Adrian wheezed.
He burst out laughing all over again—loud, uncontrollable, and full-bodied. The kind of laugh that made his chest ache, that left his lungs searching for breath. He curled slightly to the side, gripping the blanket like it was the only thing keeping him anchored. For a few glorious moments, the weight of his illness lifted. He was just a man in bed, laughing with two idiots.
The sound of it cracked something open in Logan. He fought it, tried to keep his face neutral, but then his lips betrayed him—curling into a smile, then a grin, and finally, he gave in and started laughing too.
Zack, ever victorious, leaned back against the wall with the smug satisfaction of a man who’d just won a silent war.
“But seriously, though,” he mumbled under his breath, “that doctor is hot.”
Logan let out a long, exhausted groan, scrubbing his hands over his face like he could erase the moment.
“Please,” he muttered through his palms, “don’t mess with the doctor. I’m paying himwaytoo much money, and I really need him to focus on Adrian. Not on... whatever seduction campaign you’re currently strategizing.”
Zack didn’t even pretend to hear him.
His gaze was still locked on the door Dr. Tierney had disappeared through, eyes narrowed like a hawk tracking prey.
“You think he swings my way?” he asked, tilting his head, genuinely pondering the odds.
Logan just stared at Zack. “He’s literally here to help Adrian not die.”
Zack pushed off the counter like a man with purpose, smoothing the front of his sweater and running a hand through his hair one more time. His smirk had returned—sharpened, lethal, impossible.
“Well, my dear friends,” he declared, voice all velvet and mischief, “before the hot doctor slips away forever, I’m going to finish what I started.”
Logan’s eyes went wide. “Zack, no—”
But Zack was already halfway to the door, striding out like he was walking into a battlefield he planned to seduce.
Adrian was shaking his head before the door even closed behind him.
“He hasnolimits,” he said, grinning.
Logan sighed heavily, surrendering to the inevitable chaos of Zack’s wake. He handed Adrian the tea he had gotten him and then slumped into the chair beside the bed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “None at all.”
Chapter 18
The Way the Light Doesn’t Leave
Sometimes I dream. I dream of the past, of the present we built with our hands, and of the future we almost had. And sometimes I dream of losing it all. There are nights when the dreams slip into nightmares, when they become too vivid, too sharp, and I wake up gasping, caught between memory and fear. I feel like something has already been taken from me. Like I’m already mourning a life that hasn’t yet ended. On those nights, when I can’t breathe past the grief, I dive into memory. I reach for it like a lifeline. I pick a moment—any moment—and fall into it, hoping it will hold me together.
I often find myself slipping back to our first kiss. I think about how we fought it for so long, how we resisted what had already been written in the way we looked at each other. And when it finally happened, when we let it happen, it was like something inside both of us shattered and reformed all at once. I remember how terrified I was. I truly believed you would pull away, that you’d regret it, that you’d stand up and leave, and with you, my light would leave too. My warmth. My sense of safety. My center. You were already my soul by then, and I don’t think I fully understood it until that night.
I once overheard my mother say that anything hidden for too long will begin to die. She said flowers need sunlight, and if you bring them home and forget to place them in the light, they’ll wither. Love is the same. I couldn’t keep it inside anymore. I couldn’t let my love for you curl up in the dark and diequietly. So I told you. I didn’t know if you were ready to hear it, but I couldn’t live another day without speaking the truth out loud.
I had been gone, completely gone, for so long, carrying it all inside me. Every time I wanted to kiss you and didn’t. Every time I wanted to reach out and touch you but forced my hands to stay still. And I kept telling myself you didn’t know. That you had no idea what you meant to me.
But that night, when you got jealous of Itay, I remember how stunned I was, not by your jealousy itself, but by the fact that you truly believed there could be someone else. I sat there watching you, trying to hold back my disbelief, and all I could think was: Is he serious? Does he not know? It was laughable, not in a cruel way, but in the kind of way that breaks your heart a little. Because the man I was already in love with thought I might want someone else.
You actually believed I could glance at another soul. That I could let another man touch me. That I had room in my heart for anyone else when the best man I had ever known was already giving me the time of day. And not just any man—you.
You, who I would have burned the world for.
You, who I woke up thinking about and fell asleep praying for.
You, who didn’t yet realize that I was already yours, hopelessly, entirely, without escape.
It was laughable. It was absurd.
