“Around thirty minutes ago. His family was in there, but they just left.”
Logan reached for the wall beside him. He’s awake… He woke up?
“This is a good thing,” the nurse encouraged, and finally he managed a nod. “Would you like to come and see him?”
More than my next breath, Logan thought and stood up straight. “Yes. God, yes.”
He followed her down the hall, and when he stepped into the ICU area, three of the other nurses behind the station were smiling at him. Two of them he recognized, but the third was a tall blonde he’d never seen before, and as she made her way around the desk toward him, Logan looked behind himself to make sure she was heading in his direction.
“You’re Logan, right?”
Logan shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and nodded.
She gave a cute little smirk and said, “Mr. Morrison has been quite adamant that he doesn’t want to see any other person’s face, including the doctor’s, until he sees Logan.”
A full-on smile stretched across his lips. That stubborn shit…“Is that right?”
“Yes. I was the first person to speak to him after Diana came to tell us he’d woken. He’s having a hard time vocalizing right now due to the tubes that were down his throat. But he wrote this and gave it to me when I was in there getting his vitals with his parents.”
Logan took the piece of paper from her, and when he opened it, he saw: I want to see Logan. NOW.
Logan clenched it in his fist as he brought it to his mouth and sucked in a gulp of air.
“Are you okay?” she asked, concerned as she touched his arm.
“Yeah,” he let out on a relieved sigh. “Yeah. I’ve never been better. Can I see him?”
She walked over to Tate’s door. “I think he’d like that very much.”
When she opened it, Logan moved toward it, wondering if he’d ever felt such anticipation. The answer to that was easy—no, he fucking hadn’t.
He couldn’t wait to see Tate.
As he stepped inside and his eyes finally collided with the gorgeous, brown ones he’d so desperately missed, Logan shook his head.
“You, Mr. Morrison, are in so much trouble.”
* * *
Tate had been waiting for what seemed like hours for this very second. He’d been going out of his mind while the nurse had been checking his temperature, blood pressure, and every other fucking vital she’d needed to check. And then his damn parents had been fawning all over him, and he…he couldn’t have cared less.
This was the person he wanted to see. The person he needed to see. And as Logan got closer to him, Tate found himself trying to sit up in the bed.
“No, no,” Logan told him, wagging his finger back and forth as though he were scolding him. “You stay just as you are.”
Tate watched him stop and take the seat by his side, and when Logan reached for his hand and entwined their fingers, he finally felt things start to fall back into place.
Damn, Tate thought. Logan was clearly trying to put up a strong front, but… He looks a breath away from shattering. As Logan’s eyes roved over him and his fingers tightened around his, Tate’s fluttered shut.
Yes, that feels familiar. It felt right. And when Logan brought their fingers to his mouth to kiss them, Tate opened his eyes and turned his hand so he could stroke his fingers over the dark stubble covering Logan’s jaw. He traced them up and over his ear and then pushed them through his silky, black hair. The sound that left Logan was somewhere between pleasure and anguish as he leaned over and pressed his cheek to his thigh.
“Tate…God. Oh, God. These last few weeks…”
Logan’s eyes were shut, but he kept talking, trying to explain what he was feeling. Tate stroked the hair away from his face and saw tears falling down his cheek. It was clear by the tormented words and trembling in Logan’s body—he’d been through hell.
As Tate tried to soothe him, he opened his mouth and made himself speak. “Logan.”
His voice was barely audible, but Logan’s eyes opened. And when he told him, “Shh,” Tate shook his head and forced his lips to move and get his words out.
“Love you.”
Logan got to his feet then and pressed their lips together in a kiss filled with all the overwhelming emotions neither of them could put into words. Tate closed his eyes, taking in the scent of him, and when he finally pulled away and offered a shaky smile, Tate noticed that it didn’t quite reach his blue eyes.
“I love you too.”
Tate grimaced. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t,” Logan said, cutting him off and brushing one of his curls aside as he bent back down over him. “Don’t you dare apologize. You did nothing wrong. You did everything right.” Logan brought his lips by his ear, and their cheeks were touching as he whispered, “You woke up.”