He glanced back once, caught my eye, and lifted his chin in something that might’ve been a salute before disappearing through the doors and into the night. I stood there a beat too long, the unit roaring back into full volume around me. Monitors chimed. Someone yelled for blood. A cart rattled past my hip.
“Nicole.”
I turned straight into a broad chest.
“Sorry,” I said automatically, already stepping back—
James smiled down at me, hands in the pockets of his lab coat, dark hair doing that unfair thing where it looked good no matter how long the shift dragged on. Fourth-year surgical resident. Always calm. Always clean around the edges, even when the rest of us were fraying.
“Perfect timing,” he said. “You’re exactly who I was looking for.”
My stomach dipped. “If this is about bay five, I already—”
“Not work,” he said, quick to clarify. His smile shifted, a little more sultry than the environment called for. “I mean, eventually work. But right now… me.”
Oh.
He gestured vaguely toward the hallway, like he was suddenly very aware we were standing in the middle of controlled chaos.
“Do you want to get dinner with me? Not hospital food. Real food. Somewhere with chairs that don’t squeak.”
I glanced, without meaning to, toward the emergency doors.
They swung open and shut, open and shut. Patients. Staff. Night pressing in from outside. Landon was long gone, but his voice echoed anyway, steady and final.
Playoffs. Fifth place. No room.
I looked back at James. At the way he was waiting, not crowding me, not assuming.
The truth settled in, heavy but clear: My shot with Landon wasn’t coming. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“Yeah,” I said, surprising myself with how sure it sounded. “I’d love to.”
Relief flashed across his face. “Awesome. Tomorrow night?”
I nodded, and watched him walk off to answer a page. When I turned back toward the nurses’ station, my heart did something complicated in my chest.
I didn’t look toward the emergency doors again.
12
Landon
Practice at Honda Center was already the kind of thing I hated even before Coach decided to make it the worst day of our lives. The Ducks’ ice smelled faintly of sweat and fresh wax, boards rattling under the first slap shots of the morning. Warm-up laps had barely finished when he clapped his hands and barked a set of instructions that made my teeth grit before the whistle blew.
“Power skates. Hard edges, fast transitions. Ten laps, and no whining!”
I glanced around. Grayson tried to keep a straight face as he dug deep, and the guys followed suit. Me? I was already moving, already feeling my muscles light up under the pressure. He wanted hard? Fine. I could go harder than any of them.
The first drill was edge-to-edge sprints with a puck on our backhand, weaving through cones set up like miniature defenders. By the third lap, my lungs were screaming, calves burning, but Coach didn’t break. Not once.
“Faster!” he yelled. “You’re soft, is what you are. Soft in the league, soft on the ice!”
Tucker muttered something under his breath, and Mason growled, “That’s enough, man—”
“Shut up and push!” Coach snapped, eyes tracking our movements with his ever-present stopwatch clenched in one hand. “Every second you waste crying about it is another goal you’re letting through this season! You like fifth place? This is how you keep fifth place!”
We switched to passing drills. Fast. Quick tape-to-tape, one-touch only. Mistake, and you run again. Shawn’s stick smacked the ice in frustration.
