I let out a shaky laugh while wiping tears. “Human. Right.”
“That’s all any of us are,” he said. “Just humans trying to manage impossible situations and doing the best we can.”
We sat in silence. I cried quietly. He didn't look away, didn't tell me to stop, didn't offer empty platitudes. He just let me exist without having to perform strength.
City lights danced across his face, softening the sharp angles. His gray eyes held something warm and gentle that made the room feel smaller, more intimate.
What would his mouth taste like?
The thought hit me like a bolt of electricity.
'I should go back to bed.' I stood so quickly I nearly knocked my mug over.
His eyebrows flew up. “Oh.”
“I should at least try to sleep.” I quickly backed up.
“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”
We walked down the hallway together, our footsteps silent on the hardwood. We stopped where it split—his master suite to the left, my guest room to the right.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “For listening.”
“You don't need to thank me,” he said.
“I want to.”
He looked at me for a long moment. His eyes held mine, and something in them made my breath catch hard, my pulse kicking against my ribs.
The air between us felt charged, heavy with possibility and restraint.
“Goodnight, Mireya,” he said finally, his voice rough.
“Goodnight, Riven,” I whispered.
CHAPTER EIGHT
RIVEN
The scrub roomsmelled like betadine and stress.
I scrubbed my hands under water hot enough to hurt. Two minutes. That was the rule. I counted in my head while the foam turned my skin pink. The ritual grounded me, focused me, prepared me for what came next.
It had been seven days since she had been in this room.
Seven days of reaching for instruments that arrived a half second too late. Seven days of residents who anticipated nothing, who waited to be told instead of simply knowing. Seven days of surgeries that went fine, technically, clinically, by every measurable standard, and somehow felt like playing music with half the notes missing.
I had not said any of this out loud. I was not going to.
Mireya stood at the sink next to mine. She wasn't looking at me. I wasn't looking at her either.
But I knew she was there with an awareness that felt almost physical, the way you feel someone standing too close in a crowded elevator, their presence impossible to ignore. The particular rhythm of her scrubbing. The small exhale she did before a complex case, steadying herself in a way she probably didn't know she did out loud.
I had missed that sound. Specifically.
Which was not something I was going to examine right now with a patient waiting and a surgical team on the other side of that door.
"Ready?" I asked. My voice came out even. Professional.
