Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 46699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
But the first time he had seen the scrawny boy lying still under the covers, huge green eyes the only color on his face, it became personal. Too personal for his liking. There were lines doctors weren’t supposed to cross with their patients, and giving a false hope of recovery was one of them, but Jared couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t tell the boy he might never walk again and that he should get used to being disabled. He just couldn’t tell him that. There was something about that pale, strange-looking boy that brought out every protective instinct in him. He wanted to see him smile. He wanted to see him happy. He wanted to see him healthy. It had become a bit of an obsession, and in the following seventeen months, Jared found himself spending the little free time he had with Gabriel. The boy did have a difficult personality, but Jared didn’t mind. Gabe was like a wounded animal (a puppy, Jared thought affectionately) that wanted help and comfort but tried to hide it. Through trial and error, Jared had learned how to handle him. When Gabriel threw tantrums, Jared just gave him an unimpressed stare; when Gabriel refused to do exercises “because there was no point,” Jared called him a coward and a quitter; when Gabriel was depressed and started to lose faith, Jared pulled him close and held him, whispering sweet nothings until Gabriel smiled and regained his stubborn belief that everything would be all right.
Belief alone wasn’t enough—in a way, Gabriel’s recovery was a medical miracle—but the miracle wouldn’t have happened if Gabriel had quit trying. The day Gabriel managed to take a few steps without falling, he hugged Jared tightly and murmured into his neck, his voice thick with emotion, “I wouldn’t have done this without you. Love you.”
And Jared had stood frozen in place, feeling hot and cold all at once. He knew it was a completely innocent confession. It was pretty common for patients to get attached to their doctors, especially considering Gabriel’s circumstances: he was in a foreign country and he had no one but Jared. In all the months Gabriel had spent in the rehabilitation center, nobody had visited him besides a few people from his football club. So it wasn’t surprising how attached Gabriel had gotten to him.
What was surprising was how attached to the boy Jared had gotten, although…attached wasn’t the right word for it. Being merely attached would have been unprofessional but still okay. What he had felt for his seventeen-year-old patient—who was ten years his junior—was definitely not okay.
The day Gabriel had been declared fully fit was very bittersweet, because it meant Gabriel was returning to England. That night Jared went to a bar and got wasted. He barely remembered what happened afterward, but he remembered waking up with a hangover and a naked stranger next to him—the stranger who looked barely legal. The stranger who had dark blond hair and green eyes.
“Jay?”
Jared flinched and pushed the memories to the back of his mind, compartmentalizing them as he’d learned to do a long time ago. Sighing, he turned away from the massage table and walked to the sink to wash his hands. “You know this is ridiculous, Gavriil.” Gabriel didn’t like when Jared called him by the Ukrainian version of his name, but that always made him pay attention. Jared knew Gabriel hated everything the name entailed rather than the name itself. Jared liked the name, but he used it sparingly—Gabriel didn’t like being reminded of his childhood. As far as Jared knew, it was one of the few words Gabriel still remembered of his native language; he was French now in more ways than just name.
“You can’t tell me how to treat my patients,” Jared added.
“But—“
“What exactly is your objection?”
Silence.
And then,
“Because you’re mine.”
Jared’s heart skipped a beat. He told himself not to be an idiot. Of course it was about Gabriel’s rivalry with his brother.
Jared walked back to his desk, sat down and stared at the screen unseeingly. “Go back to training and stop bothering me, Gabriel. I’m working. You should be working too, and, unlike you, I don’t get paid millions for running around the football pitch and chasing after a ball.”
Gabriel chuckled. Jared could hear him hopping off the massage table and striding back into the office.
“Jay,” he said softly.
“No.”
“Come on.”
“I said no. You’re being ridiculous.”
Still clad only in his shorts, Gabriel rounded the desk, carrying his shirt in his hand.
Jared braced himself.
“I’m not asking you to be mean to him or anything.” Gabriel slung an arm around his shoulders and leaned into him. “Just don’t trust him, okay? He’s a snake.”
His warm breath brushed Jared’s ear. His scent tickled his nose. His bare skin was touching Jared’s arm.
Jared continued staring at the report blankly, focusing on keeping his breathing even.