“Marc?” Jamie grasped Marc’s hand and squeezed. “Damn, you disappear sometimes.”

“What?”

“You space out when you’re tired.”

Marc couldn’t deny that. Years ago, exhaustion had been conversely energising, merged with the adrenaline of trying not to get slotted for days at a time. But civilian life had softened him, and his brain no longer won the game of chicken he played with his sleep pattern. He took Jamie’s face in his hands and traced the dark smudges beneath Jamie’s eyes with his thumbs. “I’m not the only one who’s tired. Do you think you can sleep?”

“I don’t know. Walking home will probably wake me up too much, and my flat’s really bright during the day—”

“You’re not walking home,” Marc interrupted. “I meant do you think you can sleep here? I left my car at the hospital, but I can get you a cab home if you’d rather be there.”

“I already told you . . . I want to be with you.”

It was all the answer Marc needed. He strapped his pros back on, and then, keeping hold of Jamie’s hand, he led him to his bedroom at the end of the hall. The bed was as pristine as he’d left it the last time he’d tried to sleep there one hellish night after he’d returned from Chicago, when, ironically, only pondering the fate of the beautiful stranger he’d met on the plan had kept him from hitting the bottle. Needlessly putting clean sheets on the next morning had felt like the worst brand of failure, but he was glad he’d bothered now. Jamie liked clean things, even if he didn’t particularly like himself.

Marc let go of Jamie and went to the antique drawers in the corner, rummaging for something for both him and Jamie to sleep in. Jamie came up behind him. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for clothes.”

“Your clothes won’t fit me.”

“But you’ll be warm,” Marc said absently.

Jamie reached around him and grabbed two pairs of sweatpants. “These will do. Come on.”

They dressed in silence. Marc’s sweatpants drowned Jamie, accentuating his narrow waist. Marc was torn between amusement and an ache for him so real his chest hurt.

“Stop staring at me like that,” Jamie said.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m a dog you just ran over. I fell off a ladder, Marc. You didn’t push me.”

Was that how Marc felt? In the too-bright light of the early morning, he had no idea, but he believed Jamie, who’d become a little too adept at reading Marc’s emotions before Marc’s brain caught up.

Marc dug deep and gathered what was left of his coherent thought. “How’s the shoulder? Still hurting?”

“Like a bitch. Can I lie down?”

“Of course . . . Here.” Marc shoved the duvet aside and helped Jamie into bed, guiding him until he found the most comfortable position for his bruised body, which turned out to be flat on his back. “Try and relax. I can massage your other shoulder if you like. The distraction sometimes helps.”

“You need to sleep.”

“I will when I know you’re as okay as you can be. Humour me?”

Jamie said nothing, merely closed his eyes. Marc got up and drew the curtains, bathing the room in darkness. He sat on the edge of the bed and fumbled with his prosthesis. Jamie’s fingers grazed his back. “You didn’t need to do that in the dark. I’ve already seen it.”

“I know . . . it’s just—” Just what? Marc had hopped around without his leg in front of dozens of people—friends, colleagues, and everything in between—so what was so different about Jamie? The one person who expected nothing from Marc but what he was now? “It looks a bit strange without the prosthesis. You weren’t really paying attention in the shower.”

“So?”

“So . . . people think they’re okay with it until they see a ghostly stump, then they freak out.”

“I’m not people,” Jamie said flatly and let his hand drop.

Marc closed his eyes and took a deep breath, clawing his way back from the abyss that removing his leg in bed always sent him. Jamie was a slender guy, but he could take Marc down and keep him there without— Stop it. Marc swallowed a groan and fought the urge to grind his fists into his eyeballs. “Listen, this is my thing, okay? I’m not as fucking together as you think I am.”

“You have no idea what I think of you.”

“No?”

“No. If you did, you’d have flung that leg off hours ago— Shit.”

Marc’s eyes flew open. “What? What is it?”

“Spasm.” Jamie clutched his injured shoulder. “This happened loads before you got home. That’s why I couldn’t leave.”

“I’m glad you didn’t leave.” Marc used his arms to lift himself over Jamie and lie at his side. Without drugs, there was nothing else he could do for Jamie’s injuries that wouldn’t cause further pain, but he could make good on his promise to massage the opposite shoulder in an attempt to spread the relaxation back to the bruised muscles on the other side. “I know things get a bit heavy between us sometimes, but I like having you here. You give me a purpose.”

Jamie opened his eyes as Marc laid his hands on the uninjured side of Jamie’s body. “You don’t need me to give you a purpose. You must have saved thousands of lives since you became a doctor.”

“I’ve watched a lot of people die too.” Marc rubbed deep, soothing circles into Jamie’s arm and shoulder, and tried to absorb the calming motion into his own soul. “A woman died this morning right before I came home. I tried to resuscitate her, but I knew it wouldn’t work, and when I called it, I didn’t feel anything. And that’s worse than grief—at least, it is for me. If you hadn’t been here when I came home, I’d have passed out for a few hours and forgotten all about her.”

“That’s a bad thing?”

“Eventually. You can’t hide from any tragedy forever, even if you truly believe you’re hardened to it.”

“Is that why soldiers get PTSD? Because they put off reacting to all the shit they see?”

“Maybe, though things like that are never so logical.” Marc moved his hands over Jamie’s torso, trying not to lose himself in the pale planes of Jamie’s chest, or give in to nagging worry as he studied his visible ribs. Is he losing weight? Jamie was so naturally slender it was hard to tell, especially when he’d never seen Jamie naked before—he’s not naked now. “Can I ask you something?”

“As long as it doesn’t involve too much thinking to answer. You’re turning my brains to mush here.”

Marc smiled. He could feel Jamie relaxing, but it was nice to hear Jamie confirm it. “I want to know what you were doing when you fell. I thought you finished the top shelves the other day when I was here.”

“You mean when you stood underneath the ladder all day and heckled me?”

“I wasn’t heckling. I was telling you to be careful.”

“And I was careful. I just wanted to check that I’d, uh, wiped it enough.”

“Even number, right?”

“Don’t.”

Marc bit his tongue. Jamie had a thing about counting, though the habit wasn’t consistent enough to make much sense to Marc. Was it an OCD ritual? He couldn’t tell, but every room in the house—even the bedroom, which Jamie hadn’t had a reason to be in until now—was conspicuously free of dust. “Did you clean up in here too?”

Jamie’s half-closed eyes flashed guiltily. “I didn’t mean to. I was looking for the boxes you said were in here and I couldn’t leave it. I—I didn’t like the idea of you sleeping in it.”

“I don’t sleep in here, babe.”

Babe. The endearment fell from Marc like he said it all the time. And Jamie’s face lit up with a wry, barely there smile that blessed Marc with all the empathy he’d ever need. “You’ll sleep with me here hogging your duvet,” Jamie said. “Zac used to say I was better than a benzo for sharing a bed with . . . after he’d fucked me, of course, but you don’t need to do that.”

Recovering addict Jamie Yorke has returned to England from California. With no home or family to speak of, he sticks a pin in a map and finds a small town in the Derbyshire Peak District. Matlock Bath is a quiet placeóhe just needs to get there, keep his head down, and stay clean. Simple, right? Until a chance meeting on the flight home alters the course of his so-called life forever.


Ex-Army medic Marc Ramsey is recovering from life-changing combat injuries while pulling nights as a trauma specialist at the local hospital. Keeping busy is a habit he canít quit, but when Jamieóso wild and beautifulóbursts into his life, working himself into the ground isnít as compelling as it used to be.


?Marc falls hard, but chaos lurks behind Jamieís fragile facade. Heís winning his battle against addiction, but another old foe is slowly consuming him. Both men have weathered many storms, but the path to the peace they deserve might prove the roughest ride yet.

Garrett Leigh is an award-winning British writer and book designer, currently working for Dreamspinner Press, Loose Id, Riptide Publishing, and Fox Love Press.


Garrett’s debut novel, Slide, won Best Bisexual Debut at the 2014 Rainbow Book Awards, and her polyamorous novel, Misfits was a finalist in the 2016 LAMBDA awards.


When not writing, Garrett can generally be found procrastinating on Twitter, cooking up a storm, or sitting on her behind doing as little as possible, all the while shouting at her menagerie of children and animals and attempting to tame her unruly and wonderful FOX.


Garrett is also an award winning cover artist, taking the silver medal at the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards in 2016. She designs for various publishing houses and independent authors at blackjazzdesign.com, and co-owns the specialist stock site moonstockphotography.com with photographer Dan Burgess.

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