Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Nash
Music filters down the hallway as I finish my last set, the ache in my muscles just enough to remind me I’m alive. My shirt clings with sweat. My lungs burn. The familiar fire doing its best to sear away the weight of the day.
Work was… unsatisfying. Which is putting it kindly.
Dinner with Lucy helped. Her laughter peeled something loose in my chest, as it always does.
Being with her is bringing me closer to the man I was when life felt new and filled with promise.
And the workout, my version of therapy, burned through the rest. Or most of it, anyway.
There’s always some residue that clings.
The hospital asks so much and gives so little.
I do everything I can. Patch the wound, start the breathing, shock the heart.
And sometimes it’s enough. But more and more, it feels like I’m running in circles.
Fighting upstream through insurance bullshit and administrative nonsense and a general, choking apathy that no one seems eager to fix.
It’s like trying to save people from drowning with my hands tied behind my back.
But, following thoughts like that will send my mood right back downhill, so I follow the music instead. Something soft and aching, the kind of melody that sounds like longing wrapped in love. I pad down the hallway, catching my breath as I go.
And then I see her.
Lucy.
Bathed in gold and framed by the last light of the day. She’s backlit by the sun, which pours through the kitchen window, touching everything she is and turning it to fire. Her back is to me. Her hips sway. Her arms sweep. Her hair arcs like light.
She’s dancing.
If freedom had a form, it would look like this. If hope had a body, it would be hers. If purpose had breath, it would be the rise and fall of her chest.
I thought she was beautiful while still, but she is transcendent in motion.
Wild and strong and fluid in ways that don’t make sense and yet somehow explain everything.
And I can’t breathe. I can’t move.
How could anyone watch her dance and think she was destined for anything else?
Lucy lifts onto the ball of her healing foot and extends one leg behind her. A long, effortless arabesque. Her arms sweep overhead like she’s reaching for heaven to drag some of it back down with her.
Goosebumps chase across my skin. Awe anchors me to the doorway.
She turns. Sees me.
And smiles.
God help me.
I press a hand to my chest. It’s instinct, not drama. Something in me contracts, then stretches wide. There’s desire, sure—how could there not be—but it’s buried beneath something even stronger. A gravity. A pull. A quiet certainty that if I let myself love her, I won’t survive losing her.
She extends a hand.
I cross the threshold like a man obliterating the boundaries he erected around himself, armor dropping to the floor.
Step into her space. Wrap my arms around her waist. She loops hers around my neck.
We sway. No steps, no rhythm, just the hush of bodies pressed close and the music winding between us.
She’s warm in my arms. Alive in a way I don’t think I’ve ever let myself be.
Her head rests on my chest. My hand circles slowly on her back.
I close my eyes and let myself feel it, really feel it.
This woman. This light. This rare and luminous force who barged into my life and healed something I didn’t know was broken while I was supposed to be healing her.
I rest my cheek against her hair, breathing her in. There’s rosemary on her skin. Vanilla from the cookies we made after dinner. Sunshine in the fabric of her shirt. And something else. Something that’s just her, wild and sweet and impossible to name.
An ache opens inside me. Slow and wide.
Because I know what this is. A borrowed moment. A bubble of light before it pops.
Lucy Calder isn’t mine to keep.
She isn’t meant to stay.
Her ankle is healing. Her strength is returning. She’s almost ready to go back to the life I borrowed her from.
I want to ask her to stay, more than anything I want that, but it would be like clipping a bird’s wings because I like the way it sings when it perches near me. Like fighting for Jadelyn when both of us knew we’d reached the end.
“You’re quiet,” she murmurs.
I open my eyes. She’s watching me. Those bright blue eyes—so clear, so unflinching—burning through whatever mask I thought I had on.
“You’re amazing,” I say, my voice low, rough. I let my hands slip from her waist to her face, cupping her cheeks. “I’ve never seen anything like you.”
And yes, I’m talking about her dancing, but also… her.
The essence of Lucy is summer and sunshine and freedom and movement… all things this world erodes with routine and fear and the slow grind of being practical.
She gives a little laugh, breathy and self-conscious. “I was just messing around.”
“Even more amazing, then.” I brush my thumb along her jaw.
The look she gives me is almost shy. Almost.
A breath, a beat, and then my lips are on hers, and it’s like touching lightning.
She softens against me, rising on her toes, pulling me down, deepening the kiss with this hungry, sun-warmed ache that sends heat roaring through me.
Her hands are in my hair. Mine find her waist. Then her back.
Her spine. I want to feel all of her. I want to memorize her with my palms. I kiss along her jaw.
Her neck. I graze her ear with my teeth and she shivers.
Her breath hitches. My name escapes her lips like a promise.
“I want you,” I whisper, but I don’t mean just for tonight. I want Lucy in my life, my heart, my rhythm, my purpose. I want her smiling over coffee and laughing over dinner, then moaning in my bed and I don’t just want it now. I want it always.
I want her always.
“Then take me,” she says, breathy, wanting, and she can only mean now, in this moment, because Lucy was never mine to keep. She was always going to ask to be set free.
But I would rather have one night with her than a thousand with anyone else.
So I kiss her again, slower this time. Devouring and awestruck all at once. Like I’m burning her name into my very being.
We stumble down the hallway, lips tangled, laughter bubbling between the breathless moments. My hand finds hers, our fingers lacing tight, grounding us in something that feels frighteningly like love.
The bedroom door clicks shut behind us and the last light of sunset glows through the curtains, wrapping the room in a hushed amber glow. I lift the hem of her shirt, brushing my knuckles along the soft skin of her back. She leans into the touch, her eyes dark and wide, searching mine.
We undress slowly. Like we’re unwrapping something sacred.
There’s no rush. Just the sound of our breaths, the whisper of fabric, the rhythm of hands traveling favorite terrains.
Her mouth finds mine again. Her thighs wrap around me as we settle into each other, a tangle of limbs and want and whispered names.
There’s heat, yes—an undeniable, breath-stealing pull—but under it all is something deeper.
A surrender.
A truth.
That for tonight, we’re not broken. We’re not uncertain. We’re not afraid.
We’re here. Together. Whole in a way neither of us expected.
When we come together, it’s not frantic or greedy.
It’s slow and aching. A claiming of something I’ll never stop wanting.
After, we lie tangled in the hush, skin damp, hearts still racing.
My fingers trace lazy patterns along her arm.
Her head rests on my chest, and I can feel her smile even before I see it.
I kiss the top of her head and close my eyes.
Maybe love isn’t about holding on forever.
Maybe it’s about showing up fully, even when you know you might have to let go.
And for whatever reason I’m achingly aware that I’m going to have to let Lucy go.
But tonight, she’s here.
And so am I.
And for now, that’s enough.