Chapter 30 Oliver #2
My career would be over. My parents would be so disappointed. I’d lose the team, the guys who were my closest friends. And Sloane… god, what could I even offer her if I was some has-been?
I showed up at 11:55.
William met me at the check-in tablet near the back hallway.
He didn’t say much—handed me a bottle of water and gestured toward the smaller testing room off the main diagnostics bay.
It was windowless, lit by a single overhead panel, and had the faint chemical smell of fresh wipes on plastic equipment.
What if this was the last time I did this here?
What if they walked me out after, calling security in here because they were terrified I’d react like Hayes? What if my life was over?
“Vitals look consistent,” he said as I sat. “We’re monitoring for shifts. Keep the water nearby.”
I nodded.
He didn’t make eye contact when he left.
Sloane walked in a minute later, already holding a clipboard. She was in black joggers and a red team shirt, a jacket over it. Her hair was pulled back in a tight knot. No hoodie. No smiles.
Once she approached me, her footsteps faltered, and she reached out to squeeze my shoulder. It was quick and the only display of warmth before she started.
She didn’t look at me when she spoke. “You’ll start with ImPACT baseline. Then we’ll run verbal recall and sequencing.”
“Good afternoon to you too, Doctor Mercer,” I said, not able to hide the annoyance in my voice. I studied her, worried about the line between her eyebrows and the tightness to her jaw.
Her lips thinned. “Let’s keep this clinical, James.”
James? Shit. I raised my hands slightly, fear grinding down my spine. This couldn’t be good. “You got it. Clinical.”
She pulled the chair across from me and opened the laptop on the desk. The screen loaded a timed assessment—basic color-matching, symbol recognition, delayed recall, and tracking tasks.
I’d done this test before. It was usually boring, sometimes frustrating, but never hard. Today, I couldn’t lock in. The colors blurred halfway through the second section. My finger twitched on the response pad. I missed two obvious matches and cursed under my breath.
Sloane didn’t flinch. “Keep going.”
I moved slower on the next section—number sequencing. It asked me to repeat strings of digits, forward and backward. The five-digit sequence looped fine. But the six? I blinked. Paused. Got it wrong.
“Retry,” she said, voice neutral.
I did. Same error.
“Would you say you slept last night?” she asked, no evidence of us in her voice.
“Yes, Sloane, I slept last night.”
“Mm.”
That was her response. Were we recorded? Being watched? Why was she being so distant? She’d only do that if she didn’t feel something for me, but I knew that wasn’t true. There was another option though…My stomach bottomed out as it hit me. Things were serious. Something was wrong with me.
That’s why she was putting up distance. Same with Ivy. Fuck.
The realization hit me like a goddamn train.
We moved on to verbal recall, and I couldn’t focus, my brain spiraling. She read a list of ten words. I had to repeat them in the same order. I remembered six. Missed two. Got the last two flipped.
“Baseline last season was eight out of ten,” she said.
“Maybe I’m rusty,” I offered, hoping I was wrong and the weight in my gut was misplaced.
“Or maybe you’re symptomatic. You’re distracted and not able to compensate like you normally would.” Her gaze flew to mine in warning.
That shut me up.
The test ran another loop—reaction-time tracking. A dot would appear in different quadrants, and I had to tap it fast. Usually, I crushed this. But my timing lagged. My dominant hand was slower. My heart rate spiked.
I knew she noticed. She didn’t say anything.
She tapped a few notes into her tablet. I waited for her to say something human. She didn’t.
“You’re not gonna tell me anything?” I asked.
“Not until it’s reviewed.”
“Can you make a guess?”
“No, what good would that do?”
“Let me know what you’re thinking instead of me freaking out and guessing with half answers. What are you seeing, Sloane? Tell me. Please.”
“It’s hard to say until we know for sure,” she said, still not meeting my eye.
“Do I look okay to you?”
Her eyes flicked up, and for a split second, the mask cracked. Not much. Just enough for me to see the fear behind it. Her eyes welled, and her bottom lip trembled but then she cleared her throat and swallowed, hard.
“You’re finishing the protocol,” she said quietly. “Then we wait for the cardiologist.”
My mouth went dry. “This isn’t about reaction time, is it?” I asked. “You think it’s something else.”
“I think you’re not being honest with yourself about how often you feel off,” she said, her tone the one I heard that first time meeting with her. She was in full Doctor Mercer mode, and usually, I found that hot.
Right now, it unnerved me. I leaned forward, taking a breath as I waited for her to look at me. “I think you’re hiding something.”
Her jaw tensed. “Oliver, this isn’t a conversation we can have in here.”
I laughed once, short and bitter. “We’ve had worse conversations in worse rooms.”
“That was before this.” Her voice cracked slightly. “Before everything… got real.”
Before I could ask what that meant, she stood and closed the laptop.
“That’s it?” I asked. My temper flared. She knew I was a mess and was letting me spiral, keeping me in the dark.
“For now.”
“I deserve to know what’s going on.”
“You will. I promise,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder again. “But Oliver, I can’t until everything is official. Please don’t ask this of me.”
I looked at her and tracked the worry lines on her forehead, the pulse at the base of her neck.
“Sloane.”
She didn’t look at me.
“I don’t want to be a file to you.”
Her eyes lifted then. Sharp. Sad.
“Then stop making me treat you like one.”
She walked out.
And I sat there, alone in a silent room, wondering if this was the moment I started losing everything I was trying to hold on to.