STRAIGHT DOCTOR FALLS IN LOVE WITH GAY PATIENT IN ROOM 12
“Come here,” Abot said.
“I’m your doctor.
Come here.”
Jojo moved before his brain approved it.
Two steps.
Then Abot’s fingers were in the collar of his white coat, pulling, and their mouths crashed together like something that had been waiting too long and finally lost its manners.
And then he was being pulled onto the bed, Abot’s hands shoving the white coat off his shoulders, Jojo gripping the headboard, both of them breathing like they’d been running.
The coat fell.
Abot’s hands were on his jaw.
Jojo kissed him back like an apology and a confession at the same time.
Then the sound of shoes squeaking on linoleum, far away, but real.
Abot pressed both palms flat on Jojo’s chest and shoved.
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This is Love Tiers with Cynthia.
The ambulance brought him in at 6:00 a.m., which was already Jojo’s least favorite hour.
Severe dehydration, possible viral fever, query malaria.
Routine.
Lagos routine.
Jojo flipped through the intake form without looking up.
Then he looked up.
The man on the gurney was staring directly at him.
Not the panic stare of someone in pain, but a calm, almost amused assessment, like he was deciding something.
He had a cut jaw, full mouth, eyes that caught the fluorescent light and did something unfair with it.
Jojo looked back at the form.
“Mr. Abot,” he said clinically.
“Just Abot,” the man said.
His voice was low and unhurried.
A Lagos boy who had never rushed for anything.
“Any known allergies?”
“Commitment,” Abot said.
Jojo blinked.
“I’m sorry.”
“Penicillin,” Abot corrected, almost smiling.
“Penicillin allergy.”
Jojo wrote it down.
He was a professional.
He had a degree.
Two, actually.
He did not notice how long Abot’s fingers were as the nurse drew blood.
He did not notice the small scar above Abot’s left brow.
He did not notice any of these things at all.
“We’ll run tests,” Jojo said, clicking his pen.
“Make yourself comfortable.
You might be here a few days.”
“I’m already comfortable,” Abot said, and he was looking at Jojo again with that same quiet assessment.
Like Jojo was the one being admitted.
Jojo left the ward walking at exactly the right speed.
Not too fast, not slow enough to seem affected.
He made it around the corner and leaned against the wall.
His stethoscope was warm against his chest.
His pen was still uncapped.
Down the hall, he could hear his colleague Amara joking with the morning nurses.
And the ward filling with the ordinary noise of a Monday.
Jojo recapped his pen.
He had 14 other patients.
He went to see 14 other patients.
He only forgot what he was doing twice.
He sent nurse Chisholm to check Abot’s vitals at 2:00 p.m. She came back in 4 minutes.
“He’s asking for his doctor.”
“Tell him his doctor is doing rounds.”
“I did.”
She paused.
“He said, and I quote, ‘Tell him I’m a difficult patient.'” Jojo rubbed the space between his eyes.
He went.
Abot was sitting up in bed eating a biscuit that someone definitely not hospital staff had smuggled in.
He looked significantly better than a man with a 38.9 fever had any right to look.
“You’re not difficult,” Jojo said, pulling the curtain.
“You’re bored.”
“Bored and running a fever,” Abot said.
“Both can be true.”
Jojo checked his temperature without being asked.
Stood closer than the clipboard required.
He was aware of this and did it anyway.
“Slightly down,” he said.
“Good.”
“You smell like sandalwood,” Abot said.
Jojo stepped back.
“That’s not relevant to your care.”
“I’m not saying it for my care.
I’m saying it because you do, and someone should tell you things like that.”
The ward was half full.
Three curtains away, an elderly man was arguing with his wife about whether pap was appropriate dinner.
A TV played in the background.
Completely ordinary.
“Is there pain anywhere?”
Jojo asked.
My chest Abot said.
Jojo reached for the stethoscope automatically.
Abot caught his wrist, not roughly, just a loose deliberate curl of fingers.
Not that kind Abot said quietly.
Jojo looked at him for exactly 2 seconds too long.
Then he gently removed his wrist, wrote something on the clipboard that was entirely fictional, and cleared his throat.
Drink your drip, eat something proper.
I’ll check again at 8.
I’ll be here Abot said.
You’re admitted.
You don’t have a choice.
Still Abot said with that almost smile.
I’ll be here.
Jojo left.
He walked past two nurses and a cleaner and made it all the way to the stairwell before he stopped and pressed his clipboard against his forehead.
This was a problem.
He’d had problems before.
This felt like a different category.
Jojo requested not to be assigned to ward 4B on Tuesday.
He was assigned to ward 4B.
God or fate or the hospital roster system had opinions.
Abot’s fever had broken overnight, which meant he was now fully alert, fully comfortable, and fully dangerous.
When Jojo arrived at 8:00 a.m. Abot was charming the senior nurse into letting him keep his phone charger plugged in at the bedside, which was against policy, and she was letting him.
Jojo noted this as a warning.
Feeling better?
He said not as a question.
Much Abot said and smiled properly for the first time.
It was catastrophic.
Did you sleep?
That’s not You have circles under your eyes.
I had a night shift.
On my ward.
On this ward Jojo said firmly, which has 12 patients.
Did you check on me?
Jojo wrote something on the chart.
He had checked on him at 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. and stood by the curtain at 5:30 just to confirm he was still breathing.
Standard.
Completely standard.
Results show mild malaria strain Jojo said.
We’ll start the full course today.
Three to four more days admission.
Abbot looked almost pleased.
Three to four more days with you.
Three to four more days here.
Jojo corrected.
He could feel warmth climbing his neck and he despised it.
You’re young and healthy.
Recovery should be fast.
You think I’m healthy?
Abbot grinned.
I think your chart is healthy, Jojo said.
Your bedside manner is a different issue.
Abbot laughed.
Really laughed.
Head tipping back, the kind that you feel before you hear it.
Two patients looked over.
The senior nurse smiled without looking up.
Jojo clicked his pen four times.
Medication at noon, he said.
Rest.
He turned to leave.
Jojo, Abbot said.
It was the first time he’d used the name.
No doctor, no formality.
Just his name in Abbot’s low voice.
He stopped walking.
Thank you, Abbot said simply.
For checking on me.
Whenever it was.
Jojo didn’t turn around.
Rest, he said again.
He walked away with his heart doing something entirely unprofessional.
The hospital had a small courtyard.
Mostly used by nurses on cigarette breaks and families making phone calls no one wanted to make inside.
At 7:00 p.m. it was usually empty.
Jojo was sitting there with a cold cup of tea when Abbot appeared.
In a hospital gown, drip stand wheeled alongside him, slippers on.
Absolutely no shame.
You can’t be out of bed, Jojo said.
I’ve been in bed for 31 hours, Abbot said and sat down on the bench beside him.
Not across, beside.
With the ease of someone who had already decided they were allowed to.
The nurse said short walks are fine.
Did she say courtyard?
She said short walks, Abbot repeated pleasantly.
Jojo looked at him.
The evening Lagos air smelled like generator fumes and fried plantain from somewhere nearby.
And Abbot sat in a hospital gown looking like he was exactly where he meant to be.
Do you do this to all your doctors?
Jojo asked.
I’ve never been admitted before.”
Abot said.
“You’re my first.”
The word first did something it had no business doing.
“Where are you from?”
Jojo asked because conversation was safe.
“Calabar.”
“You?”
“Ibadan.”
“But Lagos for 8 years.”
“8 years?”
Abot said like he was weighing it.
“You love it.”
“I tolerate it.”
Jojo said.
Which in Lagos is basically love.
Abot laughed and Jojo found himself smiling before he approved it.
They sat like that for a while.
The city humming beyond the hospital walls, the drip stand between them, the courtyard orange with evening.
“You’re lonely.”
Abot said suddenly.
Jojo’s smile dropped.
“I’m a doctor.”
“I’m surrounded by people.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
It wasn’t.
They both knew it wasn’t.
“We should go back in.”
Jojo said quietly.
“Yeah.”
Abot agreed.
He didn’t move.
Neither did Jojo.
The generator hummed.
A bird passed overhead.
Somewhere inside, someone’s phone rang and rang.
They stayed until it was almost dark.
Word spread the way word always spread in hospitals, sideways through suggestion.
Amara cornered Jojo at the medication trolley Wednesday morning.
“Your patient in 4B.”
She said in the tone she reserved for observations that were really interrogations.
“He has a name.”
Jojo said then immediately regretted it.
Amara’s eyebrow went up approximately 3 cm.
“Does he?”
“Abot.”
“It’s on the chart.”
“Chisholm says you did his 6:00 a.m. check personally.”
“Again.”
“I do personal checks.”
“On all 12 patients?”
Jojo organized the medication trolley very carefully.
“Is there something you need, Amara?”
She looked at him for a long moment with the expression of someone assembling a puzzle they weren’t sure they should finish.
Then she picked up her own clipboard.
“Just be careful.”
She said not unkindly.
And walked away.
The word careful followed him into ward 4B.
Abot was reading something on his phone and he looked up when Jojo entered with the energy of someone who had been waiting but didn’t want to look like it.
“Morning.”
Abot said.
“Morning.”
Jojo was brisk, professional, armored.
“How’s the head?”
“Clearer.”
“Appetite?”
“Returning.”
“Good.”
He checked the drip, changed the notes, kept the clipboard between them like a physical argument.
“Medication is working well.
Possibly two more days.”
“Only two?”
Jojo looked at him.
Abot was looking back with something so open it was almost frightening.
No pretense, no deflection, just a man who apparently had no instinct for self-protection.
“You want to stay in a hospital?”
Jojo said flatly.
“I want to stay near you.”
Abot said.
Just like that, out loud, in the daytime.
Jojo’s chest went tight and loud.
“Abot.”
“I know.”
Abot said quickly.
“I know what you’re going to say.
Then I won’t say it.”
They looked at each other across the narrow bed.
All that wanting with nowhere safe to go, in a city where wanting like this still cost men everything.
Jojo put the clipboard down.
He picked it up again.
He left without saying anything else, which said everything.
11:00 p.m. The ward was finally quiet.
Jojo came in with the last medication round.
This one he couldn’t delegate, wouldn’t let himself delegate.
Abot was awake, lying on his side, phone face down, watching the door like he knew.
Jojo administered the medication without speaking.
Then he sat down, not at the chair by the notes table, but on the small stool right beside the bed.
A decision so small and so enormous.
“I haven’t told anyone.”
Jojo said quietly.
“In 8 years in Lagos, not a colleague, not a family member, no one.”
Abot was very still.
“I’m careful.”
Jojo continued.
“I have to be careful.
I’m a doctor, in this country, in this city, he stopped.
The monitor beeped.
It’s not fear exactly.
It’s just I built everything on being careful.
And then I arrived, Abot said softly.
And then you arrived and started saying things out loud in the daytime like it’s nothing.
It’s not nothing, Abot said.
It terrifies me, too.
But I got tired of being quiet about my own heart.
He paused.
I’ve been out to myself since I was 23.
I’m still not loud about it, but I know what I feel when I see something worth feeling.
Jojo looked at his hands.
Surgeon’s hands.
Steady in every operating context except this one.
What do you feel?
He asked barely above nothing.
Abot reached over and pressed two fingers against Jojo’s wrist.
Not grabbing, just resting there.
Pulse point.
Fast, Abot said simply.
Jojo exhaled like something leaving him.
This can’t happen here, he whispered.
I know.
People watch.
Amara watches.
The nurses.
I know, Jojo.
Say you know.
I know, Abot said warm and serious.
But when I leave this hospital, if you let me, it can happen somewhere else.
Jojo stared at the ceiling.
His pulse was absurdly fast under Abot’s two fingers, and they both knew it.
Sleep, Jojo said finally.
Okay, said Abot.
He didn’t move his hand.
Jojo didn’t move his wrist.
They stayed like that for four minutes.
Then Jojo stood quietly and returned to the world.
Thursday morning, Dr. Bello, head of internal medicine, talker, observer, nightmare, decided to do an impromptu ward round.
Jojo found out three minutes before Bello arrived in ward 4B.
Three minutes was enough time to do nothing useful and panic completely.
He was in the middle of explaining something to Abot.
Something unnecessary.
Something that had started as medical and turned personal, as things between them kept doing.
When Chisholm appeared at the curtain with wide eyes and a very specific look.
Jojo stood straight immediately.
Abot read the room, picked up his phone, became a patient.
They were both very good at pretending, it turned out.
A sorrowful skill.
Bello swept in with two junior doctors trailing him like moons, his booming voice filling the ward ahead of him.
Jojo, malaria case in this bay, yes?
Let me see the chart.
Jojo handed it over without his hands shaking, which he considered a personal achievement.
Bello flipped through it, grunted approvingly, fired three medical questions at Abot who answered them briefly and correctly, then clapped Jojo on the shoulder with the force of a small vehicle.
Good management.
You always had clean charts.
He moved on.
The junior doctors followed.
The curtain swung back into place.
Jojo and Abot looked at each other.
Clean charts, Abot repeated, and his mouth twitched.
Don’t, Jojo said.
I didn’t say anything.
You were about to say something.
I was going to say you held it together remarkably.
Abot’s eyes were full of laughter, warm and private.
Very professional.
You became a patient very quickly, Jojo said.
I am a patient.
You were explaining to me why you preferred jazz to Afrobeats 3 seconds before Bello walked in.
Medically relevant conversation, Abot said solemnly.
Jojo pressed his mouth together to stop the smile.
Failed.
Turned away so Abot wouldn’t see.
Failed at that, too.
Medication at 2, he said.
I know, said Abot.
You’ll be here?
A beat.
I’ll be here, Jojo said.
They had their first argument at 9:00 p.m. It started over nothing.
Jojo said something clipped about Abot’s blood pressure numbers, clinical and cold, and Abot, who could read Jojo now the way you read a room you’ve been sitting in all week, said, What’s wrong with you today?
Nothing’s wrong.
I’m your doctor.
You’ve been strange since afternoon.
I’m not strange.
I’m scared, Abot said.
The word landed like something thrown.
Don’t Jojo said.
You pulled back since below.
You’ve been building the wall back up and I can see every brick.
Maybe the wall needs to be there about.
Jojo’s voice was tight.
Maybe that’s the whole point of a wall or maybe about said carefully.
You use it when you’re frightened and take it down when you’re brave and lately you’ve been very brave.
This isn’t brave.
This is reckless.
Those can look the same from the inside.
Silence.
The word breathed around them.
Jojo sat down heavily on the stool.
The fight left him the way tension leaves when it runs out of something to hold on to.
My last relationship, he said slow and low, ended because he was afraid someone would find out.
He chose his family’s version of him over the real one.
I told myself never again, but I also told myself never this.
Never something that could cost me the only life I’ve built.
About was quiet for a moment.
I’m not asking you to announce anything, he said gently.
I’m just asking you not to disappear.
Not yet.
Not while I’m still here.
Jojo looked at him.
Really looked the way he’d been carefully not allowing himself to.
You’re very hard to be sensible around, Jojo said.
I’ve been told, about said.
Is that a yes?
Jojo almost smiled.
It’s a don’t disappear.
That’s enough, about said quietly.
It was.
For now, for Thursday night, for the soft hum of the monitor between them.
It was enough.
Friday arrived and no one had asked for it.
The test results were clean.
Temperature normal for 36 hours.
Appetite restored.
Chart in perfect order.
Jojo stood outside about’s Bay for 2 minutes before going in.
He was aware of how absurd this was.
He went in anyway.
We should be able to discharge you tomorrow, he said.
About looked at him steadily.
Tomorrow?
Saturday morning.
Medication to take home.
Follow up in 2 weeks.
Jojo.
With any doctor here?
Not necessarily.
Jojo.
He stopped.
Say it properly, Abbad said.
Not like a chart.
Jojo set the clipboard on the table.
Properly.
Like a decision.
You’re well, he said.
Which is what I wanted.
Which is good.
That’s good.
And Abbad said.
And I’ve spent 5 days being things I don’t have language for in a place where I can’t afford to be them with someone I would have invented if I could.
He said it quietly and quickly like ripping something.
And tomorrow you leave and I go back to being careful.
Abbad swung his legs off the bed and stood.
Slowly, steadily.
No drip attached anymore, just himself.
And stepped close enough that Jojo could see the small scar above his brow.
Or Abbad said.
I leave and you come find me.
In the city, Jojo said.
Outside.
Where anyone can see.
Yes, Abbad said simply.
Where anyone can see.
Where we eat somewhere with bad lighting and good jollof.
And you’re not my doctor and I’m not your patient.
And we figure out what this is when it has space to breathe.
Jojo searched his face for doubt and found none.
I’m terrified, Jojo admitted.
Me, too, Abbad said.
Come anyway.
They stood there in the shrinking space between them.
History on one side, the city on the other, Friday evening somewhere in between.
Tomorrow, Jojo said.
Tomorrow, Abbad agreed.
Neither of them moved for a long, beautiful moment.
Discharge paperwork was Jojo’s least favorite thing about medicine.
Today it was his favorite thing in the world.
He processed it himself.
Didn’t delegate, didn’t ask Chisholm.
Did every signature and every instruction sheet personally.
Amara watched him from across the nurses station with an expression she had the grace not to say out loud.
He went to the bay.
Abbad was dressed, proper clothes for the first time in a week, dark jeans and a fitted shirt.
Bag on the chair beside him.
Looking like the outside world, looking like after.
It was slightly devastating.
“Ready?”
Jojo asked.
“Been ready.”
Abot said warmly.
They went through the discharge instructions with professional decorum.
Medication twice daily.
Fluids.
Rest.
Follow up in 2 weeks.
Avoid stress.
“Avoid stress.”
Abot repeated, looking at Jojo.
“Medical advice.”
Jojo said straight-faced.
They walked out of Ward 4B, down the corridor, past the nurses’ station where Chisim waved cheerfully and Amara met Jojo’s eyes for exactly 1 second with something unreadable.
At the hospital entrance, the glass doors, the Lagos morning already thick with heat and noise outside, they stopped.
This was the line.
Abot on one side, everything else on the other.
“So,” Abot said.
“So,” Jojo said.
“I’m going to give you my number,” Abot said.
“And you’re going to put it in your phone, not the medication notes.”
Jojo almost laughed.
“I didn’t.”
“You absolutely did.”
He handed Jojo his phone, contact already open, saved as Abot 4B.
Jojo looked at it, looked at him, and saved it.
“Saturday week,” Jojo said quietly.
“Somewhere with bad lighting.”
“And good jollof.”
Abot confirmed.
They stood in the doorway of the hospital, not touching, not anything that anyone could name, but with the full weight of six impossible days between them and the terrifying, gorgeous open space of everything that came next.
Abot smiled first, then Jojo.
The doors opened.
Abot walked into the Lagos morning.
Jojo stood in the entrance and watched him go, heart loud, coat straight, face as still as he could manage.
His phone buzzed.
Text from Abot.
4B, don’t be late.
Jojo looked down at it for a long time.
Then he walked back into the hospital, smiling at the floor, already counting the days.
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