No Good Deed - Marie Sexton Page 0,85

ever do that again, you hear me?”

Charlie laughed. “Not going to be a problem.”

Gray stepped back. “You may have other issues.” He gave Charlie a rundown of the confrontation with Murphy. “Right now, he doesn’t have a damned thing,” he concluded. “But that means you can’t give him any opportunity to find anything new.”

Charlie sighed, nodding. “I know. We’ve already talked about moving. This whole incident definitely sealed it for me. Staying in that neighborhood will only invite trouble.”

“Good.” Gray’s relief was almost palpable. “Lakewood’s a whole different district. Murphy will probably contact them. Tell them to notify him if they get any reports of you providing medical care or prescriptions drugs, but—”

“They won’t,” Charlie assured him. “I’m not inviting any more trouble. I think I’ll save my Florence Nightingale routine for Urgent Care.”

Gray squeezed his hand. He knew Charlie well enough to know this decision didn’t come lightly. “Okay. I’ll get out of your hair. The others are out there waiting for a report.”

Jonas chewed his lip, debating. “Gray, wait.” He caught him three steps outside the curtain of Charlie’s cubicle. They stood there, awkwardly staring at each other. But for the first time since returning to Denver, Jonas didn’t feel like the awkwardness was a product of their shared past. It was more about choosing how to move forward.

“Thank you,” Jonas said. “For everything. Intervening with Murphy and coming to my rescue with Charlie.”

“Anytime. That was good thinking, using your old safe word. I knew you’d never bring that up, especially around Charlie. Not unless there was something crazy going on.”

“I’m just glad you realized I was in trouble.”

Medical staff buzzed around them, going about their business, but nobody paid them any attention. Gray moved a bit closer and lowered his voice. “Look, you and Avery are right. There’s no reason this has to be as hard as I’ve been making it.” His eyes were drawn to the curtain that separated them from Charlie. “I want what’s best for him. And if that means you…” He shrugged. “I’m good with that.”

“Really?”

Gray grinned at him. “Hey, if he had to fall for somebody’s ex, you were the obvious choice. I mean, thank God it wasn’t Stuart. That guy was the worst.”

Jonas laughed. “No, Rory was the worst. He caused so much trouble for the rest of us.”

“What about Tad? He made Charlie’s life hell once. No way would I let him do it a second time.” His smile faded a bit. “But you? When I’m being honest with myself, I don’t have anything bad to say except that we fought over absolutely everything.”

Yes, they had. By the end, they’d been picking fights with each other just for the hell of it, like children misbehaving because negative attention was better than no attention at all. “We were a really terrible match.”

Gray was surprised into laughter. “God, we were, weren’t we?” Gray ran his hand through his hair, sobering. “It wasn’t fair of me. I was the last single guy in the group, and I felt like I had to have a partner. I think I went into it for all the wrong reasons.”

“So did I. And that was probably the only thing we had in common.”

Gray glanced again toward Charlie’s cubicle. “He just took a bullet for you, you know.”

It was as if part of Gray still wanted to be angry, but only because he was so protective of Charlie. And Jonas couldn’t fault him for that. “I’ll take care of him, I promise. And I’ll try to keep him out of trouble.”

Gray laughed. “Yeah. Good luck with that. Keeping him and Warren out of trouble has been one of the biggest failures of my life. But between you and Taylor, I might finally get to sleep at night.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Another awkward second, and then they both moved forward at the same moment, stepping into a hug. Jonas found himself with his face pressed to Gray’s chest, the smell of him and the feel of his arms still strangely familiar, but Jonas felt only relief. They could be friends. It might be uncomfortable at first, but they’d make it work, for Charlie’s sake.

Gray kissed Jonas’s temple. “I’ll come by tomorrow and check on you both, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Everything all right out there?” Charlie asked when Jonas finally stepped back through the curtain. “You guys weren’t arguing, were you?”

“Not at all.” Jonas perched on the side of the gurney so he could hold Charlie’s hand. “It sounds crazy, but I think this