1. Echo

1

Echo

R eckless. Fearless. Flawless.

I was a god on the rope, a hero at home, and the envy of every aerialist at the gym. They called me "Echo" because I only needed to see a trick once to repeat it.

I was invincible.

Until I wasn't.

Nineteen feet from the rigging point to the floor.

Five broken bones in my arm, wrist, and hand.

Seven screws and a plate to put me back together.

Two surgeries. Four days in the hospital. Eight weeks in the cast. Three months of OT.

Countless immaculate falls. One that mattered.

Ten fucking inches to the left.

In Dilaudid-drenched dreams, my grip is sure and familiar, strong on the rough canvas of the rope. Gravity is an enemy so long vanquished, we've become friends.

Consciousness is hitting the ground all over again, reality detonating the air from my lungs and pain returning with ungentle hands .

I hide in the dreams as often as I can. The hospital room feels like weakness. Like worry in my mother's damp, shining eyes and anger at the sharp edges of my father's frown. Like a body I don't recognize weighed down by tubes and wires and blurry pain. Gabe flickers on the periphery, and once, a small, calloused hand that must be Asha's squeezes mine. But guilt and pity are ugly bedmates, and I only fuck beautiful guys.

On the third— three hundredth? —day, I resurface alone. My family is gone, the drama of my disaster already subsumed in the quicksand of their everyday lives. I'm not dying; I'm already dead. And dead is boring when only the corpse is grieving.

"That's morbidly dramatic."

Aaron. Shit. How much of that did I say out loud?

Fucking drugs.

It must be late in the day—Aaron's shift starts at four. He's the best and the worst of my three nurses.

Lorena works the graveyard shift and is swift, competent, and sparing with her heavily accented English. Moira, the day shifter, is perpetually exhausted, with two kids at home and an airline pilot husband she talks about the way people describe vacations they know they'll never take. Aaron is young and cocky, with dark skin and full lips that quirk adorably with every stupid, perfectly professional smile. I hate those lips. I want to see them wrapped around my cock. Before Echo would have had him on his knees the first day.

Broken Echo has a tube in his cock and thanks fucking Christ that Aaron wasn't the one who put it there.

"It must be the clothes," I say, scrambling to diffuse the fallout from my ramblings. "I mean, I know I have a great ass, but surprisingly, hospital-gown chic isn't really the best way to show it off." I watch for the familiar quirk of his lips, but Aaron only shakes his head. He never bites at my attempts at flirtation, and I don't like the way those cold teeth turn inward, gnawing pieces from my once-untouchable ego. I should stop trying, but my mouth refuses to accept the inevitable. Once upon a time— four days ago —I said whatever the fuck I wanted, and people lined up to gobble that shit down.

At least Aaron never feels sorry for me. Under my grieving corpse is a spoiled twenty-year-old kid who's barely had enough hardship in his life to call himself a man. I know Aaron's seen worse tragedies than mine, probably on a weekly basis, and the last thing I want is his pity.

"Actually, your mom left you some clothes this afternoon." He gestures toward a familiar gym bag resting on the cheap steel-frame chair beside the bed. "They're sending you home first thing in the morning."

"Bored of my morbidly dramatic ass already? You haven't even seen it in jeans." What the fuck is wrong with me ? I let my head fall back on the pillows, closing my eyes as if my mouth might take the hint and follow their example.

"I'm pretty sure it's sweats and a T-shirt." Maybe it is pity. The kind that lets him smooth over my bullshit without making it awkward, before he goes home to whoever is waiting to take all the things I want from him.

"You must be ready to get out of here," he continues. "We don't usually keep orthos over forty-eight hours."

"Sounds like my dad's been pissing in corners." This elicits a deep chuckle, and I crack my eyes before I miss what it does to his mouth.

"Yeah, man. That dude can be pretty persuasive when he's scared."

"I think you mean scary when he's pissed."

Aaron shrugs. "That too. He obviously cares about you. "

I let my eyes drift around the empty room, the flowers just starting to curl at the edges in the slanting light. My dad has always been proud of me, excited to have me as a son, but I'm not sure it's the kind of love Aaron's thinking of. But no need to dump my daddy issues all over him on top of my obvious insanity.

"He gets the job done." Let him take that how he will. It's mostly true in the ways that matter.

"Anyway, you want those clothes? The T-shirt will be kind of a bitch with the IV, but we can make it work. And I can pull the catheter now that they've switched you to oral meds." He taps the chart in his hand and gives me an encouraging smile.

I can only spare a brief second to mourn the loss of the Dilaudid drip because my mind is stuck on his second offer.

"Are you sure you're not just looking for an excuse to touch my dick?"

Oh my god. Shut the fuck up, Echo.

But his quirk of a smile is slightly less professional this time. Or maybe that's my dreams fucking with me. Probably a good thing they're taking me off the drip.

Every sexy nurse porno I've ever seen had it dead wrong.

My dope-soaked dick doesn't even twitch when Aaron wraps his responsibly gloved fingers around it and pulls the fucking piss tube free. The whole thing takes five seconds, and then he's helping me into the boxer briefs and sweatpants my mom picked out like I really am a helpless toddler.

He doesn't offer to kiss it better, and I don't ask, my mouth apparently— finally— grasping the nature of our new reality.