721
I stare at her text for longer than I should.
I know I could wait until morning.
I just don’t want to.
The truth is, I’ve been waiting for her to give me a reason.
I grab my keycard and crutch, take the elevator up to her floor. My knee aches by the time I reach her door, but that’s not what’s making my pulse climb.
I knock once.
She’s in a team quarter-zip, tablet on the desk behind her. The room’s quiet, lights low.
“I figured I’d save you the trouble,” I say, leaning on my crutch.
A small smile tugs at her mouth. “You really didn’t have to come all the way up here.”
“Didn’t want you getting written up for hoarding equipment.”
That earns the smallest laugh.
She hesitates. “I looked up the HR policy,” she says quietly. “It’s against the rules while you’re still my patient. They’d call it a conflict.”
She exhales, voice low but steady. “Once you’re medically cleared, you're discharged out of my care and back under Dr. Patel’s oversight. After that, I’m still the team PT, but technically you’re not my patient anymore. That’s the line HR cares about.”
As I listen, it’s not the policy swirling in my head.
It’s one single thought.
She still wants this.
“So,” I say carefully, “once I’m medically cleared…”
“Then it’s different,” she finishes. “We can disclose it, be upfront about it. But until then, we can’t let anyone know. And if you ever need PT again after that—long-term stuff—it can’t be me. It’d have to be someone else. Probably Dan or Dr. Patel.”
Hope edges in. Small, dangerous, impossible to ignore.
I exhale, holding back a smile. “So, we get off on a technicality.”
She laughs. “Guess so. Good thing I’m fluent in fine print.”
I meet her eyes. “Okay. We wait. We keep it quiet, for now.”
The words hang between us, steady but soft. The air feels different—lighter somehow, but heavier too.
The kind of feeling that settles low in your chest when you know what you want and finally stop pretending otherwise.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. The hum of the hotel vent fills the silence, and all I can think about is how close she is. The faint scent of her shampoo. The way her hand brushes the side of her thigh when she exhales.
“Okay,” I say again, quieter this time. “We wait.”
She nods once. “We keep it quiet. No risks. Not until you’re cleared.”
“Agreed,” I say. “We do it right.”
The words settle between us—steady, decided.
