“Life’s complicated. Doesn’t mean I’m going to be a douchebag and bounce out of here just because you’re my professor.”
She blinks at me.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do right now.”
Her voice is so soft I almost miss it. I close the last bit of space between us. My hands drop to my sides, fighting to keep them there. Touching her now is too much of a risk and puts too much pressure on her. That’s certainly enough to spook her.
“You don’t have to know. Not tonight. You just have to deal with what’s in front of you.”
She lets out a shaky breath, her eyes searching mine.
“What’s in front of me?”
“Me.”
My pulse spikes. My offer is thrown out there. Risking it all.
Swallowing my pride for a bold move.
Her lips part slightly. For a second, I’m scared, nervous, and panicking. Having overplayed my hand. Then, without thought, like the moron Dom accuses me of being, I up the ante.
“Being with you.”
I meant to say being there for you. But somehow, the words didn’t come out correctly. My throat throbs, beating in time with my pulse. Seconds feel like minutes until she sags slightly, the fight draining out of her.
“I don’t know how.”
The corner of my mouth tugs into a small smile.
“Neither do I.”
Her gaze drops to the floor, strands of hair slipping over the sides of her face that beg me to brush them away. When she looks up again, there’s something different in her eyes.
“Diego . . .”
Her hands slowly start to reach for me when the fucking door opens again. The sound of her dad laughing with the nurse wheeling him out with his arm in a medical sling fills the room.
The interruption is jolting, robbing me of another moment with her.
“Well, my boy, it looks like you were right after all.”
Her dad gives me a thumbs-up, which is assuring. Her soft smile and unfiltered stare have me collecting their belongings and digging out my truck keys. I'm ready to drive these two anywhere they want as long as I get more time with her.
“Who’s up for ice cream? It’s what you get after you sprain or break something,” I offer, hoping they go for it.
It was a racing tradition that my trainer and I adhered to back in the day. Isabella casts a worried look at her father.
“I could go for some rocky road.”
“Rocky road it is, Dr. Rossi.”
10
ISABELLA
They sit side by side, eating ice cream and sharing stories like long lost friends despite the decades of age between them. Even with the troublesome sling slowing his movements, Papà is thoroughly enjoying himself. He still doesn’t know this is the troublemaker I was telling him about. The same one who swooped in to save the day.
I lost control, entirely overwhelmed by the possibility that this was worse than a simple fall. The urgent care gave him a thorough examination, but the fear of his frailty and age still causes a dull ache in my stomach, not solved with a scoop of ice cream.
