Page 19 of Broken Trust

He skirted around Kellen and headed for the doors. “Or I walk and you leave that for someone who actually needs it.”

Tires screeched as a horn blared. Atlas stared wide-eyed at the car. He had been so busy being fed up with Kellen that he hadn’t paid attention to the traffic around him.

Kellen stopped next to him, pushing the empty wheelchair. “We really need to work on our verbal skills. I don’t want to constantly argue with you, Atlas.”

“Can we talk about this after we get out of traffic?” He grabbed the other handle and helped Kellen push the wheelchair inside. The guy had said he sucked at relationships. He wasn’t lying. Although Atlas knew Kellen’s heart was in the right place—mostly—it was glaringly obvious he wasn’t used to having a partner.

It was also possible that Atlas was towing around baggage from his last relationship, holding it against Kellen. Maybe they both needed to take a step back and learn how to have a disagreement without getting into a tizzy.

Colt had said that Kellen was just panicking because of his injury. Atlas needed to cut the guy some slack. He wheeled the chair over by the other ones, and when he turned around, he saw that Kellen was already talking to the intake lady.

He joined Kellen at the desk, booth, whatever it was, and rested his good hand on the guy’s back. The tension visibly drained from Kellen’s shoulders.

“How did you hurt your hand?” the lady asked.

“I was rescuing a family of geese and one of the baby ducklings got jealous that I was coddling its sibling more than him,” Atlas said.

“Gosling,” Kellen whispered to him, looking as if he was holding back a laugh.

“I’m sorry. I was rescuing goslings, and one of their ducklings took things too far,” Atlas corrected.

The woman rolled her eyes. “You can have a seat. You’ll be called when there’s an available room.”

“But his hand might be broken,” Kellen said, his jaw flexing. “No disrespect to you, ma’am, but you don’t expect him to wait, do you?”

“I have a family of goslings being seen. Some guy rescued them, and now they’re claiming they have neck and back pain.” She got up and headed over to the pediatric emergency waiting area that was on the other side of the room.

“She’s funny,” Atlas said as he watched her walk away.

Kellen turned toward Atlas. “A baby goose is called a gosling, sweetheart. You just said a baby’s infant hurt you.”

Atlas’s mouth twitched, and then he grinned. “I totally didn’t, did I?”

“Go sit your gosling ass down.” Kellen pressed his palm in the center of Atlas’s back, guiding him to a set of chairs by the wall. There were a handful of people in the waiting area either looking up at the television or watching them.

When they sat, Kellen pulled Atlas toward him, curling an arm around his waist.

One lady was trying her hardest to hide her curled lip.

“What? Can’t two guys bring each other comfort when one broke his hand saving baby ducklings?” Atlas hadn’t meant to snap, but her disapproving expression reminded him too much of his mom. Whenever he brought Glen to his mother’s house, she always gave him the same look.

The woman a few seats over glanced back down at the book she’d been reading.

“My hero.” Kellen kissed Atlas’s temple and pulled him close again. Atlas curled up in his strong arms, daring anyone to say something about two men cuddling.

“I’ll just blame my bitchy attitude on the pain.”

Thirty minutes later, Atlas was still in pain, but now he was also bored to death—though he had noticed the throbbing wasn’t as intense as it was before.

Kellen was using the hand that wasn’t around Atlas to scroll through his phone. “Aren’t you bored sitting here?”

Without looking up, Kellen said, “I’m never bored when I’m with you.”

“You just earned a blowjob, mister,” Atlas whispered.

The smallest of growls rumbled in Kellen’s chest as he kept looking at his phone.

Atlas grinned, until he heard a familiar voice. His heart beat faster when he saw Glen talking to the intake lady. He was holding his side, wincing as she asked him questions.

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