“Nothing. Just watching you inhale proper food like it’s better than sex.”
She arches a brow. “It’s notbetter… But it’s close.”
I sit beside her and pretend the way her foot brushes mine under the stool doesn’t mean anything. We eat like that—eggs and honey and toast and soft teasing between bites. Gremlin jumps onto the counter once and is promptly scolded by me.
But eventually, the moment starts to shift. The sunlight gets sharper, and time starts pulling her away from me.
She stands, brushing her hands on her thighs. “I’ve gotta run a few errands, then Heidi and I have a coffee in the afternoon, too. I’ll order a cab.”
“Right.” I nod, hiding the twist in my gut.
When it arrives, I open the front door for her again, the same way I did last night. She pauses at the threshold, glancing up at me with something unreadable in her eyes.
I touch her wrist, thumb brushing along her skin. And before I can stop myself, I lean down and press an unhurried kiss to her mouth. She kisses me back, her hand gently trailing up my arm to clutch my bicep.
When I pull back, I speak before I can overthink it.
“I want to see you again.”
The second it’s out of my mouth, I almost want to take it back. Not because I don’t mean it, becausefuck,I mean it too much. More because I’m not sure what she’ll do with it.
I’ve never been good at wanting things I can’t control, but I’d rather say it and risk the fall than stand here pretending I don’t care if she leaves.
She swallows, eyes softly bouncing between mine.
“I know.”
It’s not quite a yes, but it’s more than I had yesterday.
She heads down the path toward her cab, sunlight catching on her hair, and I stay in the doorway, watching her until the car’s fully disappeared down the drive.
When I step back inside and close the door, my heart’s too full and too quiet to make sense of anything. I don’t try to name what I’m feeling.
But I know damn well I can’t pretend it’s nothing.
Chapter fifteen
Clear and bold and fucking undeniable
Carina
It’s been almost two weeks since I last saw Reid.
The Storm’s deep in the first round of conference playoffs, and he’s back on the ice, where he belongs. I haven’t seen him since the morning I left his house with honey on my tongue and his T-shirt swallowing me whole.
And that’s fine.
He’s on the road, and he’s focused. I’m drowning in seventy-two-hour call blocks and back-to-back OR days. This is what adults with real lives and real careers do—they drift. They pause things without falling apart, especially when they have nothing more than a no-strings-attached thing going on.
So I tell myself I don’t miss him.
And if I do, it’s just my body misfiring. A phantom itch for quiet and warmth, and someone who makes me coffee and bacon without asking.
This morning, I woke up in the surgical on-call room with my contacts still in and a knot in my spine that’s screaming at me. I didn’t even make it home after the motor vehicle accident patient we had last night—just collapsed face-first onto the too-firm mattress available after scrubbing out.
Now my eyes are burning, my back’s a mess, and I can’t remember the last time I ate something that didn’t come in a paper bag or fall out of a vending machine.
By the time I drag myself back into clean scrubs and log into the system to review the day’s cases, it’s already past noon. Peds fracture first, then a post-op check on a knee we scoped last week. After that, whatever the trauma gods feel like throwing at ortho.
