”

Carlos glanced at himself in the mirror for what felt like the hundredth time. Every time he was about to walk out of his room, Judd’s questions tore through his focus and unraveled the mental thread he was holding onto.

“Why should it be?” Carlos asked, his voice calm but tinged with impatience.

“Does he know who you are? Does he know what you and your family are capable of?”

“He doesn’t have to,” Carlos replied, turning from the mirror to face Judd. “It’s just dinner, Judd. Not a marriage proposal.”

Judd raised a brow and shrugged, a silent concession that he wasn’t going to get any further with this. He knew now wasn’t the right moment for one of their familiar arguments. With both hands lifted in mock surrender, he stepped aside to let Carlos pass.

“Alright. Whatever you say, boss. I’m not your bodyguard right now, so it ain’t my place to be saying nothing about this.”

“Good. And hopefully I won’t see you around here until the end of next week.”

“I’ll be back Monday—”

“No, you won’t,” Carlos cut in sharply. “I know you probably told my father you’re only gone for the weekend, but I dismissed you until the end of next week. Show up earlier than that and I’ll fire you myself.”

He said it while descending the stairs, still carrying a faint limp from the injury to his leg. It was subtle enough that someone who didn’t know him might miss it, and he clearly no longer needed a cane. His tone carried a strange mix. There was no real anger in it, none of that sharp impatience he usually radiated, and certainly not the familiar indifference as if nothing in the world could matter to him. The words held a threat, yes, but they weren’t bitter. And that, for Carlos, was unusual.

“Why you always gotta be an asshole?” Judd asked, arriving at the bottom of the stairs a few seconds after him.

“Because… you have a family you haven’t seen in a month. Maybe more,” Carlos said, turning to face him fully for the first time, their eyes meeting. “Because of me. I know I should give you more time off, but my life is a mess without you. So, I guess that makes me selfish.”

“It’s my job, dumbass. They’re used to this,” Judd replied quietly, not wanting Carlos to carry guilt over it.

“But do they deserve it? Does someone as broken and useless as me deserve your time and care more than they do?” Carlos asked.

He spread his arms slightly, gesturing not just to the luxury duplex surrounding them, but to everything in his life, his fractured mental state, the strained relationship with his family, the constant loneliness, and the chaos that was his existence.

Judd didn’t want the conversation to go deeper. He was grateful for the thought, though, for the unexpected empathy. Carlos didn’t owe him that, especially now, not when his own head was a mess. But the gesture meant a great deal. It proved something Judd already knew but Carlos tried so hard to hide, that he wasn’t just the arrogant, cold bastard he liked to pretend to be.

The truth was, before that night—before Carlos got hurt like that—Judd still had windows of time to go home. If Carlos said he didn’t have plans, no meetings, no appointments, or simply didn’t feel like going out, Judd would take the chance to see his family. Sometimes, when Carlos had an evening appointment that would keep him busy until the next morning, Judd would head out.

But after that night… everything changed. After things escalated the way they did, Judd couldn’t leave him alone. Not for a second. The only time he had been away in the past month was that day he’d delivered flowers to that doctor, followed by a quick, secret meeting with Grace, making sure no one saw. That was it.

Judd didn’t lie about his family. They were used to this life, to him playing with his life every single day. But this last month had been harder than usual. The tension, the near misses, the constant shadow of danger, it all left little room for peace. And while no amount of time with his family would ever be enough, the week ahead felt precious.

And if he was going to leave, even for a week, he needed to make damn sure someone competent would take his place. That’s what he’d been busy with for the last several hours: vetting, checking, and then double-checking.

“Look at you,” Judd muttered with a smirk, trying to lighten the mood, “heading out on a date and still talking bullshit.”

“It’s not a date!” Carlos shot back instantly.

They both cracked faint, meaningful smiles that didn’t match the sharp jabs and snark from earlier.

After a moment of silence, just as Carlos turned to head for the door, Judd asked,
“You want me to put Paul on you? Might give me some peace of mind.”

“No!” Carlos’s voice went sharp again. How quickly his moods could shift. “My own bodyguard turns out to be my father’s snitch. What the hell do you think I should expect from one of his men?”

Judd let the ‘snitch’ part slide; he’d heard it too many times in the past month to bother correcting anymore.

“You don’t know Paul.” He said instead, “He’s damn good. And he’s not that kind of man.”

“He’s my father’s man,” Carlos cut in, “and that’s all I need to know.”

He waved a hand in dismissal, then checked his watch for the last time.
“I’m gonna be late. Go.” He motioned for Judd to leave, but Judd stayed where he was, unmoving. “I’ll be fine,” he added, trying to put him at ease.

“Be careful,” Judd replied quietly.

“I will.”

They left the suite together, taking the private elevator down to the lobby. Carlos got into his car with the substitute bodyguard Judd had assigned. Judd stood in the hotel’s front drive, watching as the car pulled away toward its destination.

And still, he didn’t feel at ease. He knew that even during the days ahead—days when he was supposed to be far from Carlos and his temper, his sharp tongue, his impossible personality—his mind would keep circling back. Where is he? What’s he doing? Is he safe?

Because at the end of the day, Judd was Carlos’s bodyguard. They fought almost every day, and Judd had always known there was a real chance Carlos would wake up one morning and decide to fire him. It would only take one bad argument.

But until that day came, Judd’s life was knotted tied to this wounded, stubborn, infuriating man. A man who, if Judd was being honest with himself, had probably fallen for someone somewhere along the way this past month.

And no matter how reckless and difficult Carlos could be, Judd wasn’t about to let go. Not yet and not ever, not while Carlos still needed someone in his corner.

Chapter Text

Carlos had eaten meals in places most people couldn’t even imagine: anywhere a human mind could map a table, he had sat at it. Private dinners on a yacht drifting somewhere in the middle of the ocean. An afternoon tea in the echoing aisles of a massive weapons warehouse. Tasting menus in the most exclusive restaurants, in hotel suites so expensive they didn’t list the price online. Meals in garden estates, on golf courses, in the quiet hum of private jets slicing through night skies.

He’d sat across from gang leaders, smugglers, cartel brokers, and underground networks across the entire southern states. The kind of men who were dangerous in ways that didn’t need to be spoken aloud. The kind of men who could end a life because of a badly timed pause in a sentence.

In every one of those meetings, Carlos knew how to hold his ground. He had been all business. Even when things had gone wrong, there had been nothing left to lose. He had once believed this business was his legacy, something passed down with blood and expectation. At first, he had chased it with excitement, hunger, and pride. But somewhere along the way, it hollowed him out. Now there was nothing left in him to lose. No fear. No pleading for survival. No sense of belonging to anything except a reputation built from manipulation and violence. He had thought about walking away more times than he could count, yet he was tangled in it so tightly that the idea of escape almost felt ridiculous.

He knew how to do his work, so he showed up to those late, compromised, inhuman deals with his hands full but his heart hollow, ready to leave without regrets if the night took him, no matter how dangerous they were. There was nothing to worry about, not even in the moments when he suspected he might not come back, because if he didn’t, there was nothing left behind to mourn

But this evening was different.             

This evening, his heart was beating too fast. His palms were damp, and he kept rubbing them against his pants under the table as if that small motion could dry them and steady whatever tremor lived beneath his ribs. Not because there was danger in the room. Not because he feared losing his power or his empire. This was the kind of anxiety that came from the possibility of losing something fragile and new before it could grow into anything real.

He was afraid this might go wrong. That he might ruin it. That the tiny sliver of light he had glimpsed in the cracks of his own walls might flicker out.

Across from him, in a restaurant that was comfortably intimate and quietly luxurious at once, sat a man who in the dust and rot of Carlos’s life looked like a flourishing tree. TK was fresh air in a sealed room, like a bloom in the middle of dry desert heat, like the first warm day after a long winter. Hope, in the purest and most dangerous form.

From the moment they’d met that evening, TK had shown him a genuine smile, and it had done something to Carlos’s chest, something he didn’t have a name for yet. TK looked tired, the kind of tired that came from a twelve-hour shift in a trauma unit, his eyelids a little heavier than the last time Carlos had seen him, but his voice was still bright and his attention was unwavering. Every now and then, TK would lift his gaze from his plate, catch Carlos looking back, and smile, soft and warm.

Carlos had arrived a few minutes late that evening, delayed by Judd’s sudden appearance in his penthouse just as he was about to leave, a barrage of sharp questions and pointed security concerns thrown at him with that mix of frustration and protectiveness that Carlos had stopped trying to untangle. By the time he stepped into the restaurant, some of that tension still clung to him.

But then he saw TK.

TK was seated at the table, wearing a textured gray blazer over a simple black T-shirt and dark jeans, nothing particularly showy, yet somehow the room seemed arranged around him. He was typing quickly on his phone, brows lightly drawn in concentration, but the moment he looked up and recognized Carlos approaching, the small frown vanished as if it had never existed. He locked his phone, set it face down on the table, and offered a warm smile that softened the entire space between them.

Carlos apologized for being late, though TK dismissed it with an easy shake of his head. When Carlos took a moment to take in the restaurant and its soft light and the quiet murmur of conversations, TK explained with a quiet kind of pride that the place was owned by a friend of his called Tommy, who ran it with her husband, Charles. He’d called her only minutes before arriving and asked for the best table, and she’d given it to them without hesitation.

Their evening settled before either of them noticed it happening. The conversation unfolded with a natural, unhurried rhythm. They spoke about things, the small details of the week, as though neither of them had spent the last month caught in the aftermath of something they couldn’t fully name. Nothing felt forced. Nothing felt strained. It was strange how easy it was.

Carlos asked about TK’s shift, and TK replied with the practiced clarity of someone who had long learned how to speak about his work in a way others could understand. Carlos listened closely, not out of politeness but because he found himself genuinely wanting to know, watching the subtle changes in TK’s expression whenever he spoke about the hospital, the patients, and the weight of choice and responsibility.

Then TK asked about him and how he had been doing. He said he had taken a month off to rest, that today had been his first day back handling hotel business and other responsibilities. He said it lightly, casually, as though nothing significant had happened. TK didn’t push. Instead, he asked how Carlos had spent the time, and Carlos told him he’d been watching movies and reading books, that he had visited his mother, and that he took short walks in the neighborhood.

He didn’t tell the whole truth.

He didn’t say that the month had been a quiet war, that most days had felt too heavy to carry, that he had been recovering from wounds so deep they didn’t show on the surface anymore, that he had thought about standing on the roof of his hotel this morning and wondered if the wind would feel gentle on the way down. He also didn’t mention that in the darkest moments, when everything felt distant and thin, he found himself thinking of green eyes and gentle hands and the faint memory of a voice telling him it’s going to be okay.

They continued talking as they ate, conversation moving in easy loops, sometimes fading into silence that didn’t feel uncomfortable. They shared small observations about the room, exchanged glances that held more warmth than words could, and every so often, they’d scan the restaurant, quietly judging the people who passed by, sharing small, knowing smiles before both of them burst into soft laughter.

And somewhere in the middle of it, Carlos felt something subtle and fragile ease inside him. He didn’t name it. He didn’t try to understand it. He simply let himself feel it.

Throughout their conversation, TK checked his phone several times, reading each new message that appeared on the screen. Every time, Carlos lowered his gaze and busied himself with his plate, or smoothed an invisible crease along the cuff of his sleeve, trying not to make either of them feel awkward. But when the phone buzzed again and TK read the message with an impatient sigh, rolling his eyes before letting out a frustrated breath, Carlos finally looked up from his plate.

TK caught his gaze immediately and said quietly and almost apologetically, “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to explain.” Carlos said as he shook his head. And he meant it. He didn’t want to think about who was on the other end of those messages or why TK couldn’t ignore them. Whatever the reason was, it wasn’t his business. They were sitting at a table together, but they weren’t anything to each other that required explanations. Maybe it was a friend, maybe someone closer, maybe someone TK was dating; it didn’t matter. Carlos wasn’t in any position to judge because his own history was far from clean. So fairness meant not knowing. Fairness meant letting it be.

“It’s my dad,” TK said after a pause, a sheepish smile on his lips, “I was supposed to go see him tonight, and I completely forgot. He texted me before you came in, and I told him I had plans… so I canceled. Now he’s not going to stop until he knows exactly what I’m doing.”

“Oh no, that sounds like trouble.” Carlos laughed, a low, genuine sound that didn’t appear often.

“And now that he knows I’m not gonna say anything, he just wants to embarrass me,” TK said with a groan, though he was smiling.

Carlos raised an eyebrow, giving him space to say it if he wanted to, but he didn’t push. He just said what came to his mind.

“Let me guess,” he said with a playful smile, “he told you to be careful and use protection?”

TK’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open for a second, caught completely off guard by how precisely Carlos had hit the mark. He groaned again.

“Oh my god. This is so embarrassing.” He covered his face with both hands, shaking his head, his laughter muffled against his palms.

Carlos burst out laughing, the kind of laughter that filled the space between them. It was the kind of laugh TK could live inside.

“I’m thirty-five, for god’s sake,” TK said between his shy laughter.

“I guess they can never really accept that we’re not kids anymore,” Carlos said as he watched him fondly, his smile gentle now.

“No, they can’t,” TK agreed, shaking his head. “And he’s not going to drop it until I go see him and have another awkward conversation about boundaries and life choices.”

“Good luck with that.” Carlos chuckled softly.

And again, they both laughed, the sound soft and shared, but it settled into something quieter, something that hummed low and steady between them.

When the playfulness settled into silence again, Carlos said something he probably shouldn’t have. It was as if tonight he’d lost the ability to hold things in, as if every rule of caution he’d ever lived by was dissolving in TK’s presence.

“Funny, cause tonight I canceled on my dad too.”

TK blinked, caught by surprise as if he recognized the shift in the tone, “Really?”

“Yeah,” Carlos nodded, “But I have no intention of explaining to him anything.”

TK froze slightly, studying him, trying to see if it was a joke or if there was something heavier behind it. He finally set his fork down on the empty plate; his hands folded loosely in front of him. They had finished eating long ago, but neither seemed ready to leave.

“Things are not okay between you two?” He asked after a long moment of quiet thought, as if he was considering whether he should ask the question or not.

Carlos didn’t answer right away. He simply shook his head, slow and quiet, and looked down at the table again. He shouldn’t have said anything. He shouldn’t have opened that door and talked about his problems, his insecurities, or himself. And most of all, his family wasn’t a topic he ever allowed in conversations. He and his father always kept up appearances in public: sharp suits, polite smiles, and clean lies. Because when even a single detail about his real life was out, any piece of it could be used against him, and he knew it. But tonight, sitting here across from TK, something in him refused to keep pretending.

“The only thing keeping us connected is the business,” he said quietly as he avoided TK’s eyes. Because if he looked at them, he wasn’t sure if he could keep that strong mask on his face any longer. “… and Judd,” he added.

One of TK’s eyebrows lifted when he heard Judd’s name, as if something had just clicked in his mind. His eyes wandered around the restaurant, scanning the corners, the tables, the dimly lit bar behind them. He even turned slightly in his seat to glance over his shoulder before looking back at Carlos.

Carlos knew exactly who he was looking for. He also knew that TK was probably trying to gently shift the subject away from fathers and histories and old wounds. And he was grateful for that. He didn’t even like thinking about his father when he was alone, let alone talking about him with someone who was still, in many ways, a stranger.

“He’s not here tonight,” TK said finally,  as if he’d reached that conclusion just by not spotting him.

“No,” Carlos replied, “He’s not with me for a while.”

“Did you fire him?” TK tilted his head, curious.

Carlos huffed a soft laugh. “Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know,” TK said with a small shrug, half smiling. “I heard people with bodyguards are always at each other’s throats. Figured maybe you two didn’t get along and you let him go.”

Carlos paused for a second, taking the last sip of his wine, something he’d noticed TK hadn’t touched all night; he only kept to a simple lemonade instead.

“He’s not just my bodyguard,” The words came out quieter than he meant.

TK looked up. Carlos could read the flicker of something in his eyes. Curiosity, maybe surprise, and then something like… disappointment.

“He’s an old friend.” He added.

TK nodded slowly, and Carlos could see the tension in his shoulders ease a little, his expression softening again.

“That’s good,” TK said, and there was a small, genuine warmth in his tone. “Having someone like that. Must feel like… a kind of anchor.”

“It really does.” Carlos nodded with a warm smile, “You don’t have someone like that?”

“Not really,” TK said. “I’ve only been here a few years. None of my old friends live here.”

“You’re not from Texas?”

TK smiled and shook his head. “New York.”

Carlos raised an eyebrow, a slow grin forming. “New York to Texas, huh? Just a short walk and barely a culture shock, right?” he locked, and TK laughed, a laugh so warm and so unforced. Carlos leaned back a little, still smiling. “So, how’s Austin been treating you so far?”

“It’s been good,” TK replied. “Most of my time has been spent either studying and working my ass off at the hospital, or catching up on sleep at home. I think I’m still figuring things out.”

“It’s okay. That’s normal,” Carlos reassured him, his gentle smile never fading.

TK returned his smile. “Yeah.”

A brief silence settled again, light and comfortable. But then TK’s teasing side made another appearance.

“So you did fire him, huh?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head lightly. Of course that man wasn’t letting it go. “I gave him a few days off to spend with his family. Don’t worry, you’ll see him again soon.”

The words left his mouth before he could stop them. He closed it immediately, but forced himself to stay composed, pretending not to notice the slip. But he knew that TK noticed it too. The truth was, neither of them knew if there would be a next time. Not Carlos, and not TK, who looked briefly startled by the way he’d phrased it. They were both adults. They needed caution. Neither wanted to rush into anything or worse, say something that might sound like a promise. Especially when both of them carried so many things that they couldn’t talk about.

For a moment, panic crawled up Carlos’s spine. Fear that he’d said too much, that he’d scared TK off. But TK only raised a brow, lips curving into a crooked grin again.

“Oh, what a generous, caring boss! Concerned about your employee’s work-life balance? Impressive.”

Carlos gave a short, embarrassed laugh. “No, I’m not.”

And he meant it, more than TK could have guessed.

TK smiled again, his eyes lingering on him for a few quiet seconds without saying anything else. Carlos couldn’t read the silence, whether TK thought he was just being modest, or if he’d sensed the truth beneath that nervous chuckle. Because Carlos wasn’t a good man. He wasn’t exactly a bad one either. He was something caught in between, trapped in a shadowed world where right and wrong had lost their shape. Like a burning building with every exit sealed, he’d stopped looking for a way out long ago, accepting that maybe the smoke and fire were simply where he belonged.

And yet, the question lingered: what was he doing here tonight? A man who thought about dying almost every day, sitting in this warm, dim restaurant, talking to someone who made him want to stay alive a little longer. Maybe that was it, maybe, for once, he was looking for a way toward life, not out of it.

But he couldn’t build anything real if it was built on lies. And he couldn’t tell the truth either. Not when every truth in his world could endanger someone else, especially now that it was this man in front of him. And still, it was too early for such thoughts. He didn’t even know if this was a real date. Nothing about the way they’d met or the way they’d gotten here was ordinary. Maybe whatever came next wouldn’t be either.

He didn’t know if there would be another message from TK, another night like this, another chance to sit across from him and feel this strange, quiet ease. He remembered that first night at the bus stop and the way TK had looked at him, not with suspicion or calculation, but with genuine concern. That single moment had felt different, honest in a way nothing else in his life was.

They were still strangers now. But Carlos found himself hoping that next time, they wouldn’t be. Maybe they’d become something simple: two men who met sometimes, who shared a meal and a few hours of peace without having to explain who they really were.

Carlos wanted that more than he wanted to admit. And he knew, with a sinking kind of certainty, that his heart was already halfway gone. It made everything harder. He wasn’t the kind of man who hoped. Hope and he had lived apart for years, each learning to survive without the other.

But tonight, sitting here under the low light, watching TK laugh softly at something he couldn’t even remember saying, Carlos wanted to believe, just for once, that this time might be different.

The night air carried that familiar Austin winter calm. It was cool with a light breeze brushing against their faces and the faint glow of city lights tracing soft halos across their skin.

They decided to walk for a while after dinner. It was TK’s idea, a simple suggestion spoken without much thought, and Carlos agreed almost immediately, as if he’d already been thinking the same thing. He said he didn’t want to make TK any more tired than he already was, since the man had come here straight from a twelve-hour shift. But the truth was, TK didn’t feel tired anymore. Whatever exhaustion had been pressing into his bones earlier had dissolved somewhere between the moment he saw Carlos walking into the restaurant and the quiet warmth that had unfolded between them over the course of dinner.

Maybe it was the adrenaline of the evening, maybe the nervousness that came with being near someone who still felt a little unknown, or maybe it was simply the quiet excitement of seeing him again. Whatever it was, it filled TK with a strange, steady energy, the kind that could’ve carried him running around the city all night without him even noticing the cold.

As they stepped out of the restaurant, TK noticed two men in dark suits rise from a table nearby. They followed them outside, keeping a distance and moving in sync. Carlos turned back briefly and gave a small hand signal that TK couldn’t quite see, and the two men nodded and fell into pace behind them at a distance. They weren’t like Judd, who always hovered close, invading every invisible line of personal space. These two seemed trained to stay unseen, to guard from afar, to give their boss a kind of privacy that Judd never had.

For a while, neither of them spoke. They walked in a gentle rhythm, their footsteps soft against the pavement. Then they began to talk about their plans for tomorrow, about small, ordinary stuff. TK mentioned he had the day off and that he planned to visit his father. Carlos said he had work to catch up on, though without Judd the work tended to remain half done. Maybe he would call his mother, he said, or stop by to see her if he had the time.

The conversation came and went in soft waves, easy and unhurried. TK found himself watching Carlos as they walked. The way the wind shifted a few stray curls near his temple. The way the light caught his eyes when he glanced toward the street. The calm in his voice when he spoke. There was something quietly magnetic about him, something TK couldn’t look away from. Every movement and every pause seemed measured as if he knew exactly when to go silent, when to step back, or where to draw his lines and how to hold them. He did all of that so naturally and so effortlessly that TK never once felt uncomfortable.

And yet, beneath all that composure, TK could sense the weight Carlos carried. In the moments his gaze dropped to the ground, in the half-smile that didn’t always reach his eyes. There were unspoken and heavy stories there, hiding in the pauses between his words.

TK wanted to understand it. To see past those quiet walls, to read the real expression behind the calm, to know what kind of man lived behind that guarded stillness. The thought made his chest ache with something that felt like both curiosity and longing. He didn’t want the night to end. He wanted to stay in this small, fragile space they’d built. Just the two of them walking side by side, hands tucked into their pockets, their shoulders close enough for him to feel the faint warmth of Carlos’s presence through layers of fabric and inches of cold air.

That warmth was enough to keep him moving forward, enough to make him hope that maybe this was something real. That maybe Carlos felt it too. That maybe all the unspoken things between them didn’t need words to be understood. And for a moment, he wished time would slow down, so he could stay right there, walking through the winter night beside a man who made him feel, for the first time in a long while, that he wasn’t alone. And that was the thing that made him willing to risk the quiet and steady comfort between them with a question he wasn’t sure he had the right to ask.

He took a breath. “Can I ask you something?”

Carlos didn’t stop walking. His eyes had been scanning their surroundings, watchful in a way TK didn’t fully understand, his hands buried in his coat pockets. At the sound of TK’s voice, he turned his head slowly, enough to show he was listening.

“Sure.”

TK swallowed, suddenly unsure, but the words were already there, pressed against his ribs. “Are you… actually doing better?”

Carlos didn’t answer at first. His gaze shifted away again, back ahead of them, toward nothing in particular. TK knew he had touched something heavy. He remembered the bruises from that night, the pain in Carlos’s movements, the way his eyes had looked like someone who’d been pulled back from somewhere dark but hadn’t really returned. He knew those wounds and bruises hadn’t been the kind that healed after a few weeks of rest. Not the physical ones, and definitely not the others.

So he didn’t push. He just waited.

They walked maybe half a block like that. There was just the sound of cars distant on the road and the sound of their breaths in their shared quiet moment. Then Carlos exhaled softly.

“I think you’ve noticed the limp already,” he said with a faint, tired exhale, as if starting with the easy part, “It takes longer to get rid of the pain than I’d like. But… it’s fine.” he paused. “I’m fine.”

TK opened his mouth to say something because that wasn’t what he meant, and they both knew it, but Carlos gave him a small, tired smile, the kind that never reached the eyes.

“I know that’s not the answer you were asking for, though.” The smile faded as quickly as it came. His tone shifted into something real. Something exposed. “But to be honest… I don’t know.” He looked forward again. “The truth is… I don’t really get the space to ask myself questions like that. In my life, how I feel or whether I’m okay or not just isn’t something that matters.”

The words hit softly, but they sank deep. TK could already guess what Carlos’s life looked like, but hearing it out loud hit harder. Something in TK’s chest tightened, a simple human pain for another person who hadn’t been allowed to be human for a very long time. He wanted to reach for him. To touch his hand or his arm or the back of his coat. To offer something real and solid, something warm. His hand ached with the want to do it. But he didn’t. Instead, he shifted just slightly closer, letting their shoulders brush just enough to say I’m here, without saying anything at all.

“You deserve to care about that,” he said, voice quiet but sure. “You can choose to step away from whatever it is if it’s hurting you, right? You can choose something different.”

Carlos let out a short, quiet laugh, one without humor. “I wish it was that simple.”

“Maybe it’s not simple,” TK said. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t try.”

Silence settled again after that. TK wasn’t sure if he had the right to say anything about Carlos’s life, and he didn’t know whether Carlos believed a word he said. He was afraid that, somewhere deep down, Carlos didn’t want to. That the life he lived had shaped him into someone who didn’t hope anymore, someone who didn’t reach for escape because he’d already accepted there wasn’t one. He didn’t push, and he just stayed beside Carlos, walking through the night.

After a while, when there wasn’t much left to say that wouldn’t cross the invisible lines between them, Carlos slowed his pace and then stopped. TK stopped with him, turning slightly so they were facing each other.

“Do you have your car with you?” Carlos asked gently.

“No.”TK shook his head. He didn’t mention that he didn’t actually own a car. People never seemed to believe him when he said that, so he preferred to keep it to himself. Not that he thought Carlos would care about such a detail anyway.

“Then we’ll drive you home.”

“Thanks, but it’s fine.” TK smiled warmly, gesturing to wave off the offer. “My place isn’t far. I’ll just get an Uber.”

“It’s late.” The words were simple, but there was something careful behind them.

TK opened his mouth to argue, but Carlos’s expression shifted with the faintest hint of a teasing smile, hoping to do that for TK.

“Come on. My bodyguards are bored out of their minds. Let’s give them something to do besides standing there like statues and betting on how the night will end for the two of you.”

“Oh yeah? What do you think they’re betting on?” TK laughed softly, clearly amused, so he caught the teasing in Carlos’s words and decided to play along.

“Oh, you don’t wanna know.” Carlos laughed.

It was meant as a joke, but the possible implications behind Carlos’s words, and whatever he might have done on previous dates that made him joke about people betting on his love life, sent a shiver down TK’s spine. Still, he tried to ignore it for now.

TK hesitated for a moment, then gave a small smile. “Alright then, I’ll give you the address.”

Carlos’s eyes softened at that, the corners of his lips lifting slightly. Then he stepped closer. The space between them narrowed, and he leaned in, his voice dropping low near TK’s ear. Not close enough to feel invasive, but close enough that TK could feel the warmth of his breath touch the side of his neck. It sent a shiver down his skin.

“I don’t trust these guys the way I trust Judd,” he said quietly. “And I don’t want to cross any lines. So when we get close to your place, just give me the address a few houses down, okay?”

Then he stepped back again, meeting TK’s eyes. The playfulness that had lived on his face was gone. His expression was serious and unreadable now. The dark in his eyes wasn’t cold, but heavy. It made TK’s heart pound so hard he could feel it against his ribs. He nodded, swallowing the strange tightness in his throat, that sudden wave of emotion he couldn’t name. What Carlos had done was quietly, unexpectedly intimate. It was protective, not flirtatious. For a man who carried danger like a shadow, it was an act of care so disarming that it left TK unsteady.

Maybe Carlos wasn’t who he seemed. Maybe behind all that mystery and power, there was a man who still thought about what safety meant for someone else. A man who measured his words, who thought before he acted, who was willing to keep his own people at a distance just to make sure TK was safe.

TK couldn’t stop thinking about that. Not when they stood waiting for the car to pull up, not even when the door opened and Carlos stepped aside for him to climb in. Through the quiet hum of the drive, the thought wouldn’t leave him. That Carlos wasn’t protecting him from the bodyguards at all. He was protecting him from himself. From his world, his family, and his name.

And that realization hit TK harder than he expected. Because even though part of him wanted Carlos to know where he lived, wanted to see him again, wanted something more than goodbyes under streetlights, he couldn’t shake the warning in that gesture. It felt like a door half-opened and half-locked at the same time. And that thought, no matter how quietly it whispered through his chest, scared him more than he wanted to admit.

When they finally reached TK’s street, he did exactly what Carlos had asked and gave the driver an address a few houses down. When the car slowed to a stop, he opened the door and Carlos followed him out. They moved a little away from the car, both of them slipping their hands into their pockets again, facing each other under the pale glow of a streetlight. They looked at each other for a few seconds without saying anything. There wasn’t much left to say, but neither seemed ready to walk away either.

“Tonight was nice,” TK said finally, his voice low and careful, testing the air between them.

“Yeah, it was,” Carlos’s answer was simple, but the small smile on his lips carried more warmth than the words themselves.

TK smiled in return. Their smiles were quiet, tired, and honest. The kind that held the memory of the evening in them and said everything words couldn’t.

“Thank you for the ride,” he said, loud enough for the men in the car to hear, too. It was a small, polite gesture to make sure everyone, even those two men whom Carlos clearly didn’t like, felt appreciated.

Carlos’s eyes warmed, “Thank you for the dinner.”

And that was it. That should have been the end. But neither of them moved. The space between them stayed full, heavy with all the things that hadn’t been said. They stood there longer than they should have, both pretending not to notice how long it had been. TK could feel the air tightening in his chest, could feel his heartbeat rise with every passing second.

Finally, Carlos took a slow breath, the kind you take when you have to do something even if it hurts. “Goodbye, TK.”

TK tried not to let the disappointment show. It wasn’t that he’d expected more. He didn’t expect a kiss, a touch, or even an invitation to see each other again. He just never wanted this kind of ending. Not something so simple and so final.

No let’s do this again.

No I’ll text you.

Not even a quiet take care.

Just a simple, hurtful goodbye.

He couldn’t tell if Carlos had chosen that word intentionally and it was meant to draw a line, or if it had simply been the first thing that came out. He really hoped it was the second one.

“Goodbye, Carlos.”He swallowed and forced a small smile.

He took a step back, then another. Carlos didn’t move. He stood there, his camel-colored coat catching the streetlight, his hands still in his pockets, watching TK with that same quiet, unreadable expression. There was something about his gaze that made it impossible to tell what he was thinking. It was both distant and present, both saying go and stay.

TK turned away finally, his steps slow and heavy, walking deliberately in the wrong direction. After a few moments, he looked back and saw the sleek black SUV already moving, turning a corner, and disappearing into the dark.

Carlos was a strange man. He was complicated and maybe dangerous. Hard to reach in ways TK couldn’t quite define. It felt like a thin thread had been tied between them that was fragile enough to break with the smallest pull, yet still holding them together in some quiet, invisible way. If he pushed too hard, it would snap. But if he was careful and just let it rest, maybe it would hold.

He knew he should be cautious. He knew he should be afraid. And yet, under all of that, a small spark of hope remained that maybe tonight wasn’t the end. He had Carlos’s number. If it was real. And if things ever got too quiet and too distant, he knew exactly where to find him. At the hotel across from the hospital, the one that always caught the evening light in its glass windows.

He wanted to fall asleep with the thought that they weren’t as far apart now as they had been that first night, maybe now they knew each other better, and maybe they had moved a little closer to each other.

He knew he had to talk to someone just to untangle what was happening inside him. For now, though, he let himself believe in that small, impossible hope that this fragile thread between him and Carlos might still hold through the dark.

--------

The next morning, TK got a call from Grace.

Her voice was calm as she told him she wouldn’t be coming in for her next two shifts. She didn’t explain why and didn’t say the details, and TK didn’t ask for any either. He only asked if everything was alright, and Grace, gentle even through the phone, said that it was. She thanked him for asking.

It wasn’t unusual for Grace to take time off. She was a mother and a wife. Someone with a full life outside the hospital, even if none of them ever saw it. That was something about Grace everyone accepted without question. Her life was private in a way that felt intentional, not secretive. She spoke about having a five-year-old daughter, but no one at the hospital had ever met her. She mentioned her husband sometimes, but he was never present, not in photos, not in family stories, and not in social gatherings.

When there were group hangs or birthday nights, and everyone brought their partners, Grace always had a reason why her husband couldn’t make it. Business trip. Late shift. Travel. Sometimes she simply didn’t come herself. No one had ever seen her talking to his husband on the phone on her shift, or sharing anything about what her life looked like once she left the hospital doors. And yet, no one questioned her, not in a way that meant suspicion. Grace was simply Grace. They respected those boundaries. That was how the team worked.

So TK didn’t ask either. He just listened as she explained how the unit would run while she was gone. Nanсy would step in as acting charge nurse, and TK would take the lead attending responsibilities. He agreed, took notes, and wished her rest.

Afterward, he headed to see his father.

He didn’t say anything about the night before. When his father asked where he had been, TK only said he’d had dinner with friends and couldn’t cancel. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t the truth either. The truth was harder to name, mostly because he didn’t know what it was. He didn’t know what to call whatever he had with Carlos. Friendship didn’t feel right anymore. It was too thin of a word for something that held so much quiet weight. But calling it anything else felt dangerous, too soon, and too exposed. So he kept it to himself, let it live unshaped in the back of his mind.

He was still in the middle of this soft and uncertain place where hope and confusion blurred together. Where he didn’t know what came next. Where part of him wanted more, and another part was terrified to want anything at all.

So he didn’t mention Carlos. And his father didn’t ask again.

He wasn’t looking for anything serious before Carlos. Not after everything he’d gone through. His past had been heavy and complicated, and he had learned to keep things simple so they wouldn’t hurt. He wasn’t chasing romance and commitment. The guys he’d dated recently had been few, and they were all the same story: a night together, maybe a few weeks of something soft and casual, something that didn’t demand much, and then goodbye. No confessions. No hearts on the line. Just something warm enough to take the edge off the loneliness, and then space again. There had never been a spark. Never that quiet, impossible rush in his chest. Never that involuntary smile that came without thinking, and softened him from the inside.

So he didn’t know what to expect from whatever was happening with Carlos. He didn’t know how to name it. He didn’t know how far it was allowed to go. He wasn’t used to feeling something build slowly. He wasn’t used to wanting something that wasn’t physical first. He wasn’t used to wanting to know someone like this. He had always used sex as an escape and as a shield. Something that let him move forward without opening up. Sex didn’t ask questions. Sex didn’t require hope. Sex didn’t ask for vulnerability. Sex was safe.

But with Carlos, there was none of that. They hadn’t touched. There was no kiss, no hand on a back, no confession of want. No first-date flirtations. They were still strangers. Yet something between them was unmistakably there. A pull that didn’t need words to explain itself. A familiarity that didn’t make sense. A sense that they could look at each other and understand something without having to form sentences for it. It was quiet. It was steady. It was deep in a way TK didn’t know how to hold.

That was what scared him the most.

He wanted to text or call Carlos. He wanted to see him again, but he didn’t want to break whatever had been forming so carefully between them. If something real was there, he wanted to give it room. He wanted to let it unfold slowly without rushing it. Without dragging their secrets into the light before either of them was ready.

A week passed after the dinner.

The hospital felt heavier without Grace. Shifts were longer and harder without the usual rhythm. Many things had to change in the absence of the head nurse, and TK felt wrung out most days. Still, one thing remained unchanged through that week. One thing that stayed steady when everything else did not.

He saw Carlos every day.

On the days he worked, Carlos would wait for him outside the hospital, or at the bus stop down the street, or by the stone benches near the entrance of the hospital. Always with two quiet men standing a few steps behind. They would talk. They would walk. Carlos would drive him home. Always stopping at a block or two early.

On the days TK didn’t have to work, they would go out. Sometimes they walked through stores without buying anything. Sometimes they just drove in Carlos’s blue shiny Camaro with the windows down, letting the city pass around them while they talked softly about nothing and everything.

They still hadn’t been to each other’s homes.

Once, TK invited Carlos to come over and Carlos refused gently. He said he didn’t trust his two temporary bodyguards because they were basically assigned to him by his father. That they might report back every detail. That his privacy wasn’t his own. TK didn’t understand everything about the distance between Carlos and his father. But he understood the desire to protect whatever this was. So he didn’t bring up the subject again.

In that week, something had changed.

One day, during one of their slow walks in the cold Austin air, TK felt fingers brush against his. It was small. So small. But he felt it everywhere. Then Carlos’s hand slid into his slowly as if he had thought about it for days before doing it. Their hands fit together easily. Warmth spread through TK’s chest so sharply he almost lost his breath.

It was nothing, and it was everything.

Later, when they were driving, the city lights passing in bluish streaks across the windshield, Carlos reached out and rested his hand on TK’s thigh. His thumb moved slowly and thoughtfully, tracing soft lines into the denim. Not asking for anything and not pushing. Just there, warm, quiet, and steady. TK looked down at his hand. At the long fingers and the squared, neatly kept nails with warm and smooth skin. He put his own hand over Carlos’s, his touch gentle, like he was afraid too much pressure might break the moment.

And he felt something inside him open.

Something between them had changed. Their eyes looked at each other differently now, their touches carried a different meaning, and even their conversations felt warmer, softer, and more familiar. They had become closer in ways neither of them had put into words, and yet there were still two invisible threads pulling them back, stopping them from falling fully into each other. As if the touches and the looks they shared were enough to let them enjoy being together, but not enough to let them truly reach one another.

Now it was Sunday when TK decided to call him. Carlos had told him the day before that Judd would be returning today, and that once that happened, he would be buried neck-deep in business again, and who knew when they would get to see each other this freely again. TK wanted to see him, to feel that touch again, and just to be near him.

It was early afternoon when TK dialed his number. Carlos answered after a few rings, and TK could hear the surprise in his voice, like he didn’t expect there to be any real reason for a call right now.

The call itself wasn’t particularly emotional. In the background, TK could hear all kinds of noise: heavy footsteps, deep muted voices, the sharper tone of a few women, the steady thump of a low song that sounded too loud to him. He tried not to let himself react to any of it. He just focused on Carlos’s voice which was calm, steady, and warm in a way that felt careful, like he didn’t want the people around him to know who he was talking to or what he was saying.

Carlos asked what he was doing. TK told him.

He notices that somewhere in the middle of the conversation, Carlos must have stepped away, because the background noise shifted, then softened, and finally TK heard the faint click of a door closing.

He asked if Carlos had time to get something to eat, maybe an afternoon snack anywhere Carlos preferred, but Carlos said he wasn’t good at choosing places, so he let TK decide once again.

TK teased him. He asked why he couldn’t just bring him to that fancy hotel of his, the one everyone knew and talked about. He thought that if Carlos was going to drag him across the city every day, the least he could do was let him see the inside of the building that belonged to him.

But the moment he said it, Carlos went silent. And TK immediately felt the wrongness of it, like he had touched something he was not meant to touch. But before he could apologize, Carlos just simply said that they would go there another time, just not today. Today, something simple would be better.

Their conversation went on a little longer, but slowly, they reached that quiet where there was nothing left to say, where the words didn’t matter as much as the fact that they were still on the line.

Then, finally, after a few seconds of silence, they hung up once Carlos said he would pick TK up.

And now TK was standing at the edge of the sidewalk, the late afternoon light stretching long across the street, when that familiar blue Camaro slowed and pulled up beside him. The paint wasn’t loud or flashy, but the car still drew the eye the way some things just do, because of the man who was sitting behind the wheel.

The first time TK had ridden in it, he had told himself it wasn’t the car he liked. It was the moment, the adrenaline, and the warmth of being beside someone who shouldn’t have been soft yet somehow was. But now, watching the door open, seeing Carlos there with one hand resting casually on the steering wheel, TK could admit to himself that he had fallen for the car too. For the image of Carlos behind the wheel, composed, unreadable, and careless in a way that was fully intentional.

TK gave him the name of the place he had in mind, and Carlos nodded once before easing the car back onto the road. The drive began in silence, a slow jazz track played quietly from the speakers, something warm and low that filled the space without asking anything from either of them.

For a while, that was enough. Then, as if a thought had just returned to him, TK glanced into the side mirror, then over his shoulder, and then toward the cars behind them like he was searching for something.

“Your bodyguards aren’t with you today?” he asked finally.

Carlos didn’t look at him. “No. I ditched them and left.”

TK laughed, the kind of soft, automatic laugh that comes before you realize whether or not a joke was a joke. But when he turned to look at Carlos and saw how serious the line of his jaw was, the laugh faded from his lips.

“You can do that?”

“Not really,” Carlos admitted, “But I don’t care. They were getting on my nerves.”

There was something in the way he said it that TK cluld say something had happened. He didn’t know what, and Carlos clearly didn’t want to talk about it yet, so TK didn’t press. He simply raised a brow and looked ahead, letting the quiet settle between them again.

Carlos, meanwhile, looked almost light, like walking out on his own men had been a victory, but a flicker of anger was obvious on his face. Something deep and frustrating.

“You’re not going to get in trouble for that?” TK asked again after a few moments.

“No,” Carlos said a little too quickly. Then he glanced over at TK, his expression softening and his mouth curving into a small smile, “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not,” TK said, shrugging lightly and raising an eyebrow. “Who wants to go on a date with ten pairs of eyes staring at them anyway?”

It was a joke meant to lighten the mood, and it sort of did because Carlos exhaled, something between a laugh and a sigh, and turned his attention back to the road, with a little smile. But TK could feel something hollow settle in his chest, just beneath the ribs. He didn’t know what name to give it yet. So he looked ahead too, deciding not to say anything more, neither about the danger Carlos might face without his guards, nor about the word ‘date’ that had slipped from his lips, which was ignored by Carlos or maybe simply unnoticed.

-----

Carlos had never been to this place before. He took a moment just to look around, taking in the layout of the small diners and cafés scattered across the rolling hills outside Austin. The buildings were tucked between tall trees and open patches of grass, creating a kind of quiet haven for people who wanted to spend an afternoon eating something simple and maybe going for a walk afterward.

From where they sat, part of the city was visible below them, spread out in slow motion, like a distant hum. Cars moved like tiny glints of light, buildings stacked softly into the horizon. It wasn’t dramatic, just steady and alive. A place where people came to have an ordinary meal, nothing special.

But TK and Carlos weren’t really doing something ordinary.

They were somewhere between moving forward and stepping back, somewhere between wanting to stay and wanting to leave before anything felt too real. They were both trying to learn the other person, even though there were parts of themselves they didn’t know how to offer yet, parts that would take time, if time was something they even had.

Carlos wanted to know TK more. And, almost more than that, he wanted TK to know the version of him that wasn’t shaped by legacy or expectation, not the son of the man whose name weighed down everything around him. He liked that TK didn’t ask for explanations. He liked that the space between them didn’t need to be filled with dramatic gestures or confessions. They hadn’t kissed. They hadn’t touched in any way that demanded answers. And still, they understood something about each other.

Carlos liked these simple interactions, the ones without weight and without pretending. He liked seeing TK. Just talking to him felt like the first slow breath after holding his chest tight for days. And he wanted that to continue.

But he also didn’t want it to.

Seeing TK every day for a week had done something to him that he didn’t know how to name. Every time TK spoke, smiled, or just stood there in the cold air walking beside him, something inside Carlos shifted. Something loosened. And something healed, piece by piece, without TK even realizing what he was doing.

Carlos could feel himself getting used to this. He felt addicted.

And that was what scared him.

He kept hearing Judd’s voice from before he left, the warning that TK didn’t know anything yet, and if he ever found out who Carlos really was, or what world he belonged to, he would run. Just like the others had. Just like everyone did when the truth was unavoidable anymore.

Carlos knew there would come a point where he would have to choose either to tell the truth and risk breaking whatever this was, or to step away before either of them got pulled in deeper. He knew he would have to choose between hurting TK and hurting himself. And he had already decided which one felt more survivable.

He would rather be the one who breaks, and in his life, business always came first. It always had.

But not today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe another day, when they both understood each other more, when walking away would hurt less. Maybe a day that would never come. For now, Carlos just wanted to know what TK thought and what he wanted.

Carlos let his gaze fall to their hands on the table, the way their fingers had naturally found each other earlier, as if the closeness had happened by instinct rather than intention. He lifted them slightly, just enough to draw TK’s attention to the space between them.

“You know,” he said quietly, his voice soft but carrying weight, “Judd thinks this is a bad idea.”

TK’s brows pulled together, not in surprise, but in a kind of tired amusement, because of course Judd would say that. He tilted his head slightly, waiting for Carlos to continue.

“Us. What we have.”

TK let out a small huff of air, almost a laugh, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”

There was something playful in his tone, but it softened quickly because the joke didn’t stick and they both knew it.

Carlos tried to smile, and the sound that left him was half laugh, half exhale. “I mean… he’s my bodyguard. Everything I do looks either reckless or stupid to him.”

TK held his gaze for a moment and then looked away, scanning the quiet outdoor place, the tree line, the fading light, as if choosing his next words carefully. When he looked back, his voice was steady.

“What do you think?”

The question took Carlos a second. He swallowed, and his shoulders dropped slightly, like he was trying to set down a weight he had been carrying all night.

“I think this is… really nice,” he finally managed. His tone was gentle, almost careful.

“But?”

“But he’s not wrong.” Carlos exhaled hard.

The shift was immediate. TK’s hand slipped from Carlos’s and he leaned back slowly, the warmth fading from his body language, though not entirely from his eyes. He didn’t look angry; it was like he’d been expecting this conversation, or maybe dreading it.

“Okay,” he said, his voice controlled. “So what are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know,” Carlos admitted. He had never hesitated about anything in his life, but now he faced a decision he couldn’t make. It was as if TK had gotten into his head and disrupted his usual self-control. “I just—I don’t want to hurt you, TK.”

That was when TK’s expression tightened with something like quiet confusion mixed with disbelief.

“Why would you hurt me?”

Carlos closed his eyes for just a second, long enough that TK noticed. He looked like someone who had been waiting to be asked that exact question and had never found an answer he liked.

Instead of answering directly, he leaned forward a little, his hand sliding back toward the center of the table, close to TK’s hand, but not touching him.

“Why don’t you ever ask me about my business?” he asked with a frown, “About… what I do.”

TK blinked, caught off guard. “Why would I?”

“You’re not curious?” he said.

“Why should I be?

Carlos shot him a look that said he didn’t believe TK for a second. He could see how badly TK wanted to know more, but he had probably decided not to ask anything.

“Fine,” TK sighed and waved a hand after a brief staring contest. “Yes, I am curious,” His tone was painfully honest. “But I’m not going to pressure you into sharing something you’re not ready to talk about. Everyone is buried under many layers of their own secrets, Carlos. That’s normal.”

Carlos nodded slowly. The explanation didn’t really satisfy him, but the kindness behind it did. TK didn’t dig, pry, or demand—he just let Carlos be, which was rare in his life.

“Yeah, but is it normal when those secrets make my life feel like there’s always a chance I might walk out the door and never come back?”

TK’s chest tightened, but he held Carlos’s gaze. “Then what are all those bodyguards for?”

The question was sharp, but it wasn’t rude or accusative. Just… real.

“Exactly,” Carlos let out a flat, humorless laugh. “ Remember that first night? You saw it yourself. Even they couldn’t do anything and I almost died anyway.”

Heavy silence fell between them again, weighted with everything left unsaid: There were things lurking just outside this moment. Things that would not stay outside forever.

TK leaned forward again, not to take his hand, but just close enough for Carlos to feel the warmth and the steady, grounding presence of him. “So what now?” He asked quietly.

Carlos looked at him, and this time he didn’t look away.

“I don’t know,” he said again. “But I don’t want to stop doing this.” He shook his head, gesturing between the two of them.

“Okay,” TK said, his tone serious. “Then don’t.”

Carlos looked at him, uncertain. There was no way he was ready to let TK go yet, even if that made him selfish. “If—if you want to do this, of course,” he added quickly, not wanting TK to feel pressured.

“I do.” TK said, smiling.

Carlos nodded and gave a small smile that vanished as quickly as it appeared.TK could see the internal struggle playing out on Carlos’s face, unsure if any of this felt right. Still, what stayed with TK was the memory of that night, Carlos’s condition, and the heavy burden he carried every day. Maybe, TK thought, this was the moment to ask about it.

He watched Carlos silently for a few moments. “Do you want to talk about that night?” he asked carefully and hesitantly.

Carlod lowered his gaze, his fingers tightening just slightly around the handle of his fork as he dragged it across the plate in a slow, absent motion, the metal tracing a line on ceramic that didn’t exist, something for his hands to do while his mind slipped somewhere far away. His shoulders had drawn inward almost imperceptibly, as though the memory of that night still lived just beneath his skin, and mentioning it had pulled him directly back into its cold echo.

He shook his head, a small and controlled movement, and when he looked up again, his face was empty and unreadable. Like he had pulled his walls up again and was slipping behind that familiar armor. Once again, he seemed distant, and TK hated that he was the reason this time.

“No. Not yet,” Carlos said quietly, and TK realized instantly that it was too soon and Carlos wasn’t ready yet. “But I just want you to know that this is what my world looks like. This is what comes with it. And I don’t want to drag you into any of it. I hope you under—”

He stopped speaking as something behind TK had caught his attention. The change was immediate and unmistakable. The apology faded from his eyes, and something sharper settled there instead. His expression tightened, his posture straightened, and the warmth that had been in his voice before disappeared entirely.

TK turned slightly, following Carlos’s line of sight, and saw a man approaching, dressed in dark clothes that did nothing to soften the set of his shoulders. TK recognized him instantly as the one who had assisted Judd the night they took Carlos away, the one who had been steady and almost gentle in the chaos of that night. But now Carlos was looking at him as if the man had just committed something unforgivable.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Carlos’s voice wasn’t loud, but the tone was sharp enough to cut through the space between them like a blade.

The man stopped just short of their table, folding his hands together in front of him in a quiet, disciplined posture that only made the tension worse.

“Sir.”

The word set Carlos off.

“Don’t you ‘sir’ me right now.” Carlos shot back sharply. “Did my father send you? You’ve been following us this entire time, haven’t you?”

The man didn’t respond. Instead, he shifted back and gestured slightly to the side, signaling for Carlos to stand and come with him. Carlos didn’t move an inch.

“There’s an issue that requires your attention,” the man said. “It’s urgent.”

Carlos’s stare was unyielding as he snapped, “Do I look like someone who wants to talk business with you right now, Paul?”

Paul didn’t react to the threat woven into his name. He just reached back and took a phone from someone standing quietly behind him—one of Carlos’s security team that TK recognized from their previous hangouts—and handed it to Carlos with a small, resigned tilt of his head.

“Not with me.”

Carlos glanced at the screen, and the shift in him was immediate. The anger vanished so quickly as if it had never existed. His shoulders lowered, his posture loosened, and the expression that remained was something hollow and tired like the emptiness he had worn on the first night they met. TK didn’t need to see the name clearly to understand who was on the line. Carlos blinked slowly, once, twice, then exhaled, the sound heavier than any word.

“Of course it’s always him,” he murmured, barely above a breath, before taking the phone. He rose to his feet and turned to TK, and for a brief moment, the guarded edges fell away, leaving only something quiet and sincerely apologetic. “I’m sorry. I have to take this.”

Their eyes held, just long enough for TK to offer the smallest nod and a faint, steady smile that told him he understood, even if understanding did not make it easier. Carlos nodded back, though his expression had already begun to harden again as he turned away.

TK didn’t watch him closely as he walked away, giving Carlos the space he knew he needed. Still, from the corner of his eye, he could see the tension in Carlos’s shoulders as he listened to his father talking on the phone, the sharp line of his jaw, the way every part of him seemed braced, armored, as if this was more than just a conversation with his father, but a negotiation with something far more dangerous.

TK remained seated, though each passing second seemed to stretch, the silence growing heavy as if it carried its own weight. When Carlos finally returned, the familiar tension in his shoulders was unmistakable. TK noticed that the group of bodyguards hadn’t followed him back to the table; they lingered near the spot he’d taken the call, keeping their distance, but Paul was still at Carlos’s side.

Before they reached the table, TK overheard Paul’s low and firm voice. “You know what happens when you walk around without your security team.”

“Oh, shut up, Paul.” Carlos snapped, irritation sharpening his words. At that, Paul stepped back and nodded robotically, and Carlos dismissed him with a short gesture. Paul turned away to join the other men waiting further off. TK pretended he hadn’t noticed any of it, and when Carlos sat back down, he simply lifted his head and offered him a small, soft smile, even though something inside him had tightened.

Carlos didn’t smile back. Not immediately. He sat there in silence for a moment, his posture set but his eyes complicated, as if he was searching for the right words and already hated the words he would find.

“I’m so sorry, TK. I have to go.”

TK nodded once and dropped his gaze to the table. He wanted to understand. He tried to understand. But the sudden appearance of a small army of security in the middle of what was supposed to be their quiet, private moment was a punch he hadn’t seen coming. The diner wasn’t even crowded, but the few people who were there had turned to stare, curiosity and caution hanging in the air like humidity. It made TK’s skin prickle. He wanted something simple. Something calm. Something that didn’t involve shadows or being watched or hidden danger waiting under the surface. He was starting to realize simplicity might be impossible with Carlos.

He wanted to be angry, but he wasn’t. Not really. He just felt… unsettled. And he hated that. Carlos had warned him. He had always warned him. But even knowing that didn’t stop the ache of it.

“It’s fine,” He said, trying to keep his voice steady, to mask the disappointment leaking through, unsure if he succeeded. He wasn’t angry at Carlos. He was angry at the reality that seemed determined to intrude. At the idea that this might become their routine, to be interrupted and unfinished.

Carlos’s expression shifted when he saw TK drop his gaze. He glanced around quickly, checking that no one was close, that no one was paying attention, and only when he felt sure of that did he reach across the table and take TK’s hand again, his grip warm and grounding, as if he was trying to hold onto something slipping between his fingers.

“We’ll talk about it later, okay? I promise.”

TK looked down at their hands, then up at Carlos. For a few long seconds, neither of them spoke. TK just nodded and forced himself to breathe past the sting behind his eyes.

“Yeah. It’s okay.” He said quietly, forcing his gaze down again. He didn’t want to look upset, and he didn’t want to make things harder.

Carlos didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t have the luxury of time. He drew his hand back slowly and reluctantly, then stood. He hesitated, his eyes flickering around the space again, as if searching for invisible wires that might snap if he made the wrong move. He knew this was stupid. He knew it was dangerous. He knew it was reckless. But the restraint he lived with every day had worn thin, and maybe this moment felt like the only thing that belonged to him.

So he leaned down and pressed a brief, warm kiss to TK’s cheek. A soft thing, barely more than a whisper of touch, but it hit with the force of a shockwave.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured again, and this time it was heavier, deeper, something TK felt more than heard.

Carlos turned to go, but TK’s voice reached him, so quiet it was almost lost in the background noise.

“Be safe.”

The words hung between them, fragile and honest, sounding as if TK was sending him into a battlefield rather than back into a business call. And maybe that wasn’t wrong. Carlos didn’t answer. He just left with a practiced exit.

TK stayed where he was, sitting in the echo of everything that hadn’t been said, with that lingering warmth on his cheek that felt like it might burn if he touched it. His heart was beating too fast, and the air around him felt strange, too thin and too loud all at once.

He looked to the side, to the empty space where Carlos had been, and then down at the table, where a familiar object rested—the Camaro’s keys Carlos had forgotten to grab.

TK glanced down the slope toward the parking area, but saw no sign of Carlos or his men dressed all in black. He exhaled slowly, feeling something both sink and flutter in his chest.

Now he had a car to return.

He had an excuse.

And maybe… the smallest thread of something to hold onto.

A reason to see Carlos again.