Page 35 of Maybe (Mis-shapes #1)

ISAAC

My first shift of the seven-night set was weirdly quiet.

At around four a.m, I even squeezed in an hour of revision.

I had no idea if any of it would stick, but I’d signed up to re-sit the exam at the next opportunity, and that date was creeping closer.

I still wasn’t sure how I’d proceed if I passed, but I sure as hell knew it wasn’t going to defeat me.

More and more, Ezra’s astute observations played on my mind.

When I worked in ED, I didn’t miss the operating theatre one bit, whereas Alaric mooched about, lamenting the lack of scalpel in his hand.

My father had always been at his best after a day spent saving lives in the operating theatre, too.

Far more than the days he spent in his consulting rooms.

Maybe I was a jack of all trades. Maybe Ezra was right. I didn’t owe anyone anything. My career choices were mine to make, and only mine.

But I was still going to pass that fucker of an exam. If I walked away from a glittering career as a cardiac surgeon, it would be on my terms. I wanted to look the Mustard Michael’s of this world in the eye, not skulk about avoiding them.

When I dragged myself home in bright daylight, I found Ezra sitting on the steps leading to my flat, strumming his guitar. God, he was insufferably beautiful. And so poised, so at ease with himself, in a way I’d never managed. My first thought ran to Jonty. “Is there something wrong?”

“No.” Ezra’s dark head lifted at my approach. “Everything is tickety-boo.” He ran his fingers through his gleaming locks, pushing them away from his face. “Especially now you’re here, oh scrumptious, exhausted captain of my heart.”

Idiot. “Oh, okay. Then hello Ezra.”

As he leapt to his feet, the urge to kiss that dangerous smile from his lips was annoyingly strong.

“A very good morning to you, dearest Isaac, my sun, my moon, my stars, and my sweet honeybee.” With a sweep of his arm, like a bloody medieval courtier, he gestured the route to the front door as if he’d laid down a red carpet. All two metres of it.

“That was a short week of nights.” I swung my rucksack from my shoulder to withdraw the key from the zipped side pocket. “I could have sworn I’ve only done one.”

“Goodness.” Ezra ignored me. “Let me take that heavy thing for you.” He held out his hand for the bag. “Take that load off your weary shoulders.”

“Last time I checked, empty Tupperware lunchboxes were pretty light. I think I can manage a few steps farther.”

He blocked my path. “That’s not the point, babe. Come on—hand it over.”

Chuntering, I did as he asked. I didn’t have the energy for an undignified doorstep struggle. “Seriously, though. Why are you here? I recall agreeing you were giving me some space.”

As I inserted the key in the lock, Ezra’s warm presence hovered right behind me, so close I could smell his shampoo. Cool breath caressed the back of my neck; sinking into him was way too tempting. I was doomed.

“Um…” For once, Ezra appeared a little sheepish. “I was rude to you. About giving us a lift home from the hospital. I could do better. Being tired and stressed was no excuse.”

“It’s the perfect excuse.” I tutted. If I didn’t know by now how Ezra’s mind worked, then I never would. Pride was written through him like a stick of rock. “Your child had just been in intensive care! And I shouldn’t have presumed.” I waved my hand. “Forget it. I’m chilled.”

Ezra beamed. “Great. In that case, then I’ll also admit to being here ‘cos I missed you.”

His mischievous smile did its thing. I was seconds away from plastering him against the doorframe then and there.

But I’d made a promise to myself, and I was going to stick to it.

Reining myself in, I headed upstairs. “I have a feeling your idea and my idea of let’s take things slow aren’t on the same page. ”

“Ah, but you didn’t define slow,” Ezra pointed out. “Where was the comparator? Did you mean slower than a tractor? Slower than treacle? As slow as a mid-range electric car?”

“Mine’s pretty fast actually.” I glared at him over my shoulder as he trundled after me up the stairs.

“I was thinking more… um…” My sleep-deprived brain wrestled to come up with something terribly sedate, even as I questioned my ability to hold back from grabbing him then and there.

“The speed of soil erosion. How about that?”

“Mmm,” Ezra hummed. “Sure, soil moves fairly slowly. But I suppose even that can be quite situational. You know, during a flood, for example. When there’s a landslide. Then it canters along.”

I groaned. My mental agility supplies had been depleted at around five a.m. after an elderly nursing home patient with a broken hip hauled me from my textbooks. “Shouldn’t you be somewhere? Aren’t you a single parent? With single parent responsibilities?”

“Yep.” Right on my shoulder, Ezra grinned as I unlocked the internal door of my flat.

“But haven’t you heard? They do this cool thing with kids these days.

It’s called school. You drop them off when the building opens, and they stay there the entire day.

Which means that I have plenty of time to get across town on this new-fangled Tube thingy, so I can make my hardworking brother his breakfast, tuck him up for a nap, and still get to Covent Garden in time for work. Pretty amazing, huh?”

On the morning after my second night shift, we went through the same routine.

Ezra followed me into the flat and cooked my breakfast, whilst I took a shower and resisted the temptation to invite him to join me.

If his incessant flirting was any yardstick, the teeny tiny matter of him being my brother, technically if not biologically, didn’t concern him in the slightest. Perhaps that was down to him not lying awake having imaginary conversations with Ed, Saffy, and my mother, explaining how we’d got ourselves into this mess.

And even if I somehow surmounted that inevitable drama, an aggravating, puritanical, nagging voice in my head still refused to let me step over the line.

On the morning after my third night shift, Ezra wasn’t waiting on the step. Oh no, he was in the bloody flat. The kettle was whistling, and four rashers of bacon sizzled in a pan on the stove.

“How the fuck did you get in?”

“Me casa es su casa.” He greeted me with a wave of his spatula.

The hook below my corkboard, which usually held my spare key, was glaringly empty.

“Your words, I seem to remember, not mine. And stop with the how did you get into my house business. Just a 'thank you, Ezra, for cooking me a delicious hot breakfast' will do.” He threw me a heart-melting grin. “Or I’ll settle for a brotherly hug if you’re too tired for complete sentences.”

I was. It had been a hell of a busy shift.

And Ezra was right there, his usual black and grey ensemble covered with a naff pink apron—God knows where from—with the words Meat & Two Veg emblazoned across the front.

The heavenly scent of breakfast wafted under my nose and the most important human being in my life was within touching distance. What else could a tired boy do?

Ezra’s interpretation of a brotherly hug came with a few not so brotherly add-ons.

Such as a back rub, stretching the interpretation of that by encompassing a bottom squeeze.

Since he was taller than me, his groin pressed into my belly, stirring up a mortifying response I was astonished my weary body had the strength for.

Christ, I was only putting off the inevitable, wasn’t I?

“Nice bit of morning wood you’ve got there, baby brother ,” he murmured into my hair, the fucker.

My face burned like magnesium ribbon as he nudged my hard-on with his hip.

How the hell did I ever imagine I’d keep him at arm’s length and be nothing but a generous uncle on Christmas and birthdays, with Ezra staring down at me with those fuck-me eyes?

He nudged my erection again. “Or should I call it a morning great sequoia?”

I groaned, though the hug was far too amazing to pull away. As Ezra gave himself another rub against my unasked-for boner, the smirk on his smart mouth told me he knew exactly what the future held. Now he even had a rough idea of how big it was. The only thing he didn’t know was how soon I’d cave.

Within the next ten seconds, if we carried on dry humping like this. With monstrous effort, I wriggled out of his grasp.

“Bacon smells cooked,” I said.

By the sixth morning, sharing a hug in the middle of the kitchen whilst we waited for the toast to pop up turned into a routine way of passing the time. Ezra played me like he played his damned guitar. Expertly.

“Stop poking me with that thing,” I grumbled. With his arms looped about my back, he predictably nestled in closer still. “It isn't happening. I’m not ready to step out of the brother zone.”

“Yeah, but a taste of my dick will help you sleep better.”

“I don’t recall that nugget of information from med school.”

“Nugget’s a bit harsh.” He circled his hips against me to prove the point. “More of a solid ingot at the moment.”

As if to prove the point, Ezra circled again, although there was no real intent behind it.

“You know I’m only teasing you, Isaac. Sex is the least important thing for me right now.

” His mouth planted a soft kiss against my temple.

“I’m here because I love you, not because I want to get you into bed.

If sex happens this week, next week, next month or even next year, it doesn’t matter.

If all you’re ready for is me cooking your breakfast after a nightshift and then tucking you into bed afterwards then that’s fine. I’m not going anywhere.”

“We haven’t discussed how we’ll broach… us… with Ed and Saffy, nor my mother. And what about Jonty?”