Page 107 of The Backup Plan

All these warnings and yet it feels so damn good. I’m happy. He makes me happy.

My smile grows as I lean my head back against the door.

This is a risk.

A real one.

But maybe the risk isn’t falling.

Maybe the risk would have been walking away from something that already feels this true.

I close my eyes, clutch the fabric of his shirt, and let myself sit in the quiet a moment longer—grounded, overwhelmed in the best way—and very aware that whatever comes next, I’m choosing it for myself. And right now, I have a feeling choosing for myself will include an extremely handsome, six-foot-five football player.

Emery

The PT room hums the way it always does. The whir of machines. The clink of weights hitting the rack. Low music floating in from the locker room. The soft thud of cleats against the rubber flooring. The click of gear coming off and being set down. For some reason though, it all feels different now.

Or maybe I’m experiencing the cacophony through a different lens.

I try to focus on my tablet but as has happened the past few days, my attention drifts elsewhere. Like a lovesick, lust-fueled, ridiculous teenager.

Lucas is across the room, working through band resistance with one of the trainers hovering nearby. His movements are controlled. Intentional. Less guarded than they were a few weeks ago. He catches my eye just as I look up, and a warm and reckless feeling sparks low in my stomach.

I avert my gaze the second ours meet.

The way my pulse still kicks in when I think about his hands—where they’ve been. How steady they were. How they lingered like they had nowhere else they’d rather be.

It’s been four days since the gala night.

Days of pretending this is just routine. Just rehab. Just early mornings and late nights of nothing at all happening between us.

Except it is.

Our morning runs have resumed, slipping back into them like they never stopped. Side by side. Comfortable quiet between us with the city still half-asleep around us. No touching. No talk of us. Just the sound of our feet hitting pavement and the awareness of him being there solid and constant.

There have been late-night phone calls while lying in our own beds talking into the early morning hours. Stupid really, considering we live feet from each other, but I feel like it’s our unspoken way to slow this down. To continue to get to know each other. To crave that intimacy for when we can explore it the next time.

And I’d lie if I said not crossing that hall was the biggest test of my restraint I’ve had in a long time.

I don’t tell him how much I’ve looked forward to these moments in the last four days.

I don’t tell him how much I hate when the run or the phone call ends.

And it’s this—seeing each other at work, quick looks across the room, and murmured somethings as he passes by. There’s a constant charged energy whenever we’re in the same vicinity.

“My turn, Doc,” Lucas says with a shit-eating grin as he assumes the position—lying on his back, shirt discarded, and one arm bent for me to guide through his slow, controlled movements.

My brain short-circuits momentarily as I remember my tongue running over those abs. And when our eyes meet, the amusement in his says he knows exactly what I’m thinking about.

“You threw more in yesterday’s practice than you have previously in your recovery. How’s the shoulder today?” I ask. I press my fingers into muscle and tendon, familiar in a way now that’s both reassuring and wildly inappropriate.

Clinical.

This is totally clinical.

Then why does his gaze look like he wants to devour me right here and now?

I repeat the mantra as I begin my circumduction assessment to better ascertain what’s going on beneath the skin.