Chapter Text
A patient is ranting at him and Whitaker is standing stock-still in the middle of the exam room like an idiot. He stares at the man in front of him—older, white, affluent, complaining of shortness of breath, not serious but he’s making it worse by yelling—and stares blankly.
“Sorry, sir, what did you just say?” Whitaker says.
The man turns a deeper shade of red at the question. “I said, if I wanted to wait all goddamn day to see a doctor, I’d go to a walk-in clinic! This is an emergency room, for God’s sake! Why isn’t anyone acting like this is an emergency?”
Between them, Whitaker puts up his gloved hands in what he hopes is a placating gesture.
“I understand your frustration and I assure you that our team did everything they could to make sure you were seen as soon as possible. Now, if you’d please sit—“
“Ha! I’ve been sitting on my ass out there for six hours—“
Whitaker presses his fingers to his brow. He really wants to circle back to something the patient said before he really got going, but he’s not making it easy to get a word in edgewise.
“I’m really sorry to stop you, sir,” Whitaker says, “but what did you say just now about a doctor who works here?”
The man throws up his hands. “Were you listening at all, son? I said, I don’t know why I even stayed after I saw one of your doctors riding a goddamn motorbike! Christ, when I saw that, I should have turned around and taken myself to Presbyterian. Now I find out he’s in charge of this goddamn place? As if I’d trust my health to a doctor who rides one of those death traps without a helmet! You know, most doctors call them donorcycles for a reason.”
So Whitaker heard correctly the first time. Across from his patient, he stands unnaturally still.
“You saw one of our physicians riding a motorcycle without a helmet?” he repeats.
“Are you deaf, boy? That’s what I said,” the patient insists. He jabs a thick finger in the direction of Whitaker’s shoulder. “That one there. The tall bastard in the green jacket.”
Whitaker knows before he even looks who he’s going to see, but he turns anyway. The man’s accusing finger points at Dr. Robby standing in front of the central desk, trading banter with Dana while looking up at the board. Whitaker goes hot and then cold in the space of a second. It was less than three hours ago that they treated a motorcyclist who was dead on arrival. What had Dr. Robby said then? Yeah, but I wear my helmet. Through the window he’s smiling at Dana, laughing at one of her wisecracks, crow’s feet deep around his eyes. His chipper attitude has been going since about nine this morning and feels fundamentally at odds with the chill currently running down Whitaker’s spine.
He turns back to the man in front of him. Absently he wonders how long this man has been sitting in the waiting room that he saw Dr. Robby arrive for his shift this morning. Thinking of Mel and her lava lamp app, Whitaker takes a deep breath and imagines orange blobs of melted wax suspended in glycerine.
“Mr. Adams, sir, if you’d take a seat, I can get started with your assessment.” Whitaker’s voice sounds unnaturally calm, especially after all his patient’s blustering. “You said your primary concern was shortness of breath?”
🩺
After Mr. Adams has been sent home with a prescription and instructions to avoid vigorous exercise for the next few days, Whitaker strips off his gloves, disposes of them in the trash, and darts into the staff break room. He finds it mercifully empty. It’s just him and the sound of the coffeemaker sputtering burnt coffee into the carafe as he leans against the counter and stares into the sink.
Dr. Robby has been weird all day. Everyone’s noticed it. He started his shift grump as all fuck, unnecessarily rude first to the new attending sent over from the VA and then to Langdon, who was banished to Triage within twenty minutes of his grand return to work. Then somewhere along the line Dr. Robby’s shitty attitude gave over to good humor so noticeable that people have started giving each other looks behind his back. The transition is so sudden that Whitaker finds himself completely unable to get a read on him. For weeks Dennis has been dreading Robby’s last day—for reasons he does not want to introspect about, thank you very much—but at no point did he imagine he’d spend their last shift together wondering where the hell Robby’s good mood came from and monitoring him for signs that he’s about to do something he’ll regret.
As if a solo road trip across the country for three months wasn’t already a cry for help. Everyone is worried about it but almost no one is brave enough to question it to Robby’s face. The only people who dare comment are Dana and the old Jewish lady who came in for treatment for burns. Damn near everyone in the ED heard her call Robby’s motorcycle adventure a midlife crisis. What should she do if she knew that Robby wasn’t even wearing a helmet when he rides?
Whitaker opens the cabinet, retrieves a glass, and fills it from the tap. He chugs it even though the water at PTMC always tastes slightly metallic then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
On one hand, it’s just a helmet. Whitaker might be making a big deal out of nothing. Robby might have forgotten it today and just lied to get everyone off his ass during his last shift. Then again…
Then again, Robby has been uncharacteristically fun for much of the shift, trading almost-flirtatious barbs with Dr. Al-Hashimi and gossiping with Santos in plain view of colleagues and patients. Dennis doesn’t like it. On his first day in the Pitt, Dana had told Robby that good humor is a sign that he’s not doing well—and Robby is a goddamn ray of sunshine today. Now the knowledge that he’s lying to everyone about how seriously he takes bike safety sits in Dennis’ stomach heavy as a stone. Whitaker isn’t a psychiatrist, but he is a mandated reporter, and he knows that sudden, reckless, upbeat behavior is a red flag. If it were anyone else he might ignore it and chalk it up as pre-vacation good vibes, but he doesn’t have that luxury, not with Dr. Robby. He hasn’t forgotten PittFest. The sound of Robby’s frantic, tight breathing in Peds; the way he’d been unable to lift his head, like his panic attack was a physical burden holding him down. The look in his eyes when he finally lifted his chin was that of a wounded animal awaiting the killing blow. It was the look of a man who was deeply, deeply unwell.
Whitaker isn’t Robby’s keeper—hell, he isn’t even his friend—but he’s been keeping an eye on him since then. That his patient saw Robby ride to his last day of work on his bike without the helmet he swears up and down that he wears is a red flag big enough to be used by a matador.
Whitaker fills the glass again, chugs another eight ounces, and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes.
Is this how Santos felt that first day working with Langdon, seeing things that no one else did, wondering if raising the alarm is worth the risk of being known as the girl who cried wolf? The feeling in Whitaker’s stomach is both heavy and hollow all at once, a contradiction so unpleasant he wishes he could lay on the shitty linoleum tiles and have floor time like Mel likes to do when she’s overwhelmed.
The sound of the door opening startles him out of his spiral.
Langdon stands in the doorway, his hand frozen on the handle. Whitaker straightens his spine and sets the glass down in the sink, hoping he doesn’t look as pallid and clammy as he feels.
“You busy?” Langdon says.
“No.” Dennis shakes his head. “No, just getting some coffee.”
He makes a show of filling a paper cup from the carafe, even though he’s so jittery that consuming caffeine might actually trigger a major cardiac event. He’s not avoiding Langdon, just buying time so he doesn’t blurt out something like Hey, I know you just got back from rehab but do you think our boss-slash-pseudo-daddy is going to kill himself?
Behind him, Langdon scuffs his shoe against the floor. “Can I borrow you a sec? Got a weird one you might be able to help with. There’s this girl with false lashes and superglue—“
“Yep,” Dennis says, cutting him off with a nod. “Sounds fun. Lead the way.”
🩺
After Whitaker has given his second opinion on the girl’s eyelash—he suggests cutting the lashes as well, which makes her open eye well up with tears—Langdon decides to apply another coat of mineral oil and see if that makes any difference. Whitaker hangs back by the curtain and watches as Langdon gently applies the oil to the girl’s lashes and demonstrates how to rub it in to hopefully break up the adhesive. His bedside manner, Dennis must admit, is excellent. He speaks slowly and clearly and emphasizes that there will be no permanent damage either way; the most important thing is getting her eye open so she can get back to her party in time for fireworks.
Whitaker can easily imagine Langdon with his kids at home, talking to them with the same gentle, reassuring tone.
Behind his back, Whitaker shifts his weight uncomfortably. Though he’d never let Santos hear him say it, Langdon is a fucking excellent doctor. He’s made mistakes and can be cruel and catty when cornered, but ninety percent of the time he’s sharp as a tack and considerate too, particularly with their youngest patients and their frightened parents. If it weren’t for the stress that it caused Santos, Langdon’s return would have been a relief to Whitaker. With Robby headed out the door, it’s good to have a senior resident who knows the ways of the Pitt back on the team.
“I’m going to give this another fifteen minutes,” Langdon is saying, when Dennis tunes back in. “If the adhesive doesn’t start to break down by then, we’re going to have to think about cutting the lash.”
“But then my eyeball will be bald, what if it doesn’t grow back—”
“Don’t worry, it won’t leave any permanent damage, and the hair will grow back within a month or two. Until then, you can definitely wear false lashes, but only with cosmetic-grade adhesive, okay?”
In the time he’s stood here, Whitaker has watched not once but twice as people round the corner towards the triage beds, see Langdon, and turn right back around like he’s a leper or carrying active TB. The first one was Trinity (unsurprising, especially given the bitch of a day she’s had, and it’s not even noon) and the second was Robby. He came around the corner, tablet in hand, looking like he was about to ask a question, but as soon as he laid eyes on Langdon’s back he turned on his heel to return the way he came.
Not before catching sight of Whitaker hovering over Langdon’s shoulder, though. That had earned Dennis the slightest lift of an eyebrow over the thick frames of Robby’s glasses, but he was gone before Dennis could dart over and explain himself.
Langdon stands from the stool, which squeaks as he rises.
“Okay,” he says, addressing Dennis. “Sorry to drag you over for that. I thought a second set of eyes, no pun intended, might help me see something—okay, pun intended that time—I didn’t before.”
Whitaker concedes a smile. “No worries. I just got chewed out for ten minutes by a guy that’s been waiting to be seen since like seven this morning. This was a nice break.”
They leave the girl in the curtained-off triage area, holding an oil-soaked pad to her eye.
“Yikes,” Langdon says, as they walk. “What was he so pissed about?”
“Other than waiting for six hours to be seen?”
“Fair enough.”
As they head towards the central desk, it occurs to Whitaker that he’s currently with one of the only other people in the hospital that has ever been close to Robby. Just before they enter Dana’s eyeline and inevitably get assigned the grisliest case on the board, Whitaker reaches out and taps Langdon on the shoulder.
Langdon turns. “What’s up?”
Whitaker jerks his head towards the door of the break room. “Do you have a minute?”
“Uh, sure.”
They get lucky again—it’s still empty. While Langdon wanders over to the sink to wash out a mug and pour himself another cup of coffee, Whitaker sinks down into one of the shitty plastic chairs around the round table with the shitty plastic veneer. When he doesn’t say anything immediately, Langdon looks over his shoulder at him.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” Whitaker nods, though he doesn’t feel convinced. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“This isn’t about the patient getting pissed at you, is it? I figured you’d have had plenty of that by now.”
“No, that was fine. Believe me, I’ve had so much worse.”
The empty chair scrapes against the linoleum as Langdon pulls it out and sits. He cradles his coffee between his hands.
“So what’s up?”
For a brief moment, Whitaker considers how strange this is. He barely knows Langdon; they worked together for one day before he was put on leave for stealing benzos from the hospital’s supply. But Langdon is the ur-Whitaker—everyone has made that pretty damn clear, that Whitaker has taken Langdon’s rightful spot as Robby’s protégé—so they have something in common, right?
The veneer on the tabletop is peeling at the edge and he picks at it with his thumbnail. “Have you noticed, uh, anything off with Dr. Robby today?”
Across the table, Langdon’s eyebrows shoot up. He stares at Whitaker for a second, scoffs, then sits back in his chair.
“I mean, more than usual,” Dennis clarifies.
“I dunno, Whitaker, you’re the one who’s been all buddy-buddy with him for the last ten months. I don’t know if I’d be able to recognize his ‘normal’ anymore.”
Dennis winces. When he doesn’t take the opportunity to make a dig, Langdon sits forward a little and studies him.
“Is this about me? Because you and everyone else has noticed that Robby won’t be caught dead in the same room as me. I saw him pretending to tie his shoelace earlier to hide from me under a desk.”
At that, Whitaker can’t help himself. He snorts.
“Yeah,” Langdon says, gesturing fervently at him. “Yeah, that’s what I said, too. Fuckin’ childish.”
“It’s not about you,” Whitaker says. He lifts his eyes from the peeling tabletop. “And for what it’s worth, the way he’s treating you is bullshit. You put in the work and now you’re back. God knows we need you.”
“Not what I expected to hear from Dr. Santos’ best friend.”
Dennis shrugs. “She has her own feelings about it. The way I look at it, everyone deserves a second chance. If they didn’t, I would’ve gotten sent home as soon as I killed my first patient.”
Langdon sips his coffee and sets the mug down with a soft clunk. He studies Dennis for a long moment. “I appreciate that, man.”
Dennis fiddles with the fraying wrist strap of his watch. He really should replace it sometime.
“It’s just something the patient said earlier,” he starts. “About Dr. Robby.”
“Something a patient said? About Robby?”
“You know how we got that car vs. motorcycle crash earlier? The driver was okay, but the biker was DOA?”
Langdon nods.
“Well, everyone was giving Robby shit about it, saying it was a sign to rethink his trip, but he kept saying it’s fine because he takes safety seriously and the dead guy didn’t. Then I was treating my patient, the guy who sat in the waiting room all morning, and he said he saw Robby riding into the parking lot without his helmet. He said it was strapped to the back of his bike. He only brought it up to make a point about how he should’ve gone to Presby, because ‘Over there, their doctors aren’t trying to kill themselves on their way to work.’”
Langdon says nothing. He brings his hand to his mouth and chews on his thumbnail.
“I know how it sounds,” Whitaker says, laying his hands flat on the table between them. “It’s just a helmet, whatever. But I just—I have a bad feeling about it. Why would he lie about that?”
“Because he has three months of vacation starting tomorrow and he doesn’t want trouble before he heads out?”
Whitaker shifts in his seat. “I guess.”
Langdon squints at Whitaker. He drops his hand from his mouth. “What are your instincts telling you?”
“I don’t know.” Whitaker lets out a defeated sigh. “I really don’t. That’s why I’m asking you. Robby isn’t— he’s not exactly an open book. You’ve known him a lot longer than me. Do you think we should be worried?”
“I dunno, man.” Langdon folds his arms across his chest. “I was really worried about him last year, I won’t lie. Even when he’s being an asshole, I still care about him. But if he says he’s getting help and he’s doing better, I want to believe him. Maybe this whole midlife crisis roadtrip is a sign that he’s finally finding a life outside of this place.”
Whitaker chews the inside of his lip. “Yeah. Maybe you’re right.”
“Listen, Whitaker,” Langdon, sighing and sitting forward in his chair, “you’re a good doctor. You have good instincts. Everyone says so. If you think something is off, maybe you should talk to him about it. I have a feeling that you stand a better chance of getting him to listen than anybody else.”
Jesus, Whitaker thinks, pressing his palm to his forehead. That is not what he wants to hear. He doesn’t want this to be on him. Sitting across from Langdon, the prodigal son, he understands suddenly the weight that being Dr. Robby’s golden boy put on him. It’s one thing to have a mentor; it’s entirely another to be mentored by a man whose refusal to look after himself places the burden on everyone around him to make sure he’s not going to do something insanely stupid like die in a motorcycle accident.
“Yeah, I guess,” Whitaker says. He pushes back his chair and moves to stand. “Thanks, man.”
From his seat, Frank looks up at him and nods. “Anytime.”
🩺
For the next few hours, Whitaker is tied up in the increasing chaos of the ED, pulled from McKay’s PCOS patient to Javadi’s peritonitis case that nearly ends in the morgue. He manages to steal five minutes to grab a hot dog from the food truck and shove it in his face when he’s promptly interrupted by Robby, who dresses him down for his friendship with Amy (yikes), asks to house-sit (double yikes), and leaves with the most ominous statement he could have possibly made (triple, quadruple, quintuple yikes).
And if I don’t come back, you’ll have a swingin’ bachelor pad!
Said like it was funny. Like it was cute. Like it didn’t make Whitaker’s stomach fall out of his ass. That is, of course, the precise moment that Dr. Al-Hashimi steps in to ask about her CPR mannequin, giving Robby the perfect chance to escape, and all Dennis can only offer is a muttered noise of acknowledgement before slipping out the door after him.
In the chaos of the central area, Robby has already disappeared. Whitaker puts his hands on both sides of his head and hears his heartbeat rushing in his ears. Mercifully, like an angel sent from heaven, Santos enters his frame of view. Dennis makes a beeline to her side and matches her stride.
“Not a good time, Huckleberry—“ she starts.
“We need to talk,” he says lowly.
She sighs, loud and annoyed. “Look, if this is about earlier, I’m not actually mad at you. I’m having the day from hell—“
“Trinity,” Whitaker says, stopping in his tracks.
She skitters to a halt two steps ahead of him and turns, her half-ponytail flipping behind her.
“We need to talk,” he repeats, giving her a look. “Somewhere private, ideally?”
The look on her face morphs. It’s subtle enough that anyone else might not have noticed, but he sees the moment her expression shifts from irritation to concern. Her eyes flick to the handicapped restroom beside them. She glances at him; he nods.
The door to the handicapped restroom swings open then squeaks shut as Dennis slams it and flips the lock. Santos leans against the sink, arms crossed over her chest, while Whitaker paces across the small, enclosed space.
“Is this about Amy?”
Dennis looks over at her. “What?”
“Look, I’m sorry, but Robby was grilling me about our living situation. I didn’t mean to tell him about her and I know it’s not great that he thinks you’re dating a patient, but what else was I supposed to say? I couldn’t exactly say no, Whitaker’s actually a flaming homosexual who’s too nice to say no to a grieving widow.”
“I’d prefer it if you just called me a faggot,” Dennis mutters, then pinches the bridge of his nose. His hands smell nauseatingly like hand sanitizer. “No, it’s not about Amy. Well, I guess it is a little bit, because that’s what I thought Robby wanted to talk to me about, but then he basically backed me into a corner and asked me to house-sit for him while he’s on sabbatical and I couldn’t really say no so I think I just agreed to live in Robby’s house for three months.”
“Sorry, you’re gonna have to run that by me one more time. He did what?”
“Asked me to house-sit for him. Not really the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“I thought that was it, and that’s already weird enough, but then he got this weird look on his face and said that it’s mine if he doesn’t come back.”
“What?” Trinity blinks rapidly. In the fluorescent light of the restroom, she suddenly looks very pale. “Were those his exact words?”
“Uh, no? Not really. It was kind of a blur.”
“This is important, Den. What exactly did he say?”
Dennis squeezes his eyes shut, forcing his memories to come together in the right order. “He asked me to house-sit for him as a favor,” he recites. “He said he was going to ask Abbot but he can’t because Abbot—that’s a sidebar, not important. Then he told me the rules: no smoking, parties, pets, babies—“
“You don’t have a baby.”
“That’s what I said. He means Amy’s.”
“Wow, he really does think you’re fucking.”
“Anyway,” Dennis says, his stress level and volume rising by the second, “He said it would help me save on rent, and then he laughed and said ‘Hey, and if I don’t come back, you’ll have a swingin’ bachelor pad.’”
Trinity leans back against the sink and bends over, arms folded across her abdomen, and lets out an undignified and frankly miserable-sounding groan. Under her breath, she mutters a colorful series of curses. She looks like Dennis feels—like the weight of the world just landed on her shoulders. As much as he hates involving her in this, he’s glad that she’s here.
When she straightens up, it’s with a look of resolve on her face that he recognizes from when she has to face the difficult family members of her most vulnerable patients or kill the big spiders in their shared shower.
“You need to find Dr. Abbot.”
Dennis blinks. “Don’t you think I should find Caleb, or call Kiara, I know she’s off, but—“
“When has Kiara ever helped him?” Trinity interrupts. “She’s great at her job, she really is, but if she could have helped him she would have already. We both know Dr. Abbot is the only one who has any kind of influence over him.”
She’s right, of course.
“We’re both going to take thirty seconds to breathe, and then you’re going to go out there and find Dr. Abbot before he leaves. Then you’re going to tell him that Dr. Robby is showing clear signs of suicidal ideation and you think he has a plan.”
Hearing the words spoken out loud is the emotional equivalent of an avalanche crashing down on top of Dennis and flattening him where he stands. Before, he could tell himself that he was being paranoid. Talking to Santos has made it real.
“The phrasing is important, Den. You need to tell him that Robby has a plan.”
“Shit,” Dennis mutters. Then, louder: “Shit. Oh my god. Oh my fucking god, Trin, our boss is going to kill himself. Robby is going to kill himself.”
Trinity steps away from the sink and moves towards Dennis. She places both hands on his upper arms, squeezing lightly. Her touch, so rarely given, is unfamiliar but instantly steadying.
“Not if you don’t find Abbot in the next five minutes,” she says. “Look, Den, this really fucking sucks, but this is your chance to intervene before something really, really bad happens. Giving you the keys to his place is a cry for help. You’re a doctor now. Help him.”
“Yeah.” Dennis breathes in deep and shakes his shoulders like that will dislodge the abject panic rising up in his throat. “Yeah, okay. I got this.”
Trinity gives him a small, sad smile, which is honestly more comforting than anything anyone has offered him today. She nods again, lips pursed together.
“And I got your back. Always do.”
🩺
He finds Abbot. The night shift attending is halfway out the doors to the ambulance bay, backpack slung over his shoulder, when Whitaker sprints after him and grabs him by the bicep. Abbot doesn’t even manage to ask what he wants before Whitaker dragged him into the smoking area outside.
He already looks tired and a bit gray after the events of the SWAT raid and his face only gets stormier as Whitaker relates the details of his conversation with Robby. Behind them, the hulking, shiny black mass of Robby’s motorcycle looms like the Grim Reaper. Under Abbot’s stare Whitaker feels himself shrinking by the second but he forces himself to get it all out. When he’s done, he looks down at the toes of his boots and scuffs them against the sidewalk.
A nice pair of Blundstones. Expensive, something Dennis could never afford on his own. Dana and Robby went in on them together as a graduation/start-of-residency gift.
“I wasn’t sure if I should make a big deal out of it,” he admits, “but Santos told me I should talk to you.”
Abbot eyes him. “You told Dr. Santos?”
“Yeah?” Whitaker says, uncertainly. “But only her, I promise.”
“Good,” Abbot replies. His backpack slips on his shoulder and he hitches it back up. “Who else knows about this?”
“No one, sir.”
Abbot nods. Whitaker wonders if this is what he looked like as a field medic, shutting down all feeling and just giving commands. Saving lives and saving emotions for later.
“Let’s keep it that way,” he says, then shoulders his backpack and strides back towards the doors to the Pitt.
Whitaker follows behind. “Sir, what should I—“
“You’ve done enough, son,” Abbot calls out.
Whitaker’s mouth opens. Turning just before the door, Abbot sighs and lays a firm hand on his shoulder.
“I appreciate what you’ve done for him, Dr. Whitaker, but you’ve done enough. You never should have gotten mixed up in this. You’re just a kid.” When Whitaker tries to protest, Abbot raises a hand between them. “I know, you’re an adult and a doctor to boot, but compared to him you’re a kid. He never should have put this on you. I’ve got it from here, okay?”
“Sir, I want to help—“
“And you have. I’ll let you know if there’s anything you can do, but right now, I need you to step back and let me handle this.”
Physically and mentally, Whitaker does. He takes a step back from Abbot and lets the hand slip off his shoulder. They both glance through the window in the door, into the chaos of the ED, seeking the same target that seems to be avoiding them both.
“I’ll find you at shift change,” Abbot says. “We’ll talk then.”
“Yes, sir.”
Abbot looks back at him, his usually jovial expression replaced with something so sad and serious that it makes Whitaker’s chest ache. How many times has Abbot had this conversation about Robby? With how many different people? Does it feel different this time?
When Dennis really thinks about it, he doesn’t want to know.
🩺
The rest of the day unfolds in front of Whitaker like a movie on a screen, like a cyclorama, like he’s frozen in place as the world turns around him. Helpless, he watches as Robby flits to and fro, refusing to be pinned down, flighty as man who knows there’s nothing and no one who can hold him back. With each passing hour the black hole of dread in the pit of Whitaker’s stomach gets bigger until it threatens to swallow him whole. At the end of their shift he watches, relieved and terrified all at once, as Abbot reappears and practically grabs Robby by the back of the neck before dragging him into an empty exam room and closing the door.
The resulting slam is so loud that half the nurses at the central station look up.
Donnie’s eyes widen. “What’s that about?”
Beside him, Princess and Perlah exchange a look and shrug. Dana eyes the closed door and the curtain yanked across it. In her face, Whitaker sees a hint of recognition. So he and Abbot aren’t the only ones who saw the signs.
“Nothin’ you need to know about,” she declares. She turns to face the rest of the day crew gathered around the central station, beleaguered by the long shift and waiting for their attending to give a final debrief on the day. “What are you people waitin’ for? Go on home before the night shift finds you still here. You know how they feel about loitering.”
Despite the warning to make themselves scarce, Whitaker lingers until the door reopens and Abbot stalks out, Robby in tow. Abbot’s face is like it was in the ambulance bay a few hours earlier—an expressionless mask, like a soldier marching into battle. Behind him Robby is uncharacteristically cowed, head down and shoulders rounded, like a man going to the gallows.
Whitaker steps forward, drawn to Robby as a moth to a light, but Dana puts her arm out to stop him. She looks at him over the frame of her glasses.
“Go home, Whitaker. We’ve got this.”
“But I… Abbot, he said—“
“We’ve got this,” Dana repeats, in a tone that brooks no argument. She turns and scans the room, her eyes lighting on Trinity still perched on a computer stool. “Dr. Santos! You can finish your charting tomorrow. You need to get this one home, okay?”
Trinity looks genuinely upset to be pulled away from her charting, but then she catches sight of Abbot scruffing Robby in the direction of the ambulance bay and beckoning for Dana to follow behind. Her backpack, already packed up and sitting by her feet, is hoisted on her shoulder as she strides over to where Dennis stands listlessly in the middle of the room.
“C’mon, Huckleberry,” she says, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Dennis can’t stop staring at the door leading to the ambulance bay.
“There’s got to be something I can do, Trin.”
Biting her lip, Trinity watches as Abbot and Dana bully Robby out of sight of the remaining day shift staff and onto the sidewalk beyond the door, which slams shut behind them. Dennis hopes one of them slashes Robby’s tires. Dana already looks like she’s ready for battle, heading out the door with her phone in her hand, looking at Abbot like she’s just waiting for a sign from him to make a call.
Dennis can only imagine who would be on the other end of that call—Caleb, Kiara, the Psych department, the cops, a rabbi. Anyone who can convince a man who wants to die that there are reasons he shouldn’t do it.
Failing that, someone who will lock him in a room and take away everything sharp.
Trinity squeezes Dennis’ shoulder gently. “I think we should let the adults take it from here, okay? Let’s go home.”
🩺
Whitaker doesn’t hear from Robby for a day, then two. Then it’s been three days and somehow then a week without so much as a word from him. The official line in the department is that he’s gone on his sabbatical as planned; only a handful of people know otherwise. Even Dennis is kept out of the loop. The only reason he doesn’t freak the fuck out is because of Dr. Abbot, who manages to find him during every shift change and drop hints that Robby isn’t dead or on an involuntarily psych hold upstairs.
“He hasn’t headed out yet,” Abbot says, the day after their conversation, giving Whitaker a meaningful glance as he hands over a tablet with patient info displayed on the screen. “I convinced him to sit tight for a few days. Needed to go over some stuff with him before he goes.”
At the end of the week: “He’s staying at mine over the weekend. We’re gonna talk on Monday, see if he still feels up to the trip.”
On Monday night: “Don’t freak out, kid, but he’s on the road.”
On Wednesday: “I’m making him text me a selfie every morning to make sure he’s wearing his helmet. You know, I don’t think he even knew his phone could take selfies before.”
That weekend: “He’s in West Virginia. Texted me a pic from a Tim Hortons. Who knew they have Tim Hortons in West Virginia?”
The shift after that: “I think he’s bored. He keeps calling me just to ‘chat.’ We’ve known each other since Clinton was president and he’s never done that.”
Later: “If you have a minute, you might text him. He won’t say it but I think he misses you guys.”
Eventually, after countless remarks that reassure Whitaker that Robby isn’t dead on the sidewalk under a tall building or on the side of the road somewhere, the knot of tension in his stomach starts to loosen. His abject terror for what Robby might do is replaced by reassurance that he did the right thing by calling in the cavalry.
The next development, which he earnestly doesn’t expect and then immediately feels guilty about, is that his feelings on the matter slowly curdle into resentment. Since Abbot gave Robby the all-clear to leave, Dennis spends most of his nights in Robby’s townhouse surrounded by Robby’s stuff. He cooks in Robby’s kitchen, cleans himself up in Robby’s waterfall shower, nurses Robby’s half-dead houseplants back to health. All the while he doesn’t hear a single word from the man himself. It starts to feel like Robby is a ghost haunting Whitaker from afar, making himself known in the scent of his laundry detergent clinging to Dennis’ clothes and the little comments from Abbot to reassure Dennis that Robby still with them.
For the sake of both of their mental health, he and Trinity implement regular dinners on Friday nights, during which they stuff their faces with takeout and binge-watch trashy reality TV. It’s good for them both. Good for Trinity to have him around and good for Dennis to get out of his Robby-themed prison. Between episodes of Traitors and Below Deck they talk, mostly Trinity venting about her hot-and-cold situationship with Dr. Garcia and Dennis nodding sympathetically with his mouth full of lo mein.
Finally, four weeks into Robby’s absence, he allows himself to confess what he’s been thinking deep down but unwilling to say out loud. With a few of Trinity’s homemade margaritas and a lot of Indian food in him, he sighs plaintively and makes that face that Trinity says looks like a sad hamster.
“Is it bad that I feel, like, kind of abandoned?”
To her eternal credit, Trinity doesn’t need to ask for clarification about what or who he’s referring to. She brings her mug to her lips and takes a long sip, filling the air with the fragrant scent of herbal tea.
“No, not really.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Mm.” Trinity eyes him over the rim of her mug. “I don’t say this to be mean, Huckleberry, but it’s worth considering that this is how the rest of us feel all the time.”
Dennis lifts his head from the back of the couch. “What?”
“Don’t play dumb, Den. You know you were his favorite. Probably still are, even though you 5150’d him.”
“I didn’t— whatever. ‘Favorite’ seems like a strong word.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Trinity doesn’t sound angry, just resigned. “Look, we all know Robby picks favorites, and he picked you a long time ago. He asked you to house-sit for him. You sleep in his bed.”
“Guest room,” Dennis corrects automatically.
Trinity raises her eyebrows.
“Not in his bed,” Dennis says. His face feels like it’s on fire. “That seemed…a little too far.”
She leaves that comment hanging in the air between him. Carefully she sets her mug down on the ottoman and turns to face him.
“Even before that, didn’t you notice you got as much face time with him as the rest of the med students combined? You’re the only one he never brushes off.”
The springs of the ancient couch squeak as Whitaker shifts his weight. His gut twists with a weird mix of emotions: pleasure at being Robby’s favorite, embarrassment that other people have noticed, guilt and shame for taking his attention from the others, misery that he won’t be Robby’s favorite for much longer, not with what he did. He feels like he should apologize—to Trinity, to Robby, to everyone—but he also knows that an apology wouldn’t make the situation any better.
“That last day, right before he left, I only had one one-on-one interaction with him that wasn’t about a patient, and you know who it was about?” Trinity asks. She doesn’t wait for Dennis to reply. “You. He asked me what it was like living with you and then got all weird when I said you spend a lot of time with Amy.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Santos draws her knees up into the couch and tucks her legs beneath her. “It’s not your fault, Huckleberry, but you should be aware of it. I mean, have you noticed it’s never a woman he takes under his wing like that?”
She shoots Whitaker a sidelong glance like she expects him to come to Robby’s defense, but he just slumps lower on the couch. He thinks of the running of the ED since Robby left—how carefully Dr. Al-Hashimi allocates her time to all her students and residents, how intentional she is with making sure they all have opportunities to learn and even show off a bit. He thinks of how many of those opportunities Dr. Robby gave to him and wondered who would have gotten them if he wasn’t there. His shoulders curve inwards like that will do something to protect him from the discomfort gnawing at his stomach.
“I’m sorry, Trin,” he says, feeling pathetic.
“Like I said, not your fault. Not really.”
“It kind of feels like it’s my fault.”
“Maybe a little.”
The silence stretches between them. Trinity reaches for her tea, but not before nudging Dennis’ thigh with her toe.
“Hey. I’m not saying you can’t be sad. I’m sorry for what you’re going through. It’s—it’s a lot.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“For what it’s worth, I think he’ll be grateful to you in the long run.”
Dennis lets out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, sure. I guess we’ll find out when he gets back.”
Neither of them consider that when, despite Abbot’s intervention and daily wellness check-ins, might still be if.
🩺
The call comes through near nine in the evening after a long shift. Dennis is engaged in the very serious task of rotting on the couch, scrolling through the TV menu to choose a new season of Survivor, when his phone buzzes. It’s half-buried under the blankets and throw pillows that cover the well-worn sofa in Trinity’s living room and he considers leaving it there to ring out—it’s probably spam anyway, a robot offering him an extended warranty on the car he doesn’t own or a scammer calling him about fraud charges on his debit card. (Have at it, he thinks; I’m in so much debt that I wouldn’t even notice if someone stole my card info.)
Sighing, Dennis pushes himself up from where he’s practically fused to the arm of the couch and fumbles for his phone. He extracts it from within the fuzzy depths of Trinity’s favorite blanket and nearly drops it right back in when he sees the name on the screen.
Incoming call from Michael Robinavitch.
His phone, already overheating from having been buried in blankets for an hour, sears his palm. Five weeks without so much as a text from Dr. Robby and now he’s calling? Dennis’ heart pounds in his chest as he imagines the reasons Robby might reach out, all of them bad. The most obvious answer, which occurs to him just as he swipes to accept the call, is that Dr. Robby is calling by accident and will be embarrassed when he realizes he called Dennis on his personal number. Dennis lifts the phone to his ear anyway, right before the call goes to voicemail.
“Dr. Robby?” he says, his voice echoing in the empty apartment. “Is everything okay?”
“Hey, kid. Wasn’t sure you’d pick up.”
The sound of Robby’s voice through the phone—amiable, almost warm—sends a shiver down his spine. It’s a bit too much to have Robby’s voice that close to his ear, so he holds the phone away from his face, puts it on speaker, and places it on his knee. Thank God Santos is picking up their dinner and not around to eavesdrop.
“Yeah, of course,” Dennis says, feeling stupid and slow. “Uh, what’s up? Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s okay here. Don’t worry about me.”
Dennis blinks. On the TV, a clip from the season plays: a contestant falling into the water after some kind of ridiculous endurance challenge involving bamboo poles and weights made out of coconuts. From the angle of the fall, it’ll almost definitely result in a shoulder dislocation. He reaches for the remote and presses mute, wondering if he somehow muted himself, too. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth as he fumbles for something to say.
“Oh. Um, that’s good.”
While Robby doesn’t respond immediately, it’s not silent on his end. Through the crackling of his phone’s speakers, Dennis makes out the sound of ambient chatter and furniture scraping across a hard floor. He even catches music in the background—something with more twang and steel guitar than he imagines Robby listens to in his free time.
“Where are you?” he ventures.
“Ah,” Robby says, more of a wordless noise of confirmation than anything else. “Roadside bar just south of Kansas City.”
“Yeah, I thought I heard Morgan Wallen.”
On the other end, Robby lets out a soft, amused huff of breath. “The beer’s cheap, so I won’t hold it against them.”
Roadside bar, beer, country music in the background. Dennis suddenly gets a clear image of Robby on the other end of the line: sitting in a vinyl-wrapped booth tucked in the corner of the bar, hunched over a table too low for his tall frame. Sunglasses on top of his head and Carhartt unzipped down his chest. Big hands wrapped around a sweating glass of beer. Not too inebriated that he can’t ride later, but just buzzed enough to—what? To call his mentee from several hundred miles away, the same kid who tried to have him put on an involuntary hold the last time they saw each other?
“How’s the trip—“ Dennis starts, at the same time Robby says, “I saw a road sign for Lincoln today.”
They both laugh at the overlapping sound of their voices. It eases the tension, if only by a little.
“Go ahead,” Robby says.
“No, you,” Dennis replies. “I was just gonna ask about your trip.”
A half-second pause, during which Dennis catches the telltale sound of pool balls clacking somewhere in Robby’s vicinity, then the sound of a heavy beer glass settling down on a wooden tabletop. He pointedly doesn’t picture what Robby looks like with a drink or two in him and a tan from riding his bike for nearly five weeks. He’s probably a little flushed in the cheeks and the freckles across the bridge of his nose must be more noticeable than usual.
“I saw a road sign for Lincoln today,” Robby repeats. “Didn’t you say that’s close to where your folks live?”
Dennis feels his face flush. He forgot he told anyone that.
“Uh, kinda,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, not really. I just said that ‘cause I thought it’d be the only place in Nebraska that people knew. It’s three and a half hours from Broken Bow.”
Again, that amused huff of breath from Robby’s end. “Hate to break it to you, bud, but I don’t think most people could find Lincoln on a map any better than they could find Broken Bow. The hell kind of name is that, anyway?”
Dennis shrugs, then remembers Robby can’t see him. “Some old story about a homesteader finding a Native American artifact and deciding it was a good omen that he should settle there. Probably not true anyway.”
“Ah, well.” After a pause: “Are you at my place?”
Dennis shifts awkwardly on the couch, feeling caught out. “Uh, no. I normally am, but I’m over at Trin’s tonight. Dr. Santos’, I mean.”
“I’m not trying to catch you out. I trust you’re taking good care of the place. Jack says you are. Anyway, it’s nice to hear you’re making time for something outside of work.”
Through the lull in conversation he hears music and a heavy clunk that sounds like Robby’s watch settling on the table. He wonders what he sounds like on Robby’s end. It’s eerily quiet in Santos’ apartment with the TV off and Trinity herself nowhere to be found. Dennis rubs a thumb over the seam of his sweatpants and wiggles his toes in his threadbare socks. Did Robby have a reason for calling him, or just to say that he saw a sign for Nebraska along the road? What is Whitaker meant to deduce from that? Is he allowed to ask? Dennis considers it and then promptly takes the coward’s way out.
“How’s the trip?” he asks again.
“Good. Great,” Robby says, his tone lifting. He sounds almost happy. “You wouldn’t believe the roadside attractions they have in the Midwest. Some real weird shit. Actually I guess you’ve seen ‘em, considering this is your part of the country.”
“I don’t know about that. Broken Bow doesn’t get many tourists. We don’t have much besides cows and Mormons.”
Robby’s answering laugh, a real chuckle this time, sends warmth rippling through Dennis from head to foot. He forgot how much he missed the sound of Robby’s actual laugh, not the fake one he uses to make people think he’s okay.
“No wonder you got out,” Robby replies.
Whitaker knows he’s not supposed to be happy with Robby—he should be worried, he should be resentful that he hasn’t gotten in touch—but it’s hard to be mad at him when he’s laughing softly into the phone like Dennis’ bad attempts at jokes are the highlight of his day.
“Listen, Whitaker, I—“
Robby starts and then stops just as abruptly. Dennis stares down at his screen. Ten minutes into the call and his poor, battered old phone is starting to heat up, burning his skin through the thick fabric of his sweatpants. He hears Robby take a deep breath and wonders at the fact that Robby sounds almost as nervous as he feels.
“I’ve had a lot of time to think,” Robby states. “On the road, I mean. I shouldn’t have… There’s a lot I shouldn’t have done. I got you mixed up in stuff you should never have been involved in.”
“No, Dr. Robby, it’s okay—“
“It’s not okay and we both know that,” he says firmly. “You’re my student and my employee, and I let our boundaries blur.”
On the couch, Dennis shifts uncomfortably. Sure, he’s wanted an apology from Robby for a while, but not for that.
“It was wrong of me to put that on you, and I’m honestly impressed with how you handled it. You set your feelings aside and thought like a doctor. A really fucking good one.”
“Well, I learned from the best,” Dennis offers weakly.
He can hear Robby’s sad smile through the phone. “You didn’t learn that from me, kid. Thank your roommate for that. That was a real Trinity Santos move, you know. She doesn’t let anyone slip through the cracks.”
“Oh.” Dennis sits up a little straighter. He wonders if Robby can hear the squeak of the couch springs beneath him. “So, uh, about you, your—“
“Jack has me doing daily check-ins. He wants photos to prove I’m being a good boy and wearing my helmet.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
Dennis blinks. He stares at Jeff Probst speaking mutely on his television—shell necklace bright against his leathery skin, which is kind of a weird visual to have alongside a conversation with Dr. Robby—so instead he looks upwards at the ceiling, at the trim peeling away from the top of the wall. A complicated mix of emotions swirls in his stomach; relief, apprehension, affection, anxiety.
“That’s— I’m really glad to hear that, Dr. Robby.”
“It’s not just you who wants to know I’m alive,” Robby says, wryly. He takes a sip of his beer; Dennis can hear him swallow. “Dana is on my ass about it. Jake too.”
“You’re talking to Jake?” Dennis asks, pleasantly surprised.
“Now and then, yeah. He’s obsessed with this website called Atlas Obscura. Keeps sending me links to weird shit I should stop at along the road. Did you know there’s a 42,000-square-foot portrait of Amelia Earhart in a field in her hometown?”
Dennis huffs out a laugh. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“You can’t even see it from the ground. You have to charter a plane. Now that’s a death trap.” There’s a pause as Robby sips his beer. “Hey, you know, he told me I should go to Nebraska. He wants a picture of Carhenge, you ever heard of it?”
“Yeah,” Dennis says, feeling the start of a smile on his face. “Yeah, I’ve been, actually.”
“Is it worth the trip?”
Dennis considers that. A few dozen abandoned cars arranged like Stonehenge and spray-painted a dull gray had been amusing when he was ten, but he’s not sure Robby will find it as entertaining. Still, Dennis recognizes an olive branch when he hears it—even secondhand.
“If Jake wants a picture, then yeah, I’d say so.”
Robby makes a wordless noise of agreement. Dennis imagines Robby crossing his home state on his motorcycle, gloved hands gripping the handlebars, strong thighs straddling the machine. His stomach twists. It’s then that he remembers what date it is and his upcoming plans and suddenly he’s speaking before he can stop himself.
“Hey, uh, I have a couple days off this weekend.”
“That’s…nice,” Robby replies, sounding confused by the shift in conversation.
“For a friend’s wedding back home,” Dennis clarifies. “Well, not back home exactly, not in Broken Bow, but— in Nebraska. The wedding’s in Omaha. Not that far north of Kansas City.”
For a moment Robby is quiet and Dennis wonders what the hell is wrong with him that he’s opening this particular door. What is he doing? Regretting his stupid big mouth and inability to stop himself from begging for Robby’s attention like a dog for scraps, Dennis takes a short, sharp breath to steady himself.
“I was just thinking, uh, if you’re passing through at the same time, if you want to grab a drink…”
He trails off and resists the urge to bang his head against the wall. He hears Trinity’s voice in his head: what the actual fuck, Whitaker? Nebraska is a huge state and Carhenge is on the opposite end of it Of course Robby’s not going to be just passing through. Even if he were, why would he want to see Dennis? He literally just said that he’s been too lax with setting boundaries between them. Then again, Robby is calling him out of the blue on a Friday night from a bar, so maybe Dennis isn’t that far off base.
“Send me the dates,” Robby says, cutting through Dennis’ clouded thoughts. “I’ll see if they line up. It’d be nice to see someone from the hospital. I’m starting to miss the chaos.”
Relief washes through Dennis, replaced quickly by anxiety at the realization of what he’s getting himself into. Did he just ask his boss out for drinks? In his home state? Hundreds of miles away from the workplace, from the reminders of who they are to each other and why they shouldn’t be fraternizing off-hours like they are right now?
He swallows hard. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
Another silence falls between them, interrupted by the groan of the geriatric couch under Whitaker’s weight and the squeak of Robby’s chair against the sticky floor of the bar.
“I ought to—“ Robby starts.
“Yeah, I—“ Dennis says, at the same time.
They both laugh. It would be a funny moment if Dennis’ stomach weren’t knotted up with all the emotions this conversation has stirred inside him.
“I’ll let you go,” Robby says. “It’s your night off, you probably have plans.”
“Oh, yeah, big night. A new season of Traitors UK just dropped. You have no idea how invested Trin gets in that show.”
“Oh, I can imagine it.”
Despite himself, Dennis smiles down at his phone. He runs his finger along the edge of it, feeling the heat of the screen bleed into his hand. “It was good to hear from you, Dr. Robby. Drive safe.”
“Talk to you soon, kid.”
The line goes dead, plunging Dennis into silence in the empty apartment. He stares blankly at the TV, which is currently running ads for a local car dealership, and wonders when Trinity will get home and what he could possibly say to explain the conversation he just had.
🩺
The next morning, Dennis pauses in front of his open locker and sends his itinerary to Robby. He’s not getting his hopes up. It had been an insane thing to suggest in the first place, and he’s halfway convinced that Robby only said he’d consider it to let him down easy. Anyway, Robby’s probably bored of the Midwest already, halfway to Canada by now just to get the hell out of the endless flat plains that used to cause prairie madness in the olden days. Whitaker is about to put his cell on ‘Do Not Disturb’ and shove both it and his thoughts of Robby deep into his back pocket, but then it buzzes with a message and he reflexively swipes it open.
Dr. Robby responded to his message with a thumbs up.
The day after that, Dennis checks his phone in the middle of his shift and sees a new notification above the staff update emails from PTMC and the regular group message chatter with the med students and residents.
New message from Michael Robinavitch.
Whitaker’s stomach flips. He glances furtively over both shoulders before tapping on the push notification.
The message is just a picture. Against an eye-watering blue sky and plain of lush grass is a familiar bright green sign with white letters reading “NEBRASKA … the good life.” The photo was clearly taken from Robby’s motorcycle pulled over on the side of the road, because the bike’s black-and-chrome handlebars are visible in the foreground. Amused, Dennis realizes it’s a live photo, which Dr. Robby almost certainly didn’t intend—he probably doesn’t even know his phone camera can capture different kinds of photographs. Dennis holds down on the picture to see what else it captured. His mouth goes dry when the camera pans down from the Nebraska state sign to Robby’s lap, presumably as he moved to put his phone back in his pocket. Dennis catches a glimpse of strong thighs covered in sun-bleached denim hugging the seat of his motorcycle like a bucking bronco. Below that, big leather boots with white stitching and heavy soles are planted in the dirt. The blood in Dennis’ body rushes south so fast he’s actually surprised that his vision doesn’t go spotty.
He lifts his thumb from the screen and stares at the green state sign marking the border of Nebraska. He’s never been this excited to see his home state. His hands are still shaking slightly as he types out his response.
[2:23 PM] Dennis Whitaker
nice pic boss
did u know nebraska is the indigenous word for “flat water”
bc of the platte river
Robby’s response arrives about an hour later, probably when he’s stopped for a bite to eat at some truck stop or roadside diner. Conveniently, that’s about the same amount of time it took for Whitaker to stop thinking about how good his boss’ thighs look in denim. Whitaker takes his phone out of his pocket as soon as it buzzes, earning a curious look from Santos on the other side of her computer.
[3:30 PM] Michael Robinavitch
Ha, thanks for the fun fact.
I’ll be in Omaha Sat/Sun. Let me know if you still want that drink. No pressure.
Dennis fights the urge to respond YES in all caps and instead types out a reasonable, measured confirmation of plans before shoving his phone back into his scrub pocket. Across from him, half of Trinity’s face is visible—specifically her eyebrows, which are raised nearly to her hairline.
“Anything you wanna share with the class, Huckleberry?”
“Nope,” Whitaker replies.
Santos keeps studying him. “You look pretty invested in whoever is texting you…”
“As if.” He slaps both hands on the counter, a move he’s picked up from Langdon. In Robby’s absence they’ve become something like friends. He looks up at the board, then at the inimitable charge nurse standing behind the desk. “What can I help with, Dana?”
🩺
To his credit, Whitaker manages to hold out for most of the day: he clings white-knuckled to the edge of his sanity through the rest of his shift, then through the evening as he joins the rest of the Pitt Crew for beers in the park, even through the interminable bus ride from the hospital to Robby’s place. Finally, once he’s arrived and locked the door behind him and changed out of his scrubs, Dennis lets himself reopen his text thread with Robby.
He shouldn’t look at the picture again but he does. He saves it in his camera roll so he won’t accidentally react to the message—God, can you imagine—and sinks low into the couch, looking at the breadth of Robby’s thighs around his bike and the slight glimpse of soft tummy beneath his unzipped Carhartt. Dennis himself isn’t small, he’s built like a corn-fed farm boy with the muscles to show for it, but Robby is big. Tall and broad and sturdy as a brick wall. If they sat next to each other Robby’s thighs would dwarf his own, just like his hands seem to swallow Dennis’ when he’s guiding him through a delicate procedure in the ED. He thought about the size difference during that final fateful conversation in the staff room, realizing that Robby had to hunch over and sprawl his legs out to fit in the same plastic chairs that fit Dennis’ smaller frame perfectly.
In the picture, Robby’s boots lurk in the periphery like some kind of omen.
Only when Dennis realizes he’s getting hard in his pajama pants does he feel compelled to move, getting up to shuffle shamefully into the guest room, where he locks the door behind him. He shouldn’t do this here—he shouldn’t do this at all, but especially not in Robby’s home—but he can’t resist.
A muffled whine escapes his throat as he thunks his head against the closed door and thinks about Dr. Robby and his stupid bike.
Crossing the room with awkward, hurried steps, Dennis falls backwards onto the queen-sized mattress of the guest bed. He has a hand shoved down the front of his pants the second he lands. He doesn’t look at the photo again because he doesn’t need to. At this point it’s seared into his memory; it’ll be there when he’s old and gray and in the memory wing. Dennis calls up the image of Robby straddling his bike as he eases the drawstring waistband of his pajamas down his hips, exposing the fish-pale skin of his lower belly and the curls of light brown hair underneath his navel.
He comes in three minutes flat, thinking about pressing his face to Robby’s dick through his jeans with one of Robby’s shins shoved between his thighs, rutting against those big leather boots.
🩺
Standing outside a bar in Nebraska, wearing a pair of jeans that Trinity says flatters his ass and a t-shirt with sleeves cropped for working on Amy’s farm, Whitaker wonders if he’s experiencing a vivid hallucination caused by lack of sleep and too much caffeine. It’s his first time back in Nebraska in eighteen months and it doesn’t feel quite real. He’s still two hundred miles from his hometown and didn’t even tell his family that he was in the state. (If he did, they would have demanded he visit, and he would have spent this morning at church instead of wearing a hole in Liz and Maria’s carpet with all his nervous pacing.) Now he’s standing outside a themed bar he’s never stepped foot in, caught halfway between Dennis who left Nebraska behind and Dr. Whitaker who returned to it, waiting for his boss to show up and see him in person for the first time in six weeks.
(And for the first time since you jacked off in said boss’ guest room thinking about humping his boots, Dennis’ id suggests, helpfully.)
Through the window of the bar he sees a group of overgrown frat boys looking up at a TV watching baseball. Scattered around are a few couples chatting over beers and shared baskets of fries. Just as Dennis is contemplating how long he can lurk outside without looking like a criminal, a familiar voice calls out to him.
“Whitaker!”
He turns. Striding down the sidewalk towards him is Dr. Robby, clad in the weatherworn Carhartt jacket from the photo and a pair of dark-wash jeans with the thighs bleached from sun exposure. His eyes are hidden behind round sunglasses but he’s smiling, his sharp canines showing beneath his beard.
“Good to see you, kid.”
Whitaker nods, mouth going dry as Robby’s hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes. He drops his eyes to the ground, takes in the sight of Robby’s black bike boots, and promptly snaps his eyes back up. Robby is looking down at him, his wide smile faded into something softer and more contemplative.
“Good to see you too, Dr. Robby,” he manages.
Robby glances in the direction of the bar, where a group of girls is spilling out the door, bringing excited chatter with them. “You wanna head in?”
Inside, the evening crowd is just beginning to pick up. It’s a quirky little bar with old-fashioned signs and knick-knacks on all the walls like a Cracker Barrel and an eclectic mix of chairs that appears to include an actual church pew. They place their orders at the bar—bourbon on the rocks for Robby, IPA from a Nebraska brewery for Dennis—and mutually decide to hunt for a table on the patio out back. Under trees wrapped in fairy lights, they settle down at a dark metal table with bright red chairs and the late-August air heavy and humid around them.
They’ve been sitting for fifteen seconds tops, just long enough for Robby to take a sip of his bourbon and sit back in his chair, when he tilts his head and studies Dennis.
“So,” he says, “the farm boy is back on the range.”
Dennis snorts. “Omaha’s not exactly the rodeo.”
“Well, it’s not Pittsburgh. How does it feel to be back?”
Dennis sips his beer and swallows. The flavor reminds him of getting drunk in the barn with his older brothers and their friends when he was a teenager. Fireflies in the air and the sweet smell of hay in his nose.
“Good, I guess.” He looks down at his hands, at the thin sliver of pale skin peeking out from beneath his watch. “Weird, too.”
Robby drinks his bourbon. He holds it in his mouth for half a second like he’s savoring the taste. “How so?”
“I mean, I’ve barely spent any time in Omaha before. I’m still pretty far from where my folks live, but…” Dennis sighs. He has no idea how Robby manages to pull his deepest thoughts from him, even when they’re not under the fluorescent lights of the Pitt. “I guess this weekend has felt more like I’m at home than I’ve felt in a long time.”
Across from him, Robby nods. His forehead is creased in concentration. It makes Dennis sweat like his pint glass in the summer heat to be the subject of his full focus.
“My friend Liz, the one that just got married, we didn’t even know each other that well back in Broken Bow,” Dennis explains. “She was my date to the eighth grade formal, but that was about it. She left as soon as we graduated high school. Like, she left the church, moved out of her parents’ house, cut everybody off.”
Robby hums. He rubs a finger across the rim of his glass. “Sounds like you kept in touch,” he says, in the same way he asked Dennis about Amy all those weeks ago.
“Not my doing,” Dennis says, with a shrug. “She found me on Facebook a few years ago. I guess somebody told her I went to med school so she figured I’d be open-minded. She sent me a message and we got to talking. Turns out she’d just moved from Grand Island to Omaha with her girlfriend—wife, now—and was feeling nostalgic about home.”
Robby lifts an eyebrow.
Dennis snorts. “You think I’d come this far for a straight wedding? Nah. Liz is great. So’s Maria, her wife. It’s nice to talk to somebody who— who gets it, you know. We talk about Broken Bow a lot. We miss it, but it’s not really home. Not anymore.”
Across the table, Robby nods. “I get that.”
“I thought you might.”
Silence settles over them, filled by the music coming from the tinny outdoor speakers and the chatter of conversation elsewhere on the patio. Dennis takes another pull from his beer.
“How’s the trip? You gonna make it to Carhenge?”
“I think so. I think it would mean a lot to Jake if I took his suggestion.”
Dennis nods. “Yeah, totally.”
Silence again. The air is heavy with all the things left unspoken. It’s different here than it was on the phone the week before; actually having Robby within arm’s length, solid and real with a slight sheen of summer sweat on his face, makes every word weightier. Dennis wonders if Robby is thinking the same. Then again, he never has any idea what Robby is thinking.
“How’s the crew?” Robby asks, finally.
“As if Dr. Abbot isn’t keeping you updated.”
Robby shrugs. “Maybe I want to hear your version of events.”
Dennis eyes him sidelong. He runs a finger through the condensation on his glass. “Well, the world hasn’t ended ‘cause you’re gone, so there’s that.”
Robby’s mouth quirks up at the corner, mostly hidden by his beard.
“Good. Dr. Al-Hashimi is—well, she’s something. I think everyone who likes women in that hospital is equal parts scared and in love with her.”
He’s rewarded for that with a genuine chuckle from Robby. Dennis sits up a little straighter in his chair.
“Otherwise, good. Ogilvie shadowing McKay has done him good. We’ve all been waiting for Abbot to steal Joy for the night shift for the past month—I wouldn’t be surprised if he finally manages it by the time I get back. Also, the lawsuit against Mel was dismissed,” Dennis rattles off, racking his brain for anything else of note. “And, uh, Langdon’s doing good. Really good. He’s back on his feet.”
Robby’s smile turns tight. If this were a few months ago, Dennis would have retreated into his shell at the first sign of Robby’s displeasure, but something has shifted in the last few weeks. Dennis finds himself more willing to push.
“I think you’re the only one he hasn’t apologized to,” Dennis adds. “He’s been on an apology tour.”
“Oh, I know,” Robby mutters.
Dennis lifts his eyebrows. “He apologized to you?”
“Yep,” Robby says, with a bit of cheek.
He sips his drink. Dennis sits with that for a moment.
Then: “And?”
“And what?”
“Did you…accept his apology? Are you guys good now?”
Robby sets his glass down and narrows his eyes. “Curious, aren’t you, kid.”
Dennis shrugs. “I just want things to be okay.”
A sad smile crosses Robby’s face. “Yeah. You would.”
Dennis bristles and sits forward to defend himself, but Robby lets out a quiet ah-ah and shakes his head.
“That’s a good thing, Whitaker. You believe things can always be fixed. You’re hopeful—that’s a good way to be.”
Dennis sinks into his chair and kicks his feet out beneath the table. The concrete patio is sandpapery against the soles of his Converse.
“Then why do you say it like it’s bad?”
Robby studies him, taking in Dennis’ sulky frown and sandy hair curling up in the humidity. His gaze lands somewhere between Dennis’ eyes and his chin. Somewhere in the vicinity of his mouth.
“Because I don’t want you to get your heart broken.”
Just as Dennis is about to ask what the hell that means, Robby sits back in his chair and looks around. The patio is starting to fill up with the evening crowd: townies and frat boys, at least one bachelorette party on a bar crawl and what looks like a triple-date a few tables over. Maybe swingers, Dennis thinks; they have a lot of those in the Midwest. Robby stretches his arms behind him, rolling his shoulders, and Dennis catches a glimpse of the tattoos normally hidden beneath the long-sleeved undershirts he wears with his scrubs.
Quickly, Dennis averts his eyes and ends up staring at the table. Somehow they’ve already finished their drinks.
Robby’s eyes are fixed on some point in the distance. When he looks back at Dennis, there’s a glint of mischief in his eye.
“Wanna get out of here?”
🩺
The bar backs up against a park, which in turn backs up against the Missouri River. On a warm late August night, the paths are full of people strolling here and there—lots of couples, young and old, plus groups of teenagers sneaking hits of each other’s vapes and kids trying to eat ice cream before it melts down their wrists under the watchful eye of their parents.
For a while, they don’t even talk—they just walk side-by-side from the sidewalk down to the sloping paths of the park, then from there towards the dark surface of the river, like a jagged piece of obsidian laid across the flat expanse of the plains.
“That’s Iowa over there,” Dennis says, pointing across the water.
Robby raises an eyebrow.
“The Missouri River is the border between Nebraska and Iowa. We learned it in geography class,” Dennis explains. “I…don’t actually think I’ve ever seen it before.”
“Really?”
Dennis shrugs. He has to take long strides to keep up with Robby, which makes him a bit flustered. “I didn’t get off the farm much as a kid. You know, I was homeschooled until I was thirteen.”
Eventually they approach the riverfront, which is sort of indistinguishable from every other mid-size American city’s attempt to spruce up their waterline and attract yuppies to the area. There’s well-watered grass and clean concrete paths and glossy metal benches placed at regular intervals, populated by old people looking for a place to sit and tired parents rolling their babies to sleep in their strollers.
Robby and Dennis don’t sit. They wander down to a fence along the waterfront, chest-height, and lean against it. Below them, the breeze drives small waves across the surface of the river, where they lap softly at the berm. The silence as they stare out over the river is broken only by the sound of the water, the chirp of crickets, and the faint sound of conversation from people behind them.
Dennis leans hard against the railing, feeling for the bite of pain as the metal presses against the thin skin over his elbows.
“You’re coming back,” he says, unprompted.
Robby looks over at him.
“To Pittsburgh,” Dennis adds. He doesn’t let himself turn it into a question. “You’re coming back.”
Slowly, Robby nods.
“Yeah,” he says. He runs a hand over his beard, scratches it softly. He’s kept it trimmed neatly even though he’s been on the road. Or maybe he trimmed it for this evening. “Yeah, I think I am.”
A wave of relief crashes over Dennis, so strong and so sudden he grips the railing to keep his knees from giving out beneath him.
“Good. Oh, God,” Dennis mutters. He drops his head onto his folded arms. “Oh my God, am I glad to hear that.”
Robby looks down at him, fond and a little amused.
“I didn’t know it mattered so much to you.”
Dennis jerks his head upward. His eyes widen. “You’re kidding.”
Robby shakes his head.
“You’re—” Dennis cuts himself off in a fit of righteous disbelief. “God, you are so dense. What the fuck did you think would happen if you— if you offed yourself? If you got flattened by a semi on some interstate highway and died because you weren’t wearing a helmet and this place is a healthcare desert?”
Beside him, Robby is still as a statue, if a statue radiated warmth and smelled like cedar and bergamot.
“God,” Dennis mutters. He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “What is wrong with you? Why would you ever think that was the right thing to do? Do you even know how it’s been since you left?”
He should stop now, before he says something too honest, but it’s all spilling out of him now, falling through his fingers like sand. His voice sounds small and pathetic in his own ears, like a kid being told he can’t have something he really wants.
“Why did you try so hard to push me away?”
There’s the soft sound of fabric shifting beside him as Robby leans heavily on the railing. Regret is heavy in his voice as he begins to speak, low and painfully earnest.
“I thought...” Robby starts. “I don’t know. That if I kept you away it would protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
“From me, kid,” Robby says, with a humorless chuckle. “You have to have noticed I’m not exactly a shining example of stability. Or sanity.”
“So, what? What was your plan?” Dennis gives him a hard look, which Robby doesn’t see because his head is hanging between his shoulders. “Be my mentor, make me need you, until I get close enough to realize you’re fucked in the head? Then stiff-arm me like you did with Langdon?”
“That’s not—“
“Fuck’s sake, Robby, you have to see that this is how you got here. You criticize me for not having boundaries and letting people lean on me too much, but look at you! You make sure we all need you but as soon as someone tries to return the favor and help you, you turn tail and run. You’re fucking lucky you have someone as stubborn as Dr. Abbot as your best friend.”
He glances at Robby beside him, expecting to see him hiding his face or, worse, looking angry. Instead, he just sees Robby’s dark eyes wide and shiny and his mouth downturned beneath his beard. The vulnerability on his face guts Dennis like a fish.
“I thought…” Robby rasps, “I thought you had learned as much as you could from me. That the only other things you’d get from me are my bad habits. I thought you’d be better off without me—you and everyone else.”
“Fuck you, Robby.” Dennis’ voice cracks down the middle. “Fuck you, Michael Robinavitch.”
“I know, trust me, I know—“
“No, you don’t know! You have no idea!”
Dennis is getting loud, loud enough that an elderly couple on a faraway bench turns and looks at them. He doesn’t care.
“You don’t get to make that choice, Robby. You think every choice is yours to make, life or death, if we want you around or not, if we need you or not—“
“Do you?”
Robby’s tone has shifted. He speaks low and soft now, bringing all of Dennis’ righteous fury crashing down.
“What?” Dennis stutters to a halt. “Do I— do I need you?”
He turns away, shakes his head. This is unbelievable—Robby is unbelievable.
Robby is still looking at him like he expects an answer.
“Yeah. Yeah, Robby. Of course I need you.”
They both feel it, then—the shift in the air between them, invisible but tangible still. The humid late August air is heavy and hot, sticking to Dennis’ skin and making his head go fuzzy. When he turns to face Robby, he finds him already looking down at him. He’s suddenly, brutally aware of the reality of Robby beside him, of the sheer physicality of him, warm and solid and there. Dark eyes and a salt-and-pepper beard. Worn-in Carhartt over his broad shoulders and t-shirt clinging to his soft stomach. In short, everything Dennis has wanted in the agonizing year since he first walked through the doors of the Pitt, standing next to Robby every day and pretending it’s normal, like being in his presence and not having him isn’t an actual, physical ache, like a fracture he learned to walk on.
It’s an out-of-body experience as Dennis reaches out to him. He jolts back into himself only when his hand lands on Robby’s bicep. His palm makes contact with the rough canvas of Robby’s jacket but he knows what the tattoo says underneath. AMOR FATI. Love your fate.
As if this weren’t their fate all along. As if Robby could somehow cheat this, find a path that didn’t lead to them here, in a public park in Omaha, Nebraska, laying it all out in the open. Each daring the other to step over the line.
“Whitaker,” Robby says.
Dennis glares up at him.
“Dennis,” he corrects. “Call me by my name.”
“Dennis,” Robby murmurs.
Whitaker’s name—bestowed upon him to honor a dead grandfather he never met—has never sounded more like his own than when Robby says it.
It’s not an accident when Dennis kisses Robby. There’s no way to excuse it as an ill-timed turning of heads: to close the gap between them, Dennis has to perform a complex three-stage maneuver of stepping forward, lifting himself up on his toes, and pulling Robby down to him. He does it all in the space of a breath, long enough to know that this is what he wants but not long enough to psych himself out.
Beneath the bristles of his beard, Robby’s mouth is soft and dry. Dennis cradles Robby’s face between his palms, tasting bourbon and smelling woodsy cologne. A few moments later, when Dennis pulls back, their lips part with a faint wet sound that makes him shiver from head to foot. He lowers himself back down onto his heels and lets his palms slip from Robby’s face to rest on his chest. Warm and firm. His pulse, fast and strong.
Big, callused hands close around his wrists. Robby’s eyes are impossibly dark in the twilight.
“Dennis,” he cautions.
As he speaks, his thumbs rub against the sensitive skin of Dennis’ inner wrists, like he’s feeling for a pulse. He doesn’t need to; Dennis’ heart is pounding so hard that it must be audible in the humid night air. Robby’s gaze searches Dennis’ face, looking for something.
“Are you sure this is what you want, kid?”
Dennis lifts his chin, defiant.
“I think you’re done telling me what I do or don’t want.”
“Okay. Tell me what you want, then.”
Dennis tilts his head up in a silent dare. “Kiss me again. Like you mean it.”
The sensation that passes through Dennis when Robby takes him by the hip and pulls him closer is not unlike the time he accidentally tripped into the electrified fence his folks used to keep the cows from crossing into the wrong pasture. He feels it like a real-life lightning strike when Robby’s large hands close around his waist, yanking him in and up, bringing their bodies flush. It forces Dennis up on his toes and pulls a gasp out of his throat.
For a split second they linger there, hooded eyes and shared breath. The second time, it’s Robby who closes the gap.
Kissing Robby isn’t like any of the other handful of times Dennis has been kissed in his life. It’s not like the hurried, secret make-out sessions with other closeted boys in undergrad or the awkward pecks with girls during games of spin-the-bottle in high school. Robby kisses with confidence. He kisses like he knows that Dennis wants it. With one hand cradling Dennis’ cheek, he tilts his face to the angle he wants and deepens the kiss. All Dennis can do is scrabble for a place to put his hands and hold on tight.
Their mouths part with a soft smack that will haunt Dennis’ dreams.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Yeah, kiss me like that.”
Robby kisses him again. Dennis loops his arms around Robby’s shoulders and weaves his right hand in Robby’s short hair, pulling him down further. He feels the scratch of Robby’s beard around his mouth, surprisingly erotic in the way it burns, and then on the side of his mouth, on his cheek, on his jaw. He wants to feel it everywhere; on his neck, his chest, his stomach. The inside of his thighs. The noise that escapes Dennis is not unlike a whine.
His head spins. “Dr. Robby, Dr. Robby, fuck.”
Robby makes a sound he’s never heard from him before—low and possessive, a grunt that Dennis can only compare to that of a territorial animal. His hand tightens on Dennis’ hip. If he put both hands on his waist, Dennis thinks, dizzily, they’d span the whole width of his lower back.
They stumble back against the railing. Dennis doesn’t give a single fuck if the old people on the bench are scandalized. His lower back is pressed against the fence running along the river and his entire body is pressed up against Robby’s. With fumbling hands he grabs for the front of Robby’s Carhartt then finds his way underneath, grabbing first Robby’s waist over his t-shirt and then worming his hands underneath to make contact with bare skin.
Robby groans and pulls back. Eyes closed, he rests his forehead against Dennis’, his breath harsh in the space between them.
Dennis lets himself take it in. He’s kissing Robby. He’s kissing Dr. Michael Robinavitch, his attending, his mentor, the man he might have just saved from suicide-by-motorcycle. His hands curl tight in the fabric of Robby’s t-shirt, gripping like a gust of wind might come and carry him away. Now that he has it, now that he knows what it feels like to be kissed by Robby, he has no intentions of giving it up. He will drag Robby back to Pittsburgh by the scruff of his neck, all nine hundred miles, if that’s what it takes.
Robby’s eyes open halfway. His pupils are huge and his freckles stand out against the red of his cheeks. Dennis wonders, briefly and hysterically, if this is what he looks like in the afterglow.
“Okay,” he says, and the rasp in his voice is so thrilling that Dennis wants to bottle it, “as much as I like this, I don’t want us to get written up on a public indecency charge.”
The spirit of something long-buried in Dennis, something a little bratty, makes him look up at Robby, eyes wide, and bite his lip.
“You sure about that?”
“Jesus Christ, Whitaker,” Robby mutters. He extracts his hands from Dennis’ waist and puts them on his shoulders, bodily removing Dennis from his personal space. “I should have known you’d be trouble.”
Dennis can’t help it; he feels the giddy smile spreading across his face, pushing his cheeks up and probably making him look more like the hamster that Trinity always compares him to. He can’t help it. Robby is looking down with him with more earnestness than Dennis has seen in the entire time they’ve known each other. He did that. He, Dennis Whitaker, made Robby flush and look like he wants to eat him alive. How many people can say they’ve done that?
By Robby’s shoulder, Dennis spots a young couple with a baby in a stroller looking at them for a little too long. Embarrassment and arousal flare through him when he realizes what they look like: a man old enough to be his father pinning him against a railing, their legs intertwined, Dennis barely visible behind the bulk of Robby’s body.
He’s starting to see Robby’s point.
He ducks his head and scrubs at his mouth with his hand like that’ll make it less obvious what they’ve been doing.
“Listen, I don’t want to assume anything, but I have a hotel…”
He trails off, leaving the invitation open.
Dennis swallows hard.
The thing is, he wants that. He wants. He can see how it will play out as clearly as if it has already happened and he’s just calling up the memory. He’ll follow Robby back to his hotel, looking over his shoulder like someone will see them and know what they’re about to do. They’ll stand next to each other in the elevator, nerves vibrating in the air. Robby will lead him into his room and they’ll kiss against the door, against the wardrobe, on the bed. He’ll blow Robby, or maybe Robby will blow him. If he’s lucky, Robby will turn him onto his stomach on the too-hard hotel mattress and fuck him face-down in the pillows.
He wants it. He’s thought about it too many times, many of them in Robby’s own home, burying his face in pillows that smell like Robby and feeling dirty and wrong even as he shoves his hands down the front of his pants.
There was a time that he would have accepted a quick fuck, anything to have had Robby once. Now, looking up into his dark, earnest eyes, he knows that’s not enough. This can’t be a mistake they leave behind when they go their separate ways. More than that, he needs to make sure this isn’t just another wild, unplanned thing Robby does because he’s planning to throw his life away. Hysterically, Dennis thinks of a new slogan for the Nebraska Board of Tourism: What happens in Omaha stays in Omaha.
That’s not what he wants. If Dennis is going to have Robby, it’s going to be for good.
He shakes his head minutely.
Robby’s face shutters. He steps back. The loss of his warmth is so chilling that Dennis shivers in the August heat. Before he can flee too far, Dennis reaches out and closes his hand around Robby’s wrist, just beneath the band of his watch.
“When you’re back,” Dennis says.
He slips his thumb beneath the watchband, rubbing over the tattoo hidden there, over the pulse of Robby’s heart. Tachycardic.
“Text me when you’re coming back to Pittsburgh. I’ll be waiting.”
He’s rewarded with the slightest upward quirk of Robby’s lip.
“Yeah?”
Dennis nods. Robby twists his hand in Dennis’ grip, a complicated maneuver that ends up with their fingers interlaced. He squeezes Dennis’ hand and, for the first time, maybe in his entire life, butterflies take flight in Dennis’ stomach.
“With that on the table, I’m tempted to cut my trip short,” Robby admits.
“God, I think we’d all be relieved if you did.”
“Mm, I’ll think about it.” With that Robby tugs Dennis in, not for another kiss but for a hug that envelops him entirely in the smell of bergamot cologne and cedar soap. His chin rests on top of Dennis’ sandy curls. “I gotta go to Carhenge first, remember?”
“Sure,” Dennis says, muffled in Robby’s chest. “Then straight back home, okay?”
He feels Robby nod, then a press of lips to his forehead. Dennis doesn’t swoon, but it’s a near thing.
“Then back home.”
🩺
Two days later, the whole flight from OMA to PIT—only the third plane ride of Whitaker’s life—he replays the scene in his mind, shivering when he recalls the scrape of Robby’s beard against his neck and wondering if the middle-aged woman in the aisle seat next to him can see his thoughts branded on his face. He hasn’t figured out what he’s going to tell Santos when he sees her at work tomorrow morning. He already knows his face will turn bright red the first time she mentions Dr. Robby within his earshot.
When the plane touches down at the Pittsburgh International Airport, Dennis takes his phone out and switches off airplane mode. His phone dings with a dozen texts, mostly from the Pitt Crew, a couple from Liz and Maria wishing him a safe flight, and then one that makes his breath hitch in his chest.
New message from Michael Robinavitch.
Again, it’s just a picture. Taken from a low angle, backlit by the bright Nebraska sun, it’s a really terrible selfie of Robby in front of three dozen abandoned cars arranged in the shape of Stonehenge. Wow, Dennis thinks, Abbot was not lying about the poor state of Robby’s selfie-taking skills.
His phone dings again and a second picture arrives.
This one was clearly taken by a sympathetic tourist willing to help an old man who is bad with technology, because it’s from a few feet away and framed much better than the first. In the photo, Robby straddles his motorcycle in front of Carhenge, pointing cheesily behind him. Dennis thinks he’s smiling, but it’s hard to see his face beneath the visor of his helmet.
With two taps he saved both pictures, then love-reacts both messages and types out his reply.
[2:15 PM] Dennis Whitaker
looking good
jake is going to love it
[2:20 PM] Michael Robinavitch
He’d better. There’s nothing else to do out here. How did you survive 18 years in this place?
[2:22 PM] Dennis Whitaker
i managed
i have a very active imagination
[2:30 PM] Michael Robinavitch
Do you now?
Before he can come up with a sufficiently flirtatious response, his phone dings again. The woman sitting beside him shoots Dennis a look and he sheepishly turns his ringer on silent. When she’s no longer glaring at him, he flips his phone over and swipes it open.
[2:31 PM] Michael Robinavitch
September 3, by the way.
Dennis’ heart skips in his chest. He thinks he knows what Robby means, but he has to be sure. With hands that shake only slightly, he types out his response and sends it.
[2:31 PM] Dennis Whitaker
whats that?
[2:32 PM] Michael Robinavitch
The day I’m coming home.