Page 4 of Always You (Guardian Hall #1)

Chapter Four

Alex

“Who do we have?” Marcus didn’t hesitate to get right to the core of his visit as soon as he walked through the door and started unwrapping his outdoor clothes to hang on hooks. He was exhausted, and his smudged eyeliner and a hickey on his neck hinted at another wild night out for my friend and colleague, Dr. Marcus Stirling.

“Soldier.” Marcus sighed along with me. “Lingering chest infection, and his skin…” I rubbed one of my hands over the other, “infected. “Infected, I think. I’ve seen nothing else.”

“Okay,” Marcus straightened his sleeves—as if that was going to help him look any more put-together. He stopped in front of a mirror, used his sweater to wipe the eyeliner away, fluffed his shoulder-length hair before tying it back with a band, then popped the collar of his shirt to hide the hickey. Gone was club-Marcus, and in his place was competent-as-shit Doctor Marcus. “Hit me with the deets.”

“His name is Jasper Brookes—Jazz.”

“He gave you his name?” Marcus smiled. Handing over a name meant something.

“No, he didn’t tell me; I know him from before.”

“You mean before you got fucked over by your family, like when you were young?” Marcus stared at me—challenged me. I had two very distinct parts of my life, but to hear it put so simply was unnerving. There was the before, when I’d tried to fit in with my family, and the after, when my family had abandoned me. Or I’d abandoned them.

True, but hard to hear.

“Before.”

“Well shit,” he said and went into the medical room, which was a few doors down the corridor from Jazz, and when I followed him in as he flicked on lights, he was clearly waiting for me to expand on everything. Marcus had this way of seeing right through me, and over the last ten years, he’d listened and learned and, as my best friend, I guess he thought he knew me.

But he couldn’t know the things I hadn’t told him.

“We grew up together. He was a friend,” I murmured. A friend until the moment I rejected Jazz and sent him running. A friend until I broke his heart. “I think he’s going to leave, and somehow, we have to make him stay.”

Marcus didn’t answer at first, as he took his stethoscope out of his bag and laid it around his neck—one more layer of respectability. “That’s not how this works, Alex.”.”“

I pushed the medical room door shut. “It’s my fault he left, and now he’s back, and it’s been twenty years, but… I was the one who…” I slumped back to the wall.

Marcus steadied me, gripping my arms. “Breathe. Come on, babe. With me, breathe…”

“I sent him away and he… fuck…” I shook Marcus off and bent at the waist. “It’s my fault.”

Marcus went to a crouch so he could look up at me. “Are you breathing?”

I nodded, then slid down the wall, boneless, until my ass was on the floor, and I could pull my knees up and hide my head in my hands. It was a panic attack, clawing its way up from the depths of my anxiety. Breathing was hard, my chest constricted, and Marcus tugged at me, and kept talking, asking me to breathe, telling me it was going to be okay. But as the panic threatened to overwhelm me, a part of my mind clung desperately to the need to control myself.

I couldn’t let Jazz see me like this because he was the one in need of support, not me. I had to be the anchor, the steady presence he could rely on, even if I was crumbling inside. I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. Inhale. Exhale. Focus on the here and now, not on the what-ifs and the maybes. I fell back on the techniques I’d learned, the coping mechanisms for moments like this, forced down the shields to keep the panic at bay.

With a final deep breath, I dropped my hands, forcing a smile, hoping Marcus didn’t notice it was as strained as it felt.

“Okay?” he asked with gentle care.

“Sure.” I was confident. “I’m okay.”

“So, I’m guessing he’s the one you told me about? Does he know what you did here?” Marcus waved a hand at the room, the building, at what Marcus and I had built.

“No, and he can’t know. If he thought… if he…” My chest was tight again. “Please, tell him he has to stay, make something up, anything.”

Marcus stood, then offered me a hand to help me up. “No, babe, you know the rules.” He wasn’t saying that to argue. He was sticking to the guidelines the two of us had ironed out when we first began Guardian Hall.

Anyone could stay.

Anyone could go.

No questions asked.

He pulled me into a brief hug, and when we eased apart, he brushed his hand over my shoulder and smiled. “Let me see him and be the doctor he needs, okay? I’ll do what I can.”

I gave a weak nod. “I’ll tell him you’re in here.” I had almost made it out of the door when he spoke.

“Trust it will work out,” he murmured.

“I’ll try,” I whispered, then steeled myself and headed to the welcome room, knocking on the door, not wanting to startle Jazz. For a moment, there was silence, and then, the sound of shuffling feet approached from the other side. The door opened, and a wave of citrus scent wafted out, the smell of the soap or shampoo he must have used.

This adult Jazz was so different from the boy I’d known. Twenty years had passed, and his dark eyes revealed an old soul. He wore clothes from the closet, but he’d put on so many layers that he resembled a Michelin man.

My heart clenched at the sight. The excessive clothing was a clear sign—he’d selected as much as he could, and it was apparent he wasn’t planning on staying. He was gearing up to go out into the cold, back to the streets. It made me want to grab him and make him stay. After everything he’d been through, that he still felt more at home on the streets than here broke my already fractured heart into tiny pieces.

“Hey, Jazz,” I forced out, trying to keep my voice steady and my expression neutral. “Ready?” I attempted a small smile, but it was hard to muster. Seeing him like this, on the threshold between the safety of these walls and the icy hell of a Chicago winter, I felt helpless.

He shrugged, not meeting my eyes. “I’m leaving,” he said.

He was clearly preparing to go, his bags held tight to his chest, all his possessions in them. I wondered if he’d taken any toiletries—I hoped he had. I wanted to say anything that could convince him to stay, to give Guardian Hall a chance. But the words stuck in my throat, tangled up in the realization that maybe, just like the other veterans who’d been here, the freedom of the streets was still more comforting than the confines of any shelter.

I couldn’t stop him.

“Will you see the doctor first? He’s here for you now.”

I gestured down the hall, and he glanced that way, his breathing raspy, a cough breaking the silence. “No. I’m leaving.”

“Because of me?” I wished I could take back the words as soon as they left my mouth. Fuck. Why did I say that? His leaving was a choice he was free to make, clear of any connection he might have to me. Why was I making this personal? I knew better than this. Less than half of the people who walked through these doors actually stayed, the rest left searching for something else in their lives. “I get you hate me, but don’t walk away. You’re ill. Please, just let the doc look at you before you go.”

He stared at me then, and his eyes were bright. “I don’t hate you,” he grumbled.

Hope swelled inside me. “You don’t?”

He studied me for a moment, coughed, and then, in a soft voice he delivered a twisted version of the line I’d thrown at him all those years ago. “I don’t feel anything for you.”