Instead, Nash nods, like something inside him has clicked into place.
“Let’s give your ankle tomorrow to rest,” he says. “Then we’ll meet the next day. I want to see how hard we can push without setting you back. If you’re good, we’ll set up an aggressive schedule but reevaluate how you’re doing at the end of each session.”
Gratitude rushes through me. He doesn’t saypoor thing. He doesn’t tell me to slow down. He gives me a plan. A path. A sliver of control.
Instead of a lecture, he gives me a chance.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nash
Lucy leaves the house, crutching down the walk, turning to call out, “Thanks again!” before lowering herself into Stella’s car.
I wave. Watch as they pull away. Scrub a hand down my face and exhale, slow and deep, shut the door. Lock it.
Then I just… stand there.
What the hell happened today?
I have no context for anything that occurred in the last couple hours. Seeing a patient, for free, in a field I’m not proficient in,in my home…that’s ridiculous. All of it. Everything on that list? Sheer stupidity.
Bennett was right. I don’t have free time in my schedule, a fact that’s already wreaked havoc on my life. So obviously the next logical step is to learn how to rehabilitatea grade three sprain, only to then meet privately with a woman who has me so off my guard I was stupid enough to make the offer in the first place.
And then there was that second, that heat charged moment where all I could think about was pulling her close and pressing my lips to hers… hard no. Bad call. Big mistake. Lucy’s life is falling to pieces and she’s grasping at straws to keep it together. Kissing her would complicate an already complicated situation. When her phone rang, interrupting the moment and freeing me from the next mistake in a string of them when it comes to Lucy Calder, I was so relieved.
Until I watched her face crumble.
So what did I do? Instead of distancing myself like any sane man would, I doubled down and offered to meet her again the day after tomorrow.
Set an aggressive schedule.
What the actual hell?
Part of me wants to call Bennett, just to get these thoughts out of my head. But he’d just tell me I’m in my own way somehow, or that the change to my routine might be good, or that I need to stop offering Lucy things if I don’t mean them and I don’t want to talk about any of that. Instead, I head to the gym, crossing to where the foam mat still lies on the floor, faintly indented from the weight of her. I crouch to roll it up, the motion familiar but sluggish, like my limbs are operating a beat behind the rest of me. A resistance band sits where she left it, curled at the edge of the mat like a dropped ribbon. The air still smells faintly like coconut shampoo and chlorine.
I should change. Catch up on a medical journal or two. Go for a run. Do literally anything other than mentally replay everything that just happened.
“Probably should’ve seen that coming from a mile away.”
She said it like a joke. But her shoulders had sagged. That fake smile had trembled, just for a second, before she caught it.
The thing is, most people break when they lose something that matters.
Lucy didn’t. Shetightened.
I respect that kind of fight. It’s how Dad faced difficulties. How he taught his sons to deal with challenges. Adapt. Adjust. Reorient.
Butdon’t
give
in.
Younger me thought I’d found that in Jadelyn. She used to talk about ambition like it was oxygen—always chasing more. More recognition. More acclaim. A better neighborhood, a flashier job, a newer car. She wanted to be seen, needed to be known. She’d grown up poor, with little to no support and there I was, with my innate desire to help, to lift people up and put them on a better path, eager to give her everything she ever wanted. In the end, her hunger always made me feel like I wasn’t enough… a point she nailed home quite beautifully by cheating on me.
So I promised myself I’d never let myself get involved with a woman again, let alone a woman like that.
And now here’s Lucy, also ambitious and driven, but somehow, she feels…different.
