My stomach drops even as I lift my chin. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Tori—”
“It was a mistake.” I keep my voice clinical. Professional. The tone I use with difficult patients, the one that leaves no room for argument. “We were tired. Boundaries got blurred. It happens.”
His jaw tightens, a muscle ticking near his temple.
“Right,” he says slowly. “A mistake.”
“It won’t happen again.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, studying me with those dark eyes. I can’t read his expression—it’s shuttered now, closed off—nothing like last night. Last night, he looked at me like I was something precious. Now he looks at me like I’m a stranger.
Good. That’s what I want. That’s what I need.
“If that’s what you want,” he finally says.
It’s not. That’s the problem. What I want is to cross the room and kiss him again, to feel his hands in my hair and his mouth on my neck, and forget about every rule I’ve ever made for myself.
But wanting something doesn’t make it right.
“It is,” I lie. “Now get on the table. We have work to do.”
He holds my gaze for one more second. Then he nods, pulls off his shirt, and settles onto the treatment table without another word.
I put my hands on his shoulder and pretend I don’t feel him flinch.
• • •
The week that follows is brutal.
Gone is the easy banter, the teasing, the way he’d catch my eye across the room and smile.
In its place? Clinical instructions. Minimal eye contact. A careful, calculated distance that feels like a chasm.
“Fifteen reps,” I tell him on Tuesday. “Slow and controlled.”
“Got it.”
No pushback. No smartass comment about my bossy streak. Just compliance.
I hate it.
“Your mobility is improving,” I say on Wednesday, not looking at him as I write notes on my tablet. “Another two weeks and we can increase resistance.”
“Sounds good.”
That’s all I get. Two words and a nod, and the specific kind of politeness that’s worse than rudeness because at least rudeness would be honest.
• • •
My mom calls Wednesday night, right when I’m stress-eating leftover pad Thai and watching a home renovation show I’m not really seeing.
“Hi, honey! How’s my favorite daughter?”
“I’m your only daughter, Mom.”
“Which makes you my favorite by default.” I can hear her smile through the phone. “How’s work? How’s the shoulder guy? The grumpy one?”
