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“You okay?”

I blinked hard and forced myself upright. “Fine.”

The lie came automatically, calm and professional, because that was what I needed to be.

By the time I pushed open the exam room door, every emotion had already been shoved down somewhere deep enough that I could function.

Brandi sat on the edge of the bed wearing jeans and an oversized gray hoodie, nothing like the tiny outfits I was used to seeing her in around the clubhouse. Her long red hair was tied back loosely, and for the first time since I’d met her, she didn’t look confident. She looked nervous, and the second she realized it was me, discomfort flashed across her face.

“Oh,” she shifted awkwardly, “I didn’t know you were working today.”

I stepped fully into the room and shut the door behind me, carefully before moving toward the sink.

“It’s a clinic,” I said evenly while washing my hands. “You don’t really get to choose.”

Brandi nodded slightly and twisted her fingers together in her lap while silence settled heavily between us.

I reached for the chart mostly because it gave me something to focus on besides her face.

“So,” I said professionally, forcing my voice to stay steady while I pulled up her chart on the screen, “what brings you in today?”

She cleared her throat before answering quietly. “Just routine testing.”

Routine. Normal. Completely harmless words, and yet somehow nothing about sitting across from her felt remotely normal. My heart shattered again when I realized I may have to get checked now too. How many others had he been fucking before coming home to me each night?

I kept my attention fixed firmly on the paperwork while I asked the standard questions. Symptoms. Dates. Partners. Contraception. The familiar rhythm of clinical procedure steadied me slightly, giving me something structured to hold onto while my insides threatened to come apart all over again.

Brandi answered quietly. The silence between questions stretched longer and longer until eventually she broke first. “You hate me, don’t you?”

My hand paused briefly over the chart. The honest answer was complicated. Because I had wanted to hate her. God, I really had. It would have been easier if she’d been smug about it. Easier if she’d acted possessive or cruel or victorious. But she just looked uncomfortable, guilty even and somehow that made everything hurt worse.

I set the clipboard down carefully. “No,” I said after a moment. “I don’t hate you.” I focused on snapping gloves onto my hands. “Can you lie back for me please?”

She obeyed quietly.

The examination itself was quick, but the tension in the room sat thick enough to choke on. I tried focusing on procedure. Notes. Anything except the fact I was standing inches away from the woman Riot had slept with while I’d been at home waiting for him.

Except deep down, I knew Brandi wasn’t the thing destroying me. Riot was and not because he’d slept with her, but because he’d made me feel loved first.

When the exam was finished, Brandi sat back up slowly while I disposed of my gloves and updated her chart.

Then quietly, almost reluctantly, she said, “He stopped sleeping around after you.”

“What?”

Brandi shrugged awkwardly, eyes fixed firmly on the floor now. “Before you, Riot was just . . . Riot. Girls came and went. Nobody thought anything of it.” A faint sad smile touched her mouth. “Then you happened.”

A lump formed in my throat.

“He stopped bringing girls to his room. Stopped letting dancers hang all over him. Hell, he barely even looks at them anymore.” She glanced at me briefly. “Everybody’s noticed.”

Pain bloomed slowly beneath my ribs because that meant I hadn’t imagined it. All those tiny things I’d replayed obsessively in my head after leaving him came rushing back at once—Riot memorizing my shifts, bringing me terrible coffee because he knew I’d still drink it, stopped smoking inside the apartment because I hated the smell. The way he touched me absentmindedly like he couldn’t help himself, and the way he looked for me in every room.

“That night,” Brandi hesitated slightly, “after you left, he came back to the clubhouse.” Brandi gave a small shrug. “It was weird.”

I hated how badly I needed her to explain.

“He barely looked at me,” she admitted quietly. “Honestly? I don’t even think he knew I was there.”