PRESENT DAY
I was between surgeries,sitting in the attending lounge with a cup of coffee that had gone cold an hour ago, scrolling through messages I didn’t want to read. Department memos. Research updates. A reminder about the protocol meeting scheduled for that afternoon.
Then I saw his name, and my thumb stopped moving.
Daniel Hargreeve. He was my fellowship supervisor. The very man who had pushed me harder than anyone else in my career and somehow made me grateful for it.
We published three papers together during my two years in Europe. He’d written recommendation letters that opened doors I hadn’t known existed. And he’d never once made me feel like I needed to be anyone other than exactly who I was.
I hadn’t seen him in two years. Not since I’d finished the fellowship and returned to the States.
The email was brief, informing me that he was in town for a conference and wanted to catch up. He said something he wanted to discuss.
So I agreed to meet him on Thursday evening.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur of surgeries and consults. A ruptured appendix at nine. A perforated ulcerat eleven. These cases demanded focus, leaving no room for anything except the patient on the table and the work that needed doing.
By noon, I was exhausted and starving. But I was somehow grateful—because exhaustion meant I didn’t have time to think about Cassian, the protocol meeting in three hours, and the way my pulse kicked up every time I saw him in the hallways, my body responding to his presence before my mind could intervene.
I grabbed my jacket and headed for the cafeteria, already resigning myself to whatever sad excuse for a salad they were serving today.
“Karras.”
I turned. Cassian was behind me, hands in his pockets, looking uncertain in a way that didn’t suit him. His dirty blonde hair was slightly disheveled, like he’d been running his fingers through it. His green eyes held something I couldn’t quite read.
“Reed.”
“You heading to lunch?”
“That was the plan.”
“Mind if I join you?”
I hesitated. We’d been so careful about boundaries these past weeks. Professional distance. Minimal contact outside of required meetings. Arriving exactly on time, leaving the moment we were dismissed. Lunch felt like crossing a line neither of us had agreed to move.
But I was tired. Tired of pretending he didn’t exist. Tired of the constant effort of avoidance, the way it drained energy I didn’t have to spare.
“Sure.”
We ended up at a small deli two blocks from the hospital. The kind of place with checkered tablecloths and a menu written on a chalkboard, where the woman behind the counter calledhalf the customers by name. Cassian ordered a turkey sandwich. I ordered tomato soup. We sat at a table near the window, afternoon light falling across the worn wooden surface between us.
For the first few minutes, we ate in silence. But it wasn’t the tense, loaded quiet of our protocol meetings. This was something easier. Almost familiar. Like slipping into clothes you’d forgotten you owned and finding they still fit.
“This place is new,” I said eventually.
“It opened about three years ago.” Cassian wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I come here when the cafeteria gets too depressing.”
“Which is always.”
“Which is always.” He smiled, and it was genuine. The kind that reached his eyes and crinkled the corners, that made him look like the Cassian I’d married instead of the carefully controlled version he showed me at work.
I looked away, focusing on my soup. His smile was dangerous. It made me remember things I had no business remembering.
“Can I ask you something?” The words escaped before I could stop them.
“Sure.”
“Why did you agree to the protocol assignment? You could have said no. Patel would have found someone else.”
