Page 24 of Sebastian

A moment of silence passed where I could hear the man on the other end of the line breathing heavily. “Yes. Who is this?”

“I’m Newt Clary.” It occurred to me that Bastian may not have told Daz about me. I didn’t even know if Bastian was out to his family. Getting a call in the middle of the night from a hospital would be a traumatic way for the man to find out about his brother’s sexuality.

Luckily, Daz put my fears to rest with his next sentence.

“You’re the guy Bastian’s been seeing. Is he with you?”

“Well, sort of. He’s at the hospital where I work. As a patient. Apparently, there was a car accident. The doctors are working on him now, but he was still unconscious when I saw him.”

I could hear shuffling on the other end of the line and the shattering sound of something breaking. Daz cursed and his voice disappeared for a moment. When he returned, he was panting. “What hospital are you at? I’m coming right now.”

I told him the name of the hospital and rapidly listed off the address. As soon as I finished speaking, I was met with the sound of a dead line. Staring at the phone for a moment in confusion, I realized he must have hung up. The man had been in such a rush to leave, hopefully, he’d heard the address before he hung up or else he might end up at the wrong hospital.

Less than ten minutes later, a man who had to be Daz Roth came running through the door. He looked a lot like Bastian, equally tall and broad with the same intensely dark eyes. The only difference was that Daz’s hair lacked the little wave at the front that caused Bastian’s bangs to fall across his forehead. Instead, Daz had a short beard that highlighted the cut of his jaw.

I didn’t get a chance to speak with the man. Now wasn’t the time. As soon as he reached the front desk, he locked eyes with me, like he already recognized me and knew I would give him what he wanted.

I told him Bastian’s room number and pointed him in the right direction.

With a nod of thanks, Daz took off down the hall, slowing down just enough to technically be walking instead of running.

I breathed half a sigh of relief. Not a full sigh. Bastian was still injured, but at least there was someone with him now.

The rest of my shift passed by in a blur. Thinking back on it later, I wouldn’t even remember the next few hours. It was like I blinked, and suddenly, I was off the clock and standing outside Bastian’s room.

The elation I felt when I saw that Bastian was awake could have sent me floating above the clouds. If I could bottle that emotion and store it for later, I would never need to walk again.

Next to Bastian’s bed, Daz sat in a chair, bent forward with his elbows on his knees. The man looked tired. They both did, but Bastian was obviously more physically tired while Daz seemed to be suffering from emotional exhaustion.

“We’ll talk about this more later,” I heard Daz say as I approached.

Bastian’s response was uncharacteristically subdued. “D, I’m sorry. I—”

Daz held up a hand to silence him. “No. We’ll talk about it later. You lied to me. I didn’t know where you were. But... that’s not important right now. You need to focus on getting better, and I need to find out who attacked you.”

Bastian was too busy looking at his brother to notice me standing in the doorway. It was Daz who saw me first and waved for me to come in.

“Your car has a dashcam. If it can be salvaged, maybe the video will show us something helpful about the other cars. It’s a place to start, at least.”

Daz turned to leave, but Bastian caught his sleeve. “Let me know what you find out. I want to help.”

With the patience of an overworked mother, Daz sighed and pulled Bastian’s hand off him before tucking the sheets tighter around his brother.

“The only thing you should be worried about is healing. I’ll take care of this.” It looked like Bastian was going to argue, but Daz pointed a scolding finger at him. “No. I don’t want to hear it. You’re on time-out right now. Stay put, and don’t go poking your nose into things. It looks like your boyfriend is here to keep you company. Just focus on that, and we’ll talk more later.”

After saying his piece, Daz left. As we passed each other in the doorway, he patted my shoulder. Although he didn’t say anything, that one little gesture felt like acceptance.

With no other people to stand in my way, and Bastian’s attention now focused on me, I ran to his bedside.

“Oh my god. What happened? We were just talking on the phone, and then... then you showed up at the hospital like this. They said you were in a car accident.”

I sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle him or touch him in any way. Based on the notes I read, I knew they had him hooked up to painkillers, but I still didn’t want to risk causing him any more harm.

Bastian grabbed my hand and interlaced our fingers. “It wasn’t an accident. Someone ran me off the road on purpose.”

What followed was a short but horrifying story about a high-speed chase in the rain that ended with Bastian crashing into the river. I practically stopped breathing until Bastian finally concluded the story by describing how he managed to climb onto the riverbank before passing out.

If it had been me in such a situation, I would have died. There was no question about that. I admired his tenacity and his fight to survive, but at that moment all I wanted to do was throw my arms around the man and make sure nothing bad ever happened to him again.

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