There’s blood where there shouldn’t be blood, leg wrapped, hand wrong, and my brain refuses to catch up.
I can’t breathe. My pulse jumps hard and high, throwing off my rhythm. There’s a sharp, useless spike of panic that has no place in this room, not with him lying there.
Then it snaps.
George needs me.
I drag in a breath and force myself to step forward. My face goes blank, locked down, exactly how it needs to be.
I’m already at the gurney, running a fast clinical sweep over the gauze on his thigh, the pallor in his face, and the blood pressure reading on the portable monitor. I take in everything I need in those few seconds and keep moving.
George looks up at me.
“Hey,” he says, trying a little too hard to sound okay for a man who’s hypotensive and losing blood. That’s so completely him it almost undoes me.
“Hey, Big Guy. I’ve got you.” I say softly, more affection slipping through than I intend, forcing on the voice I use when a room needs to believe everything is under control. “Try not to bleed out dramatically on me, okay? I just did my nails.”
4
Lance
Training takes over before panic can fully set in. My hands are already on the trauma shears by the time Josh and I transfer George from the paramedic gurney to the bed. I start cutting away his jeans and my brain catches up half a step later, registering that these are the same ones he wore when he brought takeout to my place three days ago. The pressure dressing is wrapped tight around his thigh, soaked through and bleeding into the denim. When the fabric falls away in strips, the grease stains along the outer leg are unmistakably his, and the recognition hits me harder than it should.
“Alright, let’s get him exposed and assessed.” My voice comes out steady and clinical, which is a miracle considering my best friend is bleeding on my trauma bed. “George, I need you to stay still and let us work. Can you do that for me?”
His voice is rough with pain, but he manages something close to a smile through clenched teeth. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“Sure it isn’t. Stay put.” I cut through his work shirt next, the fabric stiff with dried blood and motor oil, and focus very hard on the wound and not on the fact that I probably know every scar on the body I’m currently cutting clothes off.
His dark brown eyes meet mine. There’s pain, yes, but there’s also trust and maybe even relief. “Okay.”
Dr. Fernandez pushes through the trauma bay doors already gloved and gowned, her sharp eyes taking in the scene in a single sweep. “What’ve we got, Bradford?”
“Deep laceration to the anterior right thigh, about six inches.” I peel back the gauze as I talk, exposing the wound in stages. “Significant blood loss on scene, now seems controlled.”
“Good.” Dr. Fernandez moves to George’s other side, her hands already assessing his right hand where the swelling is obvious even through the temporary splint the paramedics applied. “Patient’s name?”
“George Torres-Macklin.” I keep my voice even. Saying his name out loud in this room, in this context, requires more effort than it should.
“Mr. Torres-Macklin, I’m Dr. Fernandez. Can you tell me what happened?”
“Just George, ma’am.” George shifts on the bed, wincing as it pulls at his thigh. “Shelving unit at the shop wasn’t secured right. It came down when I was reaching up. Tried to catch it with my hand. Caught a sheet of metal across my leg on the way down.”
“Any loss of consciousness? Did you hit your head at all?”
“No, just my pride and apparently my common sense.”
I’m starting an IV in his left arm when the trauma bay doors swing open again. Carter Hayes comes in fast, face drained of color and eyes scanning the room until they land on George. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, carrying himself with rigid, effortful control while managing something he wasn’t prepared for. Long black hair tied up in a messy bun, sharp jawline, striking dark eyes, and rugged, very manly pretty-boy face. There’s blood on his shirt and on his hands. His unblinking focus stays on George, like he’s trying to verify his business partner is still breathing.
When he finally looks away from George to speak to me, it takes visible effort.
“Is he okay? I tried calling his emergency contact, but no one picked up.” The words come out fast and uneven, and then his gaze shifts to me, recognizing me. “Lance. Thank god you’re here.”
“Carter,” I say, taping down George’s IV.
I’m cleaning the thigh wound with sterile saline, irrigating away the dried blood so we can see what we’re dealing with. The laceration is deep and uneven, cutting through skin and subcutaneous tissue into the fascia, angled across the front of his right thigh. It runs a few inches along the muscle, deeper at one end where the metal must have caught harder.
It’s bad, but it could have been worse. Another inch over and it would have hit the femoral artery, and we’d be having a very different conversation right now.
