Sorry, Bro (2 page)

He hadn’t had to wait very long for the surgery. Damn being the only nurse in coronary care with any skill in trauma surgery. And damn him for dropping out of medical school.

Bryce scrambled out of the elevator onto the first floor. He pulled his white cap over his bandana and covered his face with a surgical mask before scrubbing in. Another nurse hurried over to brief him on the situation. Male, mid-twenties. Victim of a random assault. Blunt force trauma to the head, but a CAT scan would come later to determine the seriousness of the wound. He had fallen just after the incident, and several shards of broken glass—most likely from a broken beer or liquor bottle—were lodged in his abdomen. For now, the patient was unconscious.

Shoulder-to-shoulder with the slight female nurse, Bryce rounded the corner into the OR. Instantly, he recognised the doctor whom he had seen changing in the locker room just ten minutes before.
So, he’s a resident surgeon,
Bryce thought.

Bryce stepped forward, and trailed his gaze up the patient’s body. Three jagged triangles of glass, stuck like porcupine quills, in the patient’s lower abdomen. The bleeding seemed minimal, and the glass shards seemed small enough not to have penetrated any major organs. His gaze settled on the battered face and swollen eyes. The man seemed vaguely familiar.

Bryce froze.

He hadn’t seen Tim in eight years—not since the summer before he had left for college in New York. How had he not known Tim had come to New Orleans?
No—it can’t be him. There’s just no way.

As the surgeon barked orders in a clear, strong voice, Bryce reached for a pair of surgical tongs and dropped them clumsily onto the floor.

“Nurse, what the hell are you doing?” The surgeon didn’t even bother to look up.

“Sorry,” Bryce said, reaching for another, then turning to place it in the surgeon’s outstretched hand.

Bryce’s breath quivered, and tremors travelled from his lungs straight outward to his fingers as he watched the heart monitor, ticking placidly behind the stretcher. He turned to the nurse standing next to him. “What’s the name on this guy’s chart?” he whispered. Not that there would be a chart yet. The surgery had come up from the ER after all.

The nurse eyed him and said, “He was barely conscious when he stumbled into the ER.” She paused and glanced up at the surgeon’s back. “But his wallet was in his hand, and we got his ID out. No insurance. Tim. The staff at the desk are trying to reach his family.”

Tim. That was too much of a coincidence. The man on the stretcher in front of him, despite the bluish-yellow lump on his forehead, was the spitting image of his old college friend and had the same name.

It has to be him.
But why the hell didn’t he tell me he was in New Orleans?

Bryce clutched the edge of the cart next to him to steady himself. What was going on?

And why did this have to happen now?

Tim groaned just as the surgeon pulled the last piece of green-tinged, beer bottle glass from his abdomen. His eyes fluttered open, and in the sea of light blue scrubs and colourful nurse’s caps, Tim rested his eyes on Bryce almost immediately. He smiled weakly. “What’s up, buddy?”

* * * *

Bryce cursed under his breath and kicked the skeleton of his bike off the crumbling sidewalk and into a shallow pool of mud. He’d ridden too quickly over a wide, deep divide in the sidewalk and managed to bend his front wheel nearly in two.

He rounded his shoulders and turned away from the mangled pile of aluminium, then stripped off his sweat-dampened shirt. Bryce looked at the ground and ambled sullenly home.

The surgeon had doped Tim pretty good right after removing the glass. It turned out that he had sustained a deep cut on his left arm, too, which had to be disinfected and stitched up. Tim had been asleep while Bryce had finished the sutures.

At least Tim was still alive.

The train beside the levee at the base of Esplanade hadn’t moved in weeks, and Bryce suddenly wondered why it was there at all. He scowled and kicked at a broken beer bottle.

The first cafe and bar he passed were both full. He wanted to be drunk, but he didn’t want company. Bryce’s scowl turned into a soft chuckle. It was ironic that he craved both alcohol and solitude, when New Orleans was one of the only places in the world a hundred friends would be waiting to be trashed, regardless of day, time or occasion.

Bryce found a liquor store at the corner of Frenchmen and Chartres, and when he arrived at his small apartment in the Marigny, he slammed a six pack of Red Stripe and a handle of whisky on his small kitchen table.

He popped the lid from one of the small bottles of beer and let the amber liquid wash over his tongue. It was still satisfyingly cold in spite of the late afternoon heat and humidity. Bryce drank deeply, then lowered the half-drained bottle and rolled it luxuriously across his upper chest.

He sighed and reached into his shorts, removing his small flip phone. Sweat had soaked straight through his briefs and the thick khaki material of the garment, leaving a thin film on the phone’s exterior. He wiped the moisture off with his hand and tapped out a quick text.

Tatum we rly need 2 talk. smthng happened 2day.

He cursed that he couldn’t afford a phone with a QWERTY keyboard and took another gulp of beer before swigging directly from the whisky bottle.

His phone buzzed, and Bryce set the beer on the table before flipping open the device and clutching it against his ear.

“What is it, hon?” It was Tatum. And despite the ‘hon’, she sounded annoyed.

Bryce shrugged. He knew Tatum couldn’t see the shrug, but somehow he wasn’t sure what to say. It wouldn’t be something she could understand, seeing Tim lying in the hospital bed. But at least she could listen. It would make him feel better.

“An old friend got beat up today, and I saw him in the hospital.”

“Mmmmmhmm. Oh, that’s terrible, hon,” Tatum said, her voice rising at the end, indicating that Bryce had piqued her interest, if only slightly.

“Yeah, it was Tim.” Bryce felt the colour rise in his face. He always talked about Tim because, for some reason, Tim was always in his head. He’d told Tatum so many stories about their adventures together, about baseball, about their friendship.

All the stories, except for one.

Tatum sighed. “I was beginning to think this Tim was a ghost or something.” She paused. “But this is one hell of a way to see him again.”

“Yeah,” Bryce said shakily. “Ya know, Tatum, it makes me sorta think about my life and stuff. Whether what I’m doing is right.” Bryce covered his face with his free hand and continued. “That fucking could’ve been me.”

No answer.

“Tatum?”

“Hey, Bryce, that’s Lara on the other line. I’m meeting up with her. Hey, drink a beer or something and sleep it off. You’ll be fine.”

“But…Tatum…I really…”

Tatum huffed. “Bryce, honey. We’re through.”

“But…what?” Bryce asked.

“Hon, you just never know what you want. Love ya, but that’s it.”

The phone went dead.

Bryce tossed his phone onto the other side of the couch, cursing under his breath. Tatum-the-firecracker turned Tatum-the-sexless-bitch was gone. ‘That’s it’. Just like that.

Yet, perhaps she was right. Bryce shuddered. He never really did know what he wanted.

Bryce reached over and poured himself another shot. And another. Two was hardly enough to get him drunk—he’d need quite a few more—but at least now he was beginning to feel the tell-tale warmth of inebriation spread from his stomach up into his chest. His cheeks burnt, and the pressure of both guilt and worry began to fade.

Funny how that works—you feel the alcohol to feel nothing. It makes you numb
, Bryce thought. He grabbed another beer and leant back, balancing his chair up onto its two rear legs. He closed his eyes and rocked slowly back and forth.

Bryce tilted the bottle of whisky back again and let the sharp flavour wash over his tongue and down his throat, where it burnt noticeably.

Eight swigs, two beers. The alcohol had taken hold, and Bryce’s eyelids felt heavy. He thought fleetingly of the surgeon from the locker room and the operating room. His hands seemed steady and sure, with thick, strong fingers. The backs were veiny, with a tint of colour from the thin layer of dark hairs that ran down his arm, across the backs of his hands and onto his knuckles.

Bryce closed his eyes and visualised the other man. Two dark eyes set below thick, black eyebrows. A bold, masculine nose and full, dark lips. He wore his hair short on the back and the sides, with slightly longer strands on top which he parted on the left. In the locker room, Bryce noticed that he had incredibly broad shoulders, and his pecs and abs were painstakingly sculpted by regular training, no doubt. Impressive that he had time to work out between his shifts at the hospital.

Bryce’s cock hardened in response to the mental image. He laughed and shook his head as he let the chair drop back onto all four legs. “Fuck you, Tatum.” Three weeks without sex, and this is what it did to him. He got hard at the slightest thought of another person’s body, male or female.

It had been a little weird, Bryce had to admit, how the surgeon had eyed him in the locker room. It wasn’t quite a stare, but the steely gaze certainly had been noticeable.

The whisky warmed his stomach, and Bryce rubbed his hands roughly across his chest, dashing away the stray droplets of sweat that had begun to gather on his pecs.

Standing, Bryce unfastened his belt and slid his shorts onto the floor before grabbing another beer. It was far too hot now to wear anything save his underwear. He left his shorts on the floor near the chair and crossed the small living space to the tan couch against the opposite wall. He sat roughly on one end.

His dick was still hard, and he plunged his left hand inside his black briefs to stroke it. With his other hand, Bryce set the beer bottle on the small oak end table beside the couch. His fingers were still chilled from the fresh beer, and the brisk touch elicited pure excitement. He dragged upwards, enjoying the slight roughness of his palms against his shaft.

Bryce groaned and closed his eyes. When was the last time he had jerked off? Before the last time he had fucked Tatum—too long. And now his cock pulsated to life, peeking hungrily past the narrow elastic band of the boxer briefs.

Bryce lifted his large feet from the tiled floor as he slid the thin, black fabric down his thighs and past his ankles, which were still chafed from his accident earlier in the evening, before kicking the garment away.

With one hand, Bryce cupped his balls, and with the other, he teased his foreskin, using his own milky pre-cum to moisten the rest of his thick shaft.

Tatum used to scream with pleasure when he fucked her. That’s how big she said it was. It was big, but perhaps not that big. As Bryce massaged himself with both hands, he wondered suddenly how big the surgeon’s cock was.

The clear image of the surgeon’s face and masculine frame floated in his head. Bryce leant back into the couch and lifted his legs so that the edge of the cushions supported his heels. He imaged that the man’s large hand were stroking his shaft, from the very tip all the way down to his balls, slowly, teasing.

Bryce gritted his teeth. He hadn’t imagined being with another dude for years and was surprised at how much he still enjoyed the thought.

Bryce pinched his right nipple as he stroked faster. Bryce imagined the surgeon urging him on. He twisted his nipple before reaching down to stroke the place right in front of his ass, where the delicious pressure always elicited an almost immediate orgasm. As white cum spurted over his chest and across his shoulders, Bryce sighed deeply and thought of his first, wildly satisfying kiss with Tim.

* * * *

Bryce pulled his light blue scrub shirt over his head and stood naked from the waist up in front of his locker at the hospital. He eyed himself in the mirror hanging on the inside of his locker door, scrutinising the black pouches under his eyes and the stray patches of short hair that wouldn’t lay flat against his scalp. Thanks to half a bottle of whisky, three beers, and a ten-hour shift, he looked like hell. He lowered his gaze and smoothed his palms over his lower abdomen, tangling his fingers in the short, dark hairs protruding from the elastic band of his pants. He’d been too lazy, and drunk, to shower either the night before or that morning before work, and the dried remnants of last night’s fantasy still clung to him.

Bryce shook his head. There was a reason he looked like hell—Tim.

Bryce had a million questions. But Tim would need his rest, and he certainly wouldn’t be in any shape to talk. Besides, what would Bryce say to him? ‘Sorry, bro’ was about all he could think of—but that wouldn’t be apology enough, not by a long shot.

Bryce gathered his change of clothes, shorts and white shirt, in his arms and dropped them unceremoniously on the floor in front of him. He settled onto the low bench and lowered his face into his hands. He didn’t give a shit if his clothes were dirty or wrinkled—they’d be soaked through with sweat by the time he walked home anyway, since his bike was still smashed, unusable and had now likely been cannibalised for spare parts by someone from one of the city’s hipster bike shops. And he still looked like hell. Dirty, wrinkled clothes would have to suit him.