Crash: M/M Straight to Gay First Time Romance Read Online Free Page A

know where I stand. A strange thought occurs to me, and I hesitate before vocalizing it. “Are you? Gay, I mean.”
    Liam lets one corner of his mouth turn upwards in what I am sure will one day be a smile.
    Yes, completely.
    The look in his eyes lets me know he is being sarcastic and trying to get a rise out of me. I don’t fall for the bait. Instead, we move on to the awkward part of the conversation. The one where I explain to him that I need him to keep acting like we are madly in love so that I don’t lose my job and the hospital doesn’t call the police.  Considering he just regained consciousness, he is taking everything well. I am still reluctant to push my luck. I think it’s stretched about as thin as it can tolerate.
    “Listen, I am sure there are a lot of things you want to ask me, and there are a lot of things I need to explain to you, but I am going to boil it down to three points and then get out of here so you can rest. First, the bandage on your head is covering several wounds. One of them is from a surgical incision. I signed some paperwork allowing them to drill a hole in your head.”
    Liam’s eyes go wide with shock. That’s to be expected, but he isn’t screaming or throwing things at me yet, so this is still going well.
    “Technically it wasn’t a life or death situation yet, more of a precaution, so I had to sign some paperwork. Which brings me to my second point. I need you to keep telling them that we are married. If they find out what I did, they are obligated by law to report me and the last thing I need is a criminal charge.”
    Liam narrows his eyes at me and exhales loudly. He picks up the pad again and flips back a page, holding up the word written there.
    Why?
    “If they didn't get the swelling under control quickly there would be brain damage. It was too hard to tell what was causing the swelling. You were a mess, and you had a lot of internal bleeding. The doctor looked jittery, but he said it would buy you some time and release some pressure. They put it back together after you were out of the woods, but you should know.”
    His face looks doubtful as if he is trying to decide if what I am saying makes sense scientifically. I know it sounds like I just let an intern go all mad scientist with his brain, but I couldn’t sit still and let him die. I wasn’t his family, but he probably had one, and it would be nice to deliver him back to them with his brain undamaged.
    “The last thing is, I see your license says you are from Arizona. I don’t know how you ended up out here in the sticks, but you are going to need a lot of help once you get back home. You may want to go ahead and make arrangements before you leave. Like I said, I couldn’t get in touch with any of your people since you don’t use social media and your phone was destroyed in the crash. Even still, I am sure you want to call somebody who loves you,” I say.
    He smirks at me as I put on my jacket. For a minute, I freeze. Looking at me like that, with a mixture of contempt and amusement, he reminds me of that kid. But that kid never smiled. He never laughed and never would consent to sit in the same room with me. Not after what I did to him. It’s funny the way random things bring back powerful memories. I don’t remember a lot of things about my senior year of high school. The parts I do remember usually involve sports. But that kid, I remember him very well.
    He sat behind me in homeroom. To be honest, I don’t know much about the guy at all. I never bothered to find out. He was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that made him stand out instead of disappear. He never said a word to me all year long. But I still felt like I knew him, you know? Over time, it became my habit to turn around and look at him. His reactions, no matter how subtle, began to matter to me. When it was my birthday, he dropped a candy bar on my desk. When I broke up with my girlfriend, he looked sad for me. When I got my acceptance