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No bolt of thunder followed. In fact, saying those words aloud felt fine. So I added a few more. “I’m going to apply for a part-time post in ED. And explore a non-training route for a while. Until I know what I want to do. But… but it won’t be cardiac surgery.”
Her eyes narrowed like she was about to unleash a lecture on keeping my elbows off the table or to apply more deodorant. But it wasn’t forthcoming. Inside, she replied with, “Have you spoken to anyone about this, Isaac? Michael might?—“
“Yes.” I cut her off. “I’ve spoken to some colleagues at work. More in touch with things than Michael and Dad. Training has changed, mum. Hospitals and life for junior doctors isn’t like Harley Street, or even like the NHS when Dad was younger. On some days, it feels like entering a war zone. And… and I’m not cut out to be the man fighting in the middle of it. Not sixtyhours a week, anyhow, and to the exclusion of everything else.” I recalled my conversation with Ezra, how I’d tried to explain, and he’d listened and understood and told me I was amazing whatever. “I… I want to treat the patient in front of me as best I can and then go home at the end of the day with the feeling I’ve done the best I can with the shite tools I’ve been given. No exams, no competitive interviews, no shunting from department to department every six months. I’m not the man for it.”
“Everyone feels like that after working so hard for a big exam. All you need is a holiday, and you’ll be right back in the swing of things.”
“No. I don’t. I’ve… I’ve felt this way for a long time.”Forever, actually.
“But… but what if you change your mind?”
“Then I’ll launch back into it. But I don’t think I will.” I pictured Luke on his last day, still furiously scratching at his patchy wisps of hair. Fragile. Too thin and dead-eyed. “I need to have a life outside of medicine. In a way that Dad didn’t. I think… I think that’s more important to me than a glittering career.”
“Oh.” Her gaze turned back to her coffee. “I see.”
“And you should probably know that I’m gay.” Why drop one bombshell when you could drop two?
“Yes, I know that,” she answered dismissively.
As a coming-out moment, it was… unremarkable. We sipped in silence, and I wondered why I hadn’t slipped it into conversations years ago.
“Is that what this is all about, Isaac? Because there are plenty of successful gay surgeons. They just keep it under wraps. That chap who used to come to our Christmas parties… Stephen something, one of your father’s medical school friends. He thought he hid it, of course, but everyone knew, even if they pretended they didn’t, and it didn’t stop him becoming?—“
“Being gay has nothing to do with it.” My fingers fidgeted with the paper napkin, pulling the thin layers apart like they might reveal a fuller, more coherent response hidden inside. Or, written in Ezra’s small, neat hand, the hackneyed three words he texted me whilst I’d sat the exam, which never felt hackneyed at all when Ezra said them. Even less so followed by a picture of him and Jonty both sticking their tongues out over their breakfast cereal. It was the first message I’d opened on walking out of the exam hall. Despite randomly guessing at the answers to the last set of twenty questions, I’d found myself grinning from ear to ear.
“And… and… I’m in a relationship,” I blurted. “With Ezra. I… I thought you should know.”
CHAPTER 26
EZRA
When I vowed we wouldn’t go back to our flat, I’d meant every word. So Jonty and I moved in with Carly’s folks until I found something better. Jonty claimed the tiny bed in the tiny back bedroom, and I made friends with the lumpy sofa in the lounge. I knew full well everyone thought I was an idiot and I should have stayed at Isaac’s, and perhaps they were right. As Carly adroitly pointed out, in between Braxton-Hicks, not only was I cutting off my own nose off to spite my face, I’d also taken a knife to my ears, plucked out my eyes, and sliced my sharp tongue into bits.
But I wouldn’t let my boy suffer. As much as he adored the splendour of Isaac’s flat, he was also perfectly content mainlining sugar and watching endless repeats ofFlog It!at his grandparents’ gaff. Hopefully, for the sake of his teeth and my back, it would only be for a week or two. At the weekend, I’d agreed we’d make ourselves at home at Isaac’s.
Anyhow, two days in, and Jonty was distracted by an absolute butterball of a new addition to the family: an eleven-pound whopper of a baby boy (thank fuck) whom Carly and Dave christenedPaxon. Ah, well, you can’t have everything.
Four days in, and I had a crick in my neck and incipient sciatica. After school, Jonty arranged to have tea at Faizan’s house to brag about his new baby, and then he was spending the night at Carly’s to verify Mrs Unwin’s remarks regarding Paxon’s kneecaps, under the guise of being ‘helpful’. Which meant I had a free night over at Isaac’s. And, with the exam behind us in the rear-view mirror, no need to make it an early one.
“David Trethowan has just been on the phone,” he said, after I let myself in and located him in the kitchen, preparing dinner. I placed a cheap bottle of plonk on the worktop next to him and his mouth lifted in small smile. Today it was the turn of his hair, damp from the shower and curling at the edges, to take my breath away.
“That isn’t the high-level foreplay you think it is, babe.” I kissed his nose, then took his hand in mine and pushed it down the front of my jeans and onto my dick. “But if you think that exam was hard, then....”
Isaac snorted. “You had a stiffy on the way over! I’ve got the text right here to prove it!” Regardless, his palm curled around me. “Aren’t you interested in what David Trethowan wants?” He gave me a couple of teasing, gentle pulls, exactly how I liked it.
“Can it wait ten minutes?”
Predictably, he snorted again and gave another couple of tugs. “Ten minutes? Shall I hold you to that?”
To be honest, even four was probably ambitious. I cradled Isaac’s jaw, kissing his mouth as he got a rhythm going. For someone not too sure about his bedroom skills, Isaac had become pretty adept. If we hadn’t seen each other for a few days, he could get me hosing out in less time than a pot of tea needed to stew, and we both knew it.
“You do know three out of ten men have a problem with premature ejaculation, don’t you?” he mumbled around my busy tongue.
“Yeah. The rest of us just don’t care.” I thrust up into his hand. “Do I look like I’m suffering?”
My balls tightened; Isaac was going to need plenty of that kitchen roll from the worktop behind him. “Those aren’t tears wetting your hand, sunshine.”
I moaned happily. In a minute, after he’d taken the edge off, I’d return the favour. On my knees. Giving him good blowjobs was currently my number one aim in life. In a delicious drag, his thumbnail grazed over my tip. Make that half a minute.
