“Never.” My sister’s laugh is evil. “This is gold. Mom, he’s mumbling about that doctor.”
That’s what I get for having a sister ten years younger than me.
“Piper, leave your brother alone.” Mom’s voice is softer, closer, and I feel her hand on my good shoulder. “Hunter, can you hear me?”
“Yeah.” I force my eyes open to slits. The recovery room swims into focus. Beige walls, fluorescent lights, the steady beep of monitors. My left arm feels like dead weight, wrapped and immobilized. “Surgery done?”
“All done,” Mom says, smoothing my hair back like I’m still ten years old. “Dr. Kapoor said it went well. They repaired the tendons and cleaned everything up. You’ll need physical therapy, but you should make a full recovery.”
Piper leans into my line of sight, her phone pointed at my face. “Say Claire’s name again. For the camera.”
“Go to hell.”
“There’s the brother I know and love.”
I close my eyes again, trying to pull together coherent thoughts through the anesthesia soup in my brain. Claire. Dr. Claire Elliott. The way she looked at me in that ER bay, all buttoned up and professional while her eyes gave her away. The hitch in her breath when I asked what happens when she’s not in control. The way her hand twitched toward my scar like she wanted to touch me but wouldn’t let herself.
I want her hands on me again. Everywhere. No gloves this time.
“Why are you smiling?” Piper asks.
“I’m not.”
“You absolutely are. It’s creepy. You look high.”
“I am high, you menace.”
Voices drift from somewhere past the curtain. Dr. Kapoor’s distinct accent, professional and measured. Then Mom’s voice, quieter, asking questions I can’t quite make out.
I strain to listen through the post-op haze.
“Dr. Elliott specifically requested that I take this case,” Dr. Kapoor says. “She felt it was the most appropriate course of action given the circumstances.”
My eyes snap open.
Claire asked not to operate on me.
A grin pulls at my mouth despite the anesthesia drag. She’s running. Which means I got to her. Which means she felt it too, that live-wire pull between us in Bay Seven.
“Hunter?” Piper’s watching me with narrowed eyes. “What’s that look?”
“What look?”
“That look. Like you just won something.”
I did win something. Confirmation. Claire Elliott wants me, even if she’s fighting it with everything she’s got. A woman doesn’t pull herself off a case unless she’s compromised. Unless she can’t trust herself to keep things professional.
The thought sends heat through my chest despite the cold IV fluids.
“Mom said the doctor’s really pretty,” Piper says, settling into the chair beside my bed with a knowing smirk. “Esme’s been trying to set you two up for weeks.”
“Esme talks too much.”
“Esme’s a good friend. She knows you need someone who isn’t gone by sunrise.”
The words hit different than they should. Piper’s thrown that line at me a dozen times over the years, usually while I’m nursing a hangover and she’s making judgmental coffee in my kitchen. But this time, something in my gut twists.
I run my thumb over the scar on my right palm. The old one, from fifteen years ago when I was green and stupid and didn’t respect the saw enough. Jenna had been so pissed at me. Drove me to the ER while lecturing me about safety protocols, then held my hand while they stitched me up. She cried more than I did.
