A Midnight Clear

By Kaje Harper

Can a painful goodbye become a second chance?

Adric's pretty sure his hopeless crush on his roommate Royce has an end date. They'll finish their EMT training course before the holidays and take the exam. When they pass—fingers crossed— he has plans for job hunting, but even when he teases or nags, Royce refuses to discuss anything beyond that looming test date. That has to be a red flag.

Adric tries to be resigned to a bromance goodbye at Christmas. But when he and Royce end up in bed together, that changes everything. Doesn't it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kaje Harper
• Release date: Jan 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005950316

Kaje Harper

I get asked about my name a lot. It's not something exotic, though. “Kaje” is pronounced just like “cage” – it’s an old nickname, and my pronouns are she/her/hers.I was born in Montreal but I've lived for 30 years in Minnesota, where the two seasons are Snow-removal and Road-repair, where the mosquito is the state bird, and where winter can be breathtakingly beautiful. Minnesota’s a kind, quiet (if sometimes chilly) place and it’s home.I’ve been writing far longer than I care to admit (*whispers – forty years*), mostly for my own entertainment, usually M/M romance (with added mystery, fantasy, historical, SciFi...) I also have a few Young Adult stories (some released under the pen name Kira Harp.)My husband finally convinced me that after all the years of writing for fun, I really should submit something, somewhere. My first professionally published book, Life Lessons, came out from MLR Press in May 2011. I have a weakness for closeted cops with honest hearts, and teachers who speak their minds, and I had fun writing four novels and three freebie short stories in that series. I was delighted and encouraged by the reception Mac and Tony received.I now have a good-sized backlist in ebooks and print, both free and professionally published, including Amazon bestseller "The Rebuilding Year" and Rainbow Award Best Mystery-Thriller "Tracefinder: Contact." A complete list with links can be found on my website "Books" page at https://kajeharper.wordpress.com/books/.I'm always pleased to have readers find me online at:Website: https://kajeharper.wordpress.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KajeHarperGoodreads Author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4769304.Kaje_Harper

Book preview

Chapter 1

Blood pressure’s dropping! My partner bent over the injured man in front of us, adjusting his oxygen mask. I struggled to get a good pressure wrap around the patient’s shoulder and arm, where the welling blood was bright and arterial red. The man sprawled limply on the pavement, eyes closed. Around us, I heard the moans and bustle of other casualties being treated, but I shut that out to focus on this man, keeping my hands steady despite the pounding of my pulse.

Dingggg! A bell rang. Time! Our head instructor rose from where she’d been squatting next to one of the groups.

My patient sat up with a grunt and winked at me.

Get your equipment picked up and stowed, then gather round, the instructor told us. Five minutes.

I took a deep breath and let the adrenaline seep from my body. Even in a training exercise, the first sight of casualties had thrown me into high focus. Which was good, because somehow I was much less of a klutz under pressure. I began unwrapping the man’s bandage, saving the stretchy outer wrap back on its cardboard roll, because the school let us take home clean used supplies.

Carole, my temporary partner, unvelcroed the blood pressure cuff from the man’s other arm and wiped the Ambubag mask. The patient, once he was free of our mummification, pulled together his torn and sliced-open clothing, made some adjustment in his shorts with a grin at us, and headed off across the parking lot to where a big coffee urn beckoned. Together, Carole and I picked up the litter of bandage wrappers and disposables, and pulled off our gloves.

The bell rang again, and all us students formed a semicircle in front of the instructor. I looked across the group to where my roommate, Royce, stood next to one of the older students, the woman he’d been lucky enough to score as a partner today. Or who was lucky enough to score Royce. My roommate was super smart and cool under pressure. I wiped an arm across my sweaty forehead, because cool didn’t describe me at the best of times.

The instructor went through a critique of our car hit multiple people picnicking scenario, beginning with the triage from the students in the advanced class, and then getting to everyone’s individual performances. Royce threw me a smirk when his and Mary’s attentions to the pregnant woman were deemed satisfactory. That was about the top end of Ms. Smithson’s rating scale. Smug bastard. But I couldn’t really resent him because he was damned good.

Adric and Carole. Ms. Smithson turned to us. I straightened my shoulders and met her eyes. Satisfactory job on your first patient. You recognized some fairly subtle signs of head trauma. On your second, you addressed the obvious trauma appropriately, but the patient’s blood pressure kept dropping. Any thought as to why?

Carole volunteered, Shock? then glanced at me.

Ms. Smithson’s expression made my gut feel hollow. We missed something? Another bleed?

Give the man one point. Where?

Abdomen? I suggested, because the odds were good.

One of the instructor’s eyebrows climbed.

Not abdomen. I could’ve kept guessing but that was pointless. I don’t know.

The patient had a closed proximal femoral fracture.

I managed not to look at Carole, who’d done the quick assessment of femurs, femoral arteries and groin, but the instructor had no such qualms. Carole, you can’t get polite about sticking your hands in a man’s groin in an emergency. If you’d taken a good firm feel in there, you’d have felt a knob of displaced bone. As it is, you had unexplained shock, and missed a big stabilization issue.

Sorry. Carole dropped her gaze.

Sorry kills people. The instructor moved on to the next group, eviscerating someone for failing to verify that his portable oxygen tank wasn’t empty.

I gave Carole a little nudge with my shoulder in sympathy. She meant well, and really wanted to help people. She just had trouble getting down and dirty and crude. That time the instructor gave her an object in rectum case to triage had been secretly hilarious, and I now had a new standard for how red the human face could get.

The instructor wrapped up with some general comments on multi-casualty triage and management, and then called for a round of applause for our patient-actors. I happily pounded my palms together and added a whistle. You couldn’t pay me to lie back covered in fake blood in a chilly parking lot and let inept students handle my body.

Although, we were far enough into the semester now to not be quite so inept. I shivered as a sharp wind blew across the pavement. My sweat-damp clothes clung coldly to my body. Minnesota in early December was not fun outdoor weather, even on a near-perfect day like today had been.

Ms. Smithson added, EMT-2s, practical assessment on hemostasis tomorrow. Get deeply familiar with your wound-packing products and tourniquet guidelines. I’m not going to give you time to think about it on the spot. See you all in the morning.

Royce caught up with me as we trudged back into the Woodfield Technical College building. Hey, Adric, fun, huh? Royce’s changeable eyes sparkled gold-green in the setting sun. I shouldn’t be noticing his eyes.

"You would say that. I relented when a little of the sparkly dimmed. Yeah, good practice. Even if we probably killed one of our patients."

Royce shoulder-bumped me like I did to Carole. And meant just as platonically. Down boy. He murmured, Because I wasn’t your partner, with my mad skills.

I went to step on his foot for bragging, except I missed, tripped over his shoe, and would’ve crashed to the pavement if he hadn’t grabbed my arms to steady me.

Jesus, Adric. How someone as klutzy as you turns competent on the job I’ll never know.

Shh. I tried to ignore how much I liked his strong grip on my biceps. It’s my secret identity. They never suspect Klutz-boy is actually Paramedic-man. Or will be when I get through about three more years. Our five-month EMT course was almost over, but to become a full-fledged paramedic was going to be a longer haul.

Royce set me back and let go. I like Klutz-boy. But yeah, I wouldn’t let him tie my shoelaces, let alone my sutures. Good disguise.

That stung even though it’d been my idea, because my real self is a lot more Klutz-boy day to day. I turned for the building, striding out fast.

Royce had to jog after me because I’m four inches taller and my legs are a lot longer. He’s built like a swimmer, and I’m built like a giraffe. He caught up with me in time to pull the door open first. Hey, I didn’t mean anything.

I shrugged like it didn’t matter. I’d had a crush on Royce since the second week of rooming together, but I thought I’d managed to keep it hidden. He didn’t know he could shake me up with a word. No problem, Shortie.

You want to grab take-out on the way home?

Nah. I have to work. I had a student loan, but needed every dollar I could earn for rent and food. You want me to bring home pizza?

He groaned. I never thought I’d say it, but I’m kinda sick of pizza. I’ll pick up some Thai and put yours in the fridge.

I shouldn’t. My job was working the prep line at Poppa Tom’s Pizza, and at the end of the night, we got to take home the orders that came out bad or weren’t picked up. I was more than kind of sick of pizza, but it was free food.

My treat. Royce laid a hand on my arm, an oddly gentle touch. Special for Klutz-boy.

I was left staring after him as he jogged toward the supply room, where he was on inventory this week. He didn’t glance back before swinging around the door, calling a greeting to whoever had made it there before him.

I didn’t have any clean-up duties, so I went to my locker. Around me, classmates chatted loudly over the background Christmas carols on the PA system, comparing notes on the triage exercise, the upcoming exam, and what they were planning for the weekend. Lori said, Hey, Adric, you gonna come with this time? We’re going bowling after the exam tomorrow so we can pretend the pins are Ms. Smithson’s test problems and smash ’em.

I laughed. That wasn’t a giggle, was it? Just an ordinary laugh. Sure. Count me in. Displaced aggression’s totally my thing.

She gave me a sideways look, but nodded. Cool. And now I’m going home to study my brains out. You?

"Pizza and more pizza. Do me a favor? Call up my manager and tell him you can’t decide what kind of pizza to get. Tell him you’re being inde-slice-ive."

Lori groaned. I took that for a win, as I went to change for work.

My car was cold, but the hardworking little engine warmed right up. I got to work a few minutes early and sat in the parking lot, gathering energy. For some reason, it took more effort to do a dumb six-hour shift of putting toppings on dough than a rigorous course in the kinematics of trauma. Not sure why.

When I went inside, my manager was yelling at Bob for messing up an order, Emily had just spilled half a tub of grated cheese on the floor, and Kyle was telling her a sexist joke while ignoring the look of loathing on her face. Oh yeah, that’s why.

I clocked in, pulled the stupid cap over my hair, shoved my hands in plastic gloves, and took up my station. I’d have said something to Kyle, but Emily’d told me she didn’t need a man to defend her. I listened to her eviscerate him for the hundredth time. Some guys never learned. New day, same old shit.

Check the screen. Large thin crust. Half pepperoni, half mushroom and extra cheese. By then I didn’t have to measure amounts, just grab and apply. Slide the crust to Kyle to put in the oven. Tap out on that one. Check the screen. There was always plenty of shit talk and joking going back and forth around me but I’d learned to just get into a zone and do the job. After the first couple of weeks, the others had figured out I was an asocial loser and left me alone.

Mostly. I fished a green pepper slice out of the back of my shirt, changed gloves, and kept applying toppings without even looking around. I was pretty sure Bob did it, but total lack of reaction was the way to go. Three weeks to graduation. Then the National Registry exam. And then maybe I’ll never have to unstick slices of pepperoni again.

It was good to have life goals, and mine were so close I could almost taste them.

Three weeks until Royce maybe doesn’t need a roommate anymore.

I stuffed that unwanted voice down deep and focused on half mushroom, half green olive, hold the cheese on half, half sausage… Jesus, Bob, you want to give me a clue which toppings go with which here? How many halves do you think a pizza has?

***

I staggered back into my apartment at eleven-thirty, smelling of grease and garlic. Normally, Royce would already be in bed and out like a light. He claimed he needed his beauty rest, and though I gave him all kinds of shit for it, there was no denying that sometimes I looked at him and thought, He is beautiful.

Tonight he was sitting at the kitchen table, holding a mug of something.

Coffee at this hour? I asked, hanging up my jacket. You do remember we have a test tomorrow?

Yep. He took a long drink from his mug. Hot chocolate. Your food’s in the fridge, if you didn’t eat at work.

Thanks. After I shower. I hurried off to wash the pizza aroma off my skin, swiping his rainforest-scent shampoo because I couldn’t stomach the ultracheap strawberry one I’d bought. I figured he’d head to bed, but when I came back out in clean sweats, he was still sitting at the table nursing his empty cup.

I bent to the fridge for the cardboard container from Silk Thai Delights— Rahd Nah with chicken, excellent— and stuck it in the microwave. What’s up, Royce? Got insomnia?

The little twist of his mouth and lift of one shoulder were easy to interpret by now.

Your folks called?

Yeah. Making sure I was still flying down for the holidays.

And checking up on him, in ways I didn’t understand because he always took those calls off in private, but which left him tense and unhappy. You’re flying an overnight red-eye on Christmas Eve to be there. Isn’t that enough for them?

He shrugged again. Mom worries. She has anxiety issues.

I didn’t think that was the whole story. It was the calls from his dad that always wound him up worse. But he’d never talked about it with me, and nagging him at midnight before an exam wasn’t the way to change that. I pulled out my food, dumped it on a plate, and grabbed two forks. Our little table was in a corner, so we sat at right angles to each other. I pulled out my chair, set down the plate, and handed him the second fork.

He turned it over, looking at me. What’s this for? I ate.

For stealing bits of my chicken. I waved the first big forkful at him and practically inhaled the spicy, broccoli, eggy, not-pizza goodness. This way I keep your fingers out of my food.

I would never. But a smile curved his lips, a big improvement.

You would always. Use the fork.

He stabbed a chunk of the chicken and held it to his mouth, licking the sauce off it, eyes distant. Even though he clearly wasn’t even thinking about me, I had to tear my eyes away from his tongue, doing that curve thing— Are you ready for tomorrow? It was a dumb question, but all my tongue-fixated brain could come up with.

He popped the bite into his mouth. Sure. So are you. He sighed. Hard to believe we’re just weeks away from the end of the term.

Have you decided what you’re doing, afterward? I had my plans laid out. Pass the NREMT exams, apply for a job, work for a couple of years as an EMT, save some money, then go back to get full paramedic certification… assuming I could get a job, and didn’t spill coffee on the interviewer, fall over my feet, and convince them I’d be a disaster out in the field.

But Royce wouldn’t talk about life beyond the certification exam. Not even whether we’d still share an apartment. Of course, if I got a job across town, I’d have to move anyway. I really hated having things so uncertain, and hated worse that my time with Royce might be measured in those same few weeks. Being a grown-up sucks. A year ago, I was in high school, with no bigger worries than whether I’d get the grades for community college, and whether my cousin would borrow my car and leave a joint in it again.

A year ago, I sat at the table looking at Mom, Aunt Kristi, whichever of my three stupid cousins actually made it to a meal, and the walls of the trailer. Dreaming of escape. For all the uncertainty, this was miles better. Including the scenery.

Royce rubbed a hand down his face. We have to pass first, right?

It was an evasion, but one I was used to by now. For a fun-loving, outgoing guy who made friends easily, Royce didn’t share important stuff with anyone. Not even me.

I ate fast, scraping the last bits of sauce and noodles off the plate into my mouth. So good, I mumbled around the last mouthful. Thank ’ou.

No problem. He stared down into his mug, turning it in his hands like there might be the answer to his worries there.

After I washed my plate, I came and took the mug out of his hands to set in the sink. He was a year older than me, graduated late due to how much he’d moved around following his dad in the military, but sometimes I felt like the older one, like I needed to wrap him up and protect him. And I didn’t even know from what. There’s no tea leaves in that, I said. You won’t learn your fortune. Come on, bed time. Wouldn’t want to turn ugly from lack of beauty sleep.

He jolted, as if his mind had been far away, and laughed. Heaven forbid. He stood up, reached over and vigorously rubbed my short-cropped hair. I might end up dishwater-blond instead of a stunning brunette.

I grabbed his wrist and twisted, trying to pin him, but despite the judo class I’d once taken at the Y, he knew a lot more self-defense than I did. He said his dad had him in karate practically before he could walk. I snarked, Blonds have more fun— but the last part became a yelp as he swung me against the counter and tickled my ribs.

I’m hotter than any blond. Say it. He pinned my wrists in one hand, and jabbed a thumb in my side. Say it.

You should go blond— Yikes! Uncle, okay, uncle. You’re gorgeous.

I’m perfect. His breath fanned my neck.

You’re— I tipped sideways as he suddenly let go. I had to grab the counter to stay upright. You’re a jerk.

But a perfect one. His eyes had regained some of their brightness.

Out of the mouths of jerks. Talking about his mouth was a bad move, because it took my attention to his parted lips. I had to pivot, pretending to set the toaster straight on the counter, till my heart rate settled. When I turned back, he’d started washing his mug, not looking at me either.

We really should get some sleep, he said, running the water full blast. I’ll see you in the morning.

Okay. I lingered in the doorway, as he made really sure there wasn’t a speck of cocoa in the bottom of the mug. I don’t have to work after. I told Lori I’d go bowling with the gang. Want to car pool?

Sure. He set the mug in the drainboard and looked up. There was an easy smile on his face, like we hadn’t just had an awkward moment. Maybe the awkward was all on my side.

Running first thing? We’d made a habit from day one of getting up and getting in a run before school. EMTs needed to be fit, and his determination versus my