I look him dead in the eye.
“And I missed you, you stubborn ass.”
Luke stares at me. The anger in his eyes dissolves, replaced by that raw, terrifying vulnerability I saw in his apartment.
“You came back,” he whispers.
“I’m not a tourist, Luke,” I say, my voice steady. “Tourists visit. I live here. In the mud. With you.”
“It’s blood,” Luke corrects automatically, his voice cracking.
“It’s a metaphor, Dr. Silva. Accept the romance.”
Luke lets out a wet laugh. He grabs a needle driver.
“Tie it off,” he orders softly. “And don't mess up my suture line.”
“I learned from the best,” I say, taking the needle.
We fall into a rhythm. The fighting stops. The sync returns. I tie; he cuts. He sponges; I retract. We move around the patient like water, seamless and fluid.
“Nice knot,” Luke murmurs as I finish the ligation.
“Thanks,” I say. I lean closer to check the field, my shoulder pressing firmly against his. “I’m thinking of framing this suit. Putting it in a shadow box. ‘The day I got real.’”
“It’s ruined,” Luke says, glancing at the devastation of my charcoal wool.
“It’s improved,” I correct. “It has character now.”
Luke looks at me. The patient is stable. The bleeding has stopped. We are standing chest-to-chest, covered in gore, breathing hard.
“If we get out of this shift,” Luke says, his voice low and smoky, “I’m taking you back to Queens.”
“For pizza?”
“No,” Luke says, his eyes dropping to my lips (or where they would be under the mask). “To finish the conversation we started in the hallway. And to take those cufflinks off.”
“I’m keeping the cufflinks,” I tease. “I like the contrast.”
“Preston,” Luke warns, but he’s smiling.
“Luke,” I reply, leaning in until our foreheads bump.
The air between us is crackling. The nurse is staring at us. The teenage girl with the broken leg is staring at us. I don't care.
“I love you,” I whisper.
Luke freezes. “You picked a hell of a time to?—”
“HEY!”
A roar from the doorway shatters the moment.
We both jump apart.
Jax O’Connell is standing there. He is covered in soot. He is holding a clipboard like a weapon.
“Are you two flirting?” Jax bellows. “Are you actually eye-banging each other over an open abdomen?”
