Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Nash
Today was a bad day at the hospital. The waiting room was full from the moment I walked in and was still full when I left.
A stream of patients in need of help. Not enough doctors and nurses to cover them all.
Tempers were high, patience was thin, and Admin only wanted to talk about patient satisfaction scores instead of how to actually care for the people who needed us.
I’m tired.
More than tired.
Something inside me is screaming that this is not how it’s supposed to be and I don’t have the first clue how to fix it.
There was a time when, after a day like today, I’d come home to a house that felt like a war zone.
Jadelyn, angry at my fatigue, jealous of the hours and energy the emergency room demands, either stonily silent or pick, pick, picking at every little thing as she expressed her displeasure. Fire or ice, never anything in between.
I pull into my driveway and the lights in my house blaze from the windows like a beacon.
Tonight, Lucy waits for me inside with her comfort, her bright smile and easy conversation.
Her willingness to allow me to quietly decompress from the day without blaming me for the weight I carry—the accumulated gravity of holding other people’s lives in my hands, of making split-second decisions that ripple through families I’ll never see again. Twelve-hour shift turned fourteen.
With a deep inhale, I close my eyes, then release it all, scrubbing a hand over my face before killing the truck engine and heading inside.
The scent hits me first—garlic, butter, maybe lemon.
Something warm and real and meant for me.
Candlelight flickers from the kitchen, and I catch the soft sound of Lucy humming under her breath.
I round the corner.
She’s there, barefoot in one of my flannel shirts, sleeves rolled up to her elbows.
The shirt hangs loose on her frame, and candlelight catches the gold in her hair.
Two plates sit on the table, roasted chicken and vegetables, simple but beautiful.
Comfort food that looks like it was made by someone who knows exactly what I need.
Lucy looks up, and her expression shifts immediately. “You look like you’ve been through a war.”
“Feels like it.” The words come out rougher than gravel, scraped raw. “But coming home to a beautiful woman and dinner on the table helps.”
Lucy smiles, a brilliant remedy to the exhaustion weighing me down “Well good. I like helping. Do you need a minute or are you ready to eat?”
That simple question says so much. Lucy sees me. Lucy cares. Lucy wants what’s best for me.
“I am so ready for dinner,” I say, clapping my hands and rubbing them together. “But, I think it’s in everyone’s best interest if I decontaminate first. Hospitals are dirty, germy places.”
“Alrighty, shower first. Then get in here and eat.” She gestures to the table. “Doctor’s orders. Or... well, chef’s orders.”
I shower quickly, then join her for dinner, the weight of the day receding as I reach for the fork.
Lucy talks about nothing important, and it’s everything.
The neighbor’s dog who won’t stop barking, Stella’s latest event-planning disaster, a text from Gabby about a puppy she wants to adopt.
With Jadelyn, dinner was stony silence, heavy sighs, the awareness I could never do enough to give her what she wants.
Lucy’s happy conversation means I can finally breathe.
Every bite feels like it’s stitching something back together.
The soft clink of her fork against the plate, the way she gestures with her hands when she tells a story, the candlelight dancing across her features, it’s all so normal, so perfectly wonderful, that it feels revolutionary, especially after the end of my marriage and the lonely years between then and now.
When our plates are empty, I start to gather them. Lucy pushes to her feet, plucks the dishes from my hand, deposits them in the sink, then beckons me toward the living room.
“Come with me.” She moves to the couch, settles back against the cushions, and spreads her legs, pointing to the floor between them. “Sit. Shirt off.”
I blink at her.
“For a massage,” she adds, lips twitching. “Targeted therapy, I think you called it. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it professional. Mostly. You’ve taken such good care of everyone else today. Let me take care of you.”
I ease onto the floor, then pull my shirt overhead. “I’m so tired, I can’t even fight you on this.”
Lucy reaches for the lotion on the side table, squirts some into her hands, then rubs them together. The first touch is gentle, tentative, but firm. Her thumbs dig into the knots between my shoulders, and I can’t stop the groan that escapes.
“You’re so tense,” she murmurs. “Like concrete that’s been setting for years.”
“Long day.”
“Long life,” she corrects softly.
Her palms are soft but sure, lotion warming between us until it disappears into nothing but her touch. She works each muscle with care, learning the map of my day one knot at a time. My muscles unlock one by one, like she’s found some secret combination I never knew existed.
“You wanna talk about it?”
“About what?”
“Your day.”
The answer to that has always been no.
No, I don’t want to talk about my day. People hear the first ugly detail and check out. And if I let myself admit how heavy the rest of it is, I’m not sure I’d make it through the next shift.
But with Lucy?
Maybe it’s my full belly, or the way her hands are coaxing years of tension out of my shoulders, or maybe it’s just her…
soft, steady, impossible to hide from. Whatever it is, the words I’ve swallowed for years start pouring out of me.
I tell her everything. And once the details of the day are out, something deeper slips free—something I’ve never said out loud.
“I went into emergency medicine because I wanted to meet people on their worst day and have the answers. I wanted to be the person who doesn’t flinch at the ugly stuff. Someone who can hold the line when everything falls apart.”
My voice cracks, just slightly. “And I do that. Those patients—the ones who look at me like I’m their last hope—they remind me why I’m here. Why I keep showing up.”
I swallow hard.
“But then there’s the rest of it. The administrative red tape. The insurance fights. The quotas and metrics and satisfaction scores. All this noise that makes me feel less like a doctor and more like a cog in a machine that cares about money more than people.”
The confession hangs there—heavy, unfamiliar.
I’ve never said this out loud. Not once.
Lucy’s hands still, then soften. “That’s what you were for me,” she whispers. “When I was there. Everything in my life was crashing down, and you were calm. You were steady. You knew exactly what I needed to hear, even when I didn’t like what you had to say—”
“Or how I said it,” I mutter.
She laughs, warm and light. “There might be a little room for improvement in your bedside manner. But Nash… you’re incredible.
You show up every day even when it costs you something.
I can feel how much you carry. I see how tired you are, how much you give, how little you keep for yourself. That has to matter. It does matter.”
The words hit like she pressed her palm right against a bruise I’ve hidden for years.
I breathe out, a long, shaky exhale, and something inside me—some tightly knotted thing—finally loosens. Her hands knead the stiff muscles of my back, and it’s like my armor, the careful layers I’ve built over a decade in the ER, finally split along their worn seams.
“Thank you,” I say quietly. “For seeing that.”
Silence settles—comfortable, weighted, full of things we’re both still learning how to say. Then, softly:
“Have you ever thought about a different path in medicine?” she asks.
“Sometimes.” I drag a hand through my hair. “I’ve imagined a private practice. More time with my patients. Actually building relationships. I wouldn’t be there for their worst days… but I’d still matter. I’d still help. I’m not sure that’s right for me, though.”
“What about administration at the hospital? Changing things from the inside?”
I huff out something between a laugh and a groan. “That would be a slow death for me. Too much sitting. Too much paperwork. Too much focus on metrics and not enough on what actually matters.”
It’s the clearest I’ve ever said it.
The rawest truth I’ve ever admitted.
“I get that,” Lucy murmurs. “I just hate seeing you unhappy.”
Her words settle deep.
Because she’s the first person I’ve ever really admitted it to.
And the first person who looks like she wants to shoulder the truth with me.
I twist, shift onto my knees between hers, and look into her eyes.
“I don’t want to talk about work anymore,” I tell her.
“What do you want to talk about?” Lucy’s breath hitches. Her lips part. Her eyes meet mine like the answer to questions I didn’t know I was asking.
“I don’t think I want to talk at all,” I respond, then cup her cheeks in my hands and kiss her.
Not a polite, careful kiss. Not a testing one. But deep. Devouring. Like I’ve been holding my breath for weeks and she’s the first lungful of air I trust not to hurt me.
She pulls me close, our bodies pressed together, and her fingers tangle in my hair. I cradle her face, run my thumbs along her cheekbones. We kiss again, slower this time, and I swear the ground tilts beneath us.
I lift her, carry her down the hall. Into my room.
Into our room, maybe. Man, I want it to be.
Moonlight through the blinds paints silver stripes across her skin as we shed our clothes—not hurried, but hungry. Each brush of skin is a promise I didn’t know I was allowed to make. She looks at me like I’m not a collection of sharp edges and long hours, but something worth unwrapping slowly.
When we come together, it’s like coming home to a place I didn’t know I’d been searching for.
It’s trust.
It’s letting her see every frayed edge I usually keep tucked away.
She meets me with quiet wonder, hands mapping the tension in my back, her breath warm against my throat. Her touch is healing in a way that has nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with being known.
And when I finally come apart, it’s not from release alone. It’s from the knowing… that she’s here. That she sees the man beneath the mask and chooses him anyway.
That maybe, for the first time in years, I don’t have to carry everything alone.
Afterward, she traces lazy patterns on my chest, and I realize something has shifted permanently. Not just between us, but in me. The careful distance I’ve maintained, the walls I’ve built, they’re not gone, but they have doors now.
And Lucy has the key.