Russell was a lazy jackass. That had to be it. The only reason Cio was in a hospital for the second time in a week was because Russell was too damn lazy to do it himself. He grumbled the entire way there. Smiled and put on his best ‘customer service’ voice while conferring with the doctors Russell worked with. The smile and happy voice slid into oblivion as soon as he was safely ensconced in his vehicle.

Dr. Price was in their lab when Cio joined them again. Dr. Price cut off mid-sentence when Cio stalked into the room, tossed the papers down, and went straight to the sink to scrub his hands.

“You changed clothes?” Dr. Price asked.

“Yep.”

A moment of silence. “Why did you change clothes?”

“Because someone needed me to go the hospital. Again.” Cio paused in drying off his hands. “Wait, how’d you know what I was wearing before?” He’d only been at work an hour before Russell had sent him off and he was 100% sure he hadn’t went up to talk with Dr. Price today.

“I saw you leaving.”

“And he came here to make sure I didn’t run you off,” Russell spoke up.

“I was making sure you weren’t still treating him as nothing more than an assistant.”

Cio grinned as Dr. Price glared at Russell. “You really do care.”

Dr. Price rolled his eyes and spun on the chair he was sitting in. He picked up the papers and rifled through for a second before leaving the room without another word.

Russell snorted at the departure. “He’s a good guy, but not that good. What’d you do to get in his good graces?”

Cio paused in digging out a sucker from his drawer. We had a great night of sex about two years ago. “Hm? Nothing. I’ve talked with him about twice now.” He popped the sucker in his mouth and moved it to his cheek. “Oh, I replaced the picture frame of his I broke.”

Russell hummed and, after casting an appraising eye over Cio, turned to rifle through the papers himself. “Why don’t you go and see what you can do with the walker.”

Cio frowned around his sucker but obeyed the instruction. He tinkered with its weight and center of balance until Russell’s hand appeared in front of his face. “What?” He didn’t mean to sound irritated, but he had been in the zone.

“Go home. Work’s over.”

“I’m just going to stay a little bit longer. Look I thi-”

“No.”

Cio blinked. “What?”

“No. Go home. Show me it tomorrow. Work on it tomorrow. Come on, kid. Closing time.”

Cio frowned.

“Don’t give me that face. There’s more to life than work.”

More to life than work. Second time he’d heard the phrase recently and he still had zero interest the advice. “All right. Sure. Just another half hour and I’ll take off.” Russell gave him a look of disbelief. “Promise!”

Russell wasn’t happy about it, but with another glance at his watch, he left Cio alone. Cio really did mean to only stay an extra half hour, but the walker kept tipping when it shouldn’t and he was sure he could get it fixed if he shifted the arm rest just little more.

He didn’t jump when a throat cleared behind him. He didn’t. Ok, he did, but he hadn’t been expecting it, so no one could really blame him for it. His heart skipped at the slight chuckle. “I told Russell not to let you stay so late anymore.”

Cio scratched the back of his neck and glanced up at the clock. He winced at the late hour. “I uh, didn’t mean to. It was only supposed to be an extra half hour.” He turned around to see Dr. Price leaning against the door frame with an indulgent smile. “Besides I’m taking an entire week off next month so it’ll all even out in the end.”

Dr. Price hummed and stepped forward. “That excuse only works if you don’t stay late every single day you work.”

“To be fair, it really is only like an hour or two normally.”

“Except for the times you have movie nights on the projector screens with Greyson’s assistant?”

Cio clucked his tongue and pointed at Dr. Price. “I did not know you knew about that.” Thankfully, he seemed more amused than anything else. “In my own defense, it was not my idea.”

“You’re just going to throw Greyson’s assistant under the bus?”

“Absolutely.”

Dr. Price laughed and shook his head. “I don’t care if you guys have movie nights. Just keep any, ah, inappropriate behavior out of the office, hm?”

Cio’s cheeks warmed. “No, nope. Ash is 100% not my type. We’d just talked about the Star Wars movie and he hadn’t seen the new ones so I said we should watch it and…” He let his voice trail off. It did kind of sound like he had suggested a date. “Yeah. Just not really my type.” Cio’s eyes flickered to the gold band on Dr. Price’s hand.

Dr. Price’s smile grew. “Good to know. Are you heading out yet?”

“Yeah. Sure. Just let me clean up.”

Cio needed to stop thinking there was more to the way Dr. Price looked at him. It was hard though, when Dr. Price’s gaze was that soft, his lips turned up just enough to be teasing. “I’ll walk you out.”

Cio hurried through getting things put up so the space looked marginally more tidy than before.