Page 16 of Resisting You

“Why are you acting this way? You weren’t even this bad when your husband died.”

That hit him a little too hard, and he sucked in a breath. Foster’s eyes went wide, like he realized what he said, and his expression fell.

“I’m sorry. I don’t?—”

“I’ll be in my office if you need me,” Renato said. He spun on his heel, and this time, Foster didn’t follow.

He was able to catch his breath, but instead of heading for his office, he slipped into the doctors’ mess to grab his bag out of his locker. For a moment, it looked empty, but then a figure in the bed shot up, and his heart sank to his feet.

“Fuck. What time is it?” Frey asked.

Renato narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing in here?”

Frey scoffed and gestured toward the messy bed. “If you need me to spell that out for you, you shouldn’t have passed medical school.”

Renato folded his arms. “I meant what are you doing in here. This place isn’t for you.”

Frey laughed as he swung his legs over the bed. “Oh, I know. All the pampered princesses who work a quarter of the hours we do on the floor get their little napping cubby while the nurses have to muscle through. God forbid we need ten minutes to doze off so we can function and make sure your patients don’t die.”

If it hadn’t been Frey speaking, Renato would have agreed. And if it hadn’t been Frey in the bed, he probably wouldn’t have said anything at all because he agreed with what he was saying. The nurses should have had their own space, and they’d been criminally neglected for as long as Renato had been a surgeon.

But he wasn’t feeling very generous toward him right now. “This could get you written up.”

“Ah, we’re back to this. Got it.” Frey stood up and rubbed at his face, and Renato did his best to pretend like he couldn’t see the deep etched lines and dark circles under his eyes. The man looked wrecked. “Write me up if you want. Par for the fucking course for my day. I’m—” He froze, and then Renato heard a tiny buzz seconds before Frey pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“You can’t answer that,” Renato started, but Frey ignored him.

“Yeah?” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose before dropping his hand and going very pale. “He what? Shit, is he conscious? Yeah, alright. Uh…no, bring him in. The children’s ER here is really good, and they have experience with—yeah, no. Yep. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He sounded both scared and defeated in ways that Renato understood from his darkest moments. “Just use his shirt to pin his arm to his chest. It should help with the pain. Tell him I’ll be waiting for him when he gets in. And tell Oz not to panic. Rex is going to be fine.”

When the call ended, Frey just looked at him like he was waiting for Renato to explode. “Your child is hurt,” Renato said.

Frey nodded.

Renato glanced behind him. “Go. I’ll have the charge nurse get you covered.”

“You’re serious?” Frey asked.

Renato scoffed. “I’m not a monster. I hope everything’s okay.”

Frey’s lips thinned before he let out an even heavier sigh, then walked to the small table and picked up his badge. “He’ll be fine. He probably needs an X-ray to see if anything’s broken, and if we’re lucky, he doesn’t have a concussion this time.”

“Is he…is it,” Renato started. Frey froze with his hand halfway to the doorknob. “Did someone hurt him? Children, I mean. At school, or?—”

“He’s not being bullied,” Frey said with a small laugh. “He has a condition. It’s…he falls a lot. But he’ll be okay.” And then Frey was gone.

Renato had half a mind to stalk him down to the pediatric ED just to get a glimpse of what was going on, and since he couldn’t really lie to himself, he wanted to see how Frey functioned as a dad. He’d seen him tap into it with patients, and there was something about it that was so…

Hell, he didn’t have words for it. But it sent warm tendrils rushing through him he was afraid to acknowledge because they felt a bit like he was pining.

And that was an absurd thought.

Walking to his locker, Renato opened it and pulled out his sweater, then dropped it when he realized it was soaking wet. And not just a little damp. It was drenched. He glanced back at the door as though he expected to see Frey there with a shit-eating grin on his face.

There was no way that Frey’s presence was a coincidence. But a part of him needed to believe that the man wasn’t that childish. At least, not at work.

He tossed his sweater into the bin. By the smell, it was saline, but he was too afraid to trust it wasn’t something disgusting, like toilet water. He took a calming breath and decided he wasn’t jumping to conclusions. Whatever sort of person Frey was, he was a good dad, and it was clear that his life was complicated.

Renato washed his hands, then headed for the nurses’ station, where he saw Aminah, who was charge nurse for the shift, and Cole, who Renato worked with from time to time. Aminah was always kind, but Cole was very icy with him, and he had a feeling it was everything to do with Frey.

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