And honestly? Three I-don’t-knows in thirty seconds feels like my limit.
So instead, I sip my coffee and let the warmth coat my throat, my chest, my stomach. Let it hold the questions at bay a little longer.
Just one more moment in the bubble.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Nash
Music filters down the hallway as I finish my last set, the ache in my muscles just enough to remind me I’m alive. My shirt clings with sweat. My lungs burn. The familiar fire doing its best to sear away the weight of the day.
Work was… unsatisfying. Which is putting it kindly.
Dinner with Lucy helped. Her laughter peeled something loose in my chest, as it always does. Being with her is bringing me closer to the man I was when life felt new and filled with promise. And the workout, my version of therapy, burned through the rest. Or most of it, anyway. There’s always some residue that clings.
The hospital asks so much and gives so little. I do everything I can. Patch the wound, start the breathing, shock the heart. And sometimes it’s enough. But moreand more, it feels like I’m running in circles. Fighting upstream through insurance bullshit and administrative nonsense and a general, choking apathy that no one seems eager to fix. It’s like trying to save people from drowning with my hands tied behind my back.
But, following thoughts like that will send my mood right back downhill, so I follow the music instead. Something soft and aching, the kind of melody that sounds like longing wrapped in love. I pad down the hallway, catching my breath as I go.
And then I see her.
Lucy.
Bathed in gold and framed by the last light of the day. She’s backlit by the sun, which pours through the kitchen window, touching everything she is and turning it to fire. Her back is to me. Her hips sway. Her arms sweep. Her hair arcs like light.
She’s dancing.
If freedom had a form, it would look like this. If hope had a body, it would be hers. If purpose had breath, it would be the rise and fall of her chest.
I thought she was beautiful while still, but she is transcendent in motion.
Wild and strong and fluid in ways that don’t make sense and yet somehow explain everything.
And I can’t breathe. I can’t move.
How could anyone watch her dance and think she was destined for anything else?
Lucy lifts onto the ball of her healing foot and extends one leg behind her. A long,effortless arabesque. Her arms sweep overhead like she’s reaching for heaven to drag some of it back down with her.
Goosebumps chase across my skin. Awe anchors me to the doorway.
She turns. Sees me.
And smiles.
God help me.
I press a hand to my chest. It’s instinct, not drama. Something in me contracts, then stretches wide. There’s desire, sure—how could there not be—but it’s buried beneath something even stronger. A gravity. A pull. A quiet certainty that if I let myself love her, I won’t survive losing her.
She extends a hand.
I cross the threshold like a man obliterating the boundaries he erected around himself, armor dropping to the floor. Step into her space. Wrap my arms around her waist. She loops hers around my neck. We sway. No steps, no rhythm, just the hush of bodies pressed close and the music winding between us. She’s warm in my arms. Alive in a way I don’t think I’ve ever let myself be. Her head rests on my chest. My hand circles slowly on her back. I close my eyes and let myself feel it, really feel it.
This woman. This light. This rare and luminous force who barged into my life and healed something I didn’t know was broken while I was supposed to be healing her.
I rest my cheek against her hair, breathing her in. There’s rosemary on her skin. Vanilla from the cookieswe made after dinner. Sunshine in the fabric of her shirt. And something else. Something that’s just her, wild and sweet and impossible to name.
An ache opens inside me. Slow and wide.
