He pauses, weight tipped on his crutch, his sharp blue eyes wary but steady on me. I keep my tone even.
“Dr. Patel signed off on travel clearance this morning,” I say.
He raises an eyebrow. “I’m going with the team to Seattle tomorrow?”
I nod. “It means you’re allowed to join the team on the road again: flights, meetings, bench presence. But it doesn’t change your rehab,” I add, keeping my voice steady even though my pulse skips.
“We’ll still have PT every morning. No contact drills. We’ll need to keep monitoring swelling and stick to the daily program.”
He nods slowly, jaw tightening, like he’s still absorbing the fact he’s actually going again. “Guess it’s really happening.”
There’s a pause, something quiet and charged between us.
His eyes soften, barely. But it’s enough to tighten the ache in my throat. I should stop there, let him go, keep it professional. But the words don’t stay down. They never do, not with him.
I hesitate, pulse quickening, then take a breath.
“Declan… there’s something else we need to talk about.”
His brow furrows, but he doesn’t argue when I step past him and lead the way to an empty room down the hall. He follows, and I nudge the door shut. The faint hum of the vents fills the quiet, the world on the other side of the wall slipping away.
For a second, I grip the tablet like a shield. Then I set it down on the counter, because that’s what this is about—putting the shield down.
My throat tightens, but I force the words out.
“You pushed me away, and I’ve respected that.”
My voice wavers, then steadies.
“I’ve kept it professional. But I can’t keep pretending it doesn’t matter to me or that nothing happened.”
Silence. Heavy. He grips his crutch like it’s the only thing holding him up.
“You think I wanted to push you away?” His voice is low, frayed at the edges. “Charlie, I didn’t.”
My breath catches. “Then why did you?”
His jaw flexes, the words slow and reluctant, like each one scrapes on the way out.
“Because you work for this team. If anyone thought there was more than rehab between us, it’d hurt you. Your job, your career. I couldn’t risk that.”
I blink, stunned.
All this time I’ve told myself it was me. That I misread, pushed too far, wanted too much.
But it was never that.
Of course I know the rules. The HR manuals, the clinic policies, the reminders about boundaries.
But I hadn’t let myself connect those dots when it came to him.
Not when we were laughing in my kitchen, not when he kissed me like I was the only thing that mattered, not when he woke up in my bed.
I’d been too wrapped up in the pull, too distracted by us to think about the consequences.
And now I understand the distance wasn’t rejection.
It was protection.
