Chapter 16 #2
“Thanks.” I flashed her a smile that felt hollow because I did—even now, when accomplishment should be humming in my veins. Thanks, Dean. As I turned to leave, a bright flyer on the bulletin board caught my eye. devon memorial: your future starts here. fellowship applications close feb. 15.
Truth was, they’d start reviewing candidates as early as next week.
I could wait a little longer, yes, but at some point, they’d have favorites and my chances as a late entry would drop.
They were already… not zero, maybe, but both CT and pediatric surgery were a competitive bloodbath.
I’d lined up some recommendations, though.
I’d worked hard for them—had earned them.
Jesus, I needed some air. Five minutes of sky and a chance to hear myself think.
Maybe on the rooftop Dean had shown me, that time he’d found me crashing after the domestic abuse case.
I’d returned a few times since, just me, and there was no reason he’d be there when they’d scheduled him for a stretch of earlier shifts.
I’d watch the river for a moment, remind myself that I’d been fine on my own for thirty years, that one week didn’t suddenly change everything.
And that I wouldn’t let one man shrink the radius of my dreams.
Stale air followed me out and into the back stairwell.
Each step felt like an exclamation mark, up and up and up, until I shouldered through the roof door.
I let it thud shut behind me and crossed over to the railing.
A cold breeze snaked underneath my clothes and made me shiver, slapped feeling back into my cheeks.
One breath, and another. Pale winter sun turned the Hudson into a glowing ribbon that cut through the city, dotted with cargo ships and ferries.
It wasn’t a tropical island with champagne service and colorful fish darting through crystal-clear water, no—but beautiful in its own way. Home.
Behind me, the door eased open.
I stiffened, knuckles suddenly white where I gripped cold metal. No. Please, no.
“Hey.”
Yes—Dean. Voice so soft it barely carried across the few steps that yawned between us. I didn’t turn, kept staring at the river until it blurred, ribs aching with a strange sense of vertigo.
“What, uh…” He trailed off, then picked the thread back up. “What three words do you never want to hear in the middle of a surgery?”
Okay, just… What the fuck. Was this all just a joke to him? Was I the joke? I bit the inside of my cheek and focused on the sting. Wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
“‘Where’s my watch?’” he said into silence that gaped like the maws of a predator.
“That’s four words.” Damn—I hadn’t meant to speak. He’d lasted fifty fucking hours, maybe more, and I’d barely lasted a minute. Go figure.
“Depends.” Slow, deliberate footsteps carried him to within arm’s length of me, careful movements as he leaned against the railing and I stared straight ahead. “It’s four words to start with, yes, but one’s a contraction of two—think that counts as just the one.”
I tipped up my chin and refused to even glance at him.
“Right.” A beat. “I’d hoped it’d be the kind of joke you’d enjoy. Break the ice with a smile, you know?”
“Don’t think you deserve it.” My voice sounded far steadier than I felt.
“Yeah.” He exhaled in a burst of misty air, forearms braced on the railing, open coat flapping with the wind. “That’s fair, I guess.”
I felt chilled to the bone but fought the urge to wrap my arms around myself—for warmth, not comfort.
But, no. I just… Fuck. I shouldn’t care what he thought, maybe—only I did.
And I didn’t want to look weak, nothing like when he’d left me at the airport.
If he was here to break my heart some more, dance on the pieces while he was at it…
Airport. His patient—the eighteen-year-old.
“How did the transplant go?” I asked even as I stood stiff as a statue. A seagull shrieked over distant sirens.
A tiny hitch of his breath as he turned to face me, a shift of his shoulders that I felt more than saw—as if he was surprised I’d ask. “Good. She’s…” He halted, a tiny smile shining through when he continued. “She’ll be okay.”
“I’m glad.” It came out a little too gentle. But even with my lungs folded into something sad and tight and a little angry—this was a girl with a fresh shot at life. And that would never be anything short of amazing.
“Yeah.” The word was near-translucent, like frosted glass. He kept looking at me, focus heavy, while I tracked a barge instead. Ball was in his fucking court. If he couldn’t figure out why he’d come—why had he come? And how did he know I’d be here?
I swallowed wind that tasted of Manhattan. “You knew I’d be here. How?”
“Gregg told me.”
“I haven’t spoken to Gregg since we got back.” Since you dropped my heart by my feet and walked away. Jerk.
The voice in my head lacked heat—small and tired even though I tried to pull into myself, wrap the winter air around me like armor. He hadn’t earned forgiveness, hadn’t earned anything.
He also hadn’t asked for anything, though. Not yet, anyway.
What do you want from me?
“His girlfriend works with you,” Dean said. “Jada Wilson.”
I needed a second to understand why it wasn’t an answer to a question I hadn’t asked, how it answered the one I did. Dr. Wilson—warm smile and heart-dotted cap, telling me to get some air. Right, then.
“I was hoping you’d still…” He drew an audible breath. “You said you come up here on breaks sometimes, ever since I showed you the place. I was hoping that hadn’t changed.”
Silence. It felt almost physical in its weight, my eyes on the river, the city, the sky—anything but Dean next to me as I tried to anchor myself to the small, burning knot of anger in my gut.
“I, uh… You know.” He stumbled and stopped, voice fragile in a way that didn’t suit him.
A beat passed, and when he tried again, there was more weight to it.
“I thought about some big gesture—decorating this whole spot here in fairy lights and mangoes, yelling ‘I love you’ in the middle of the cafeteria, that sort of thing. Didn’t feel quite like you, though. ”
He—what?
“Dean,” I started, not even sure what came after, knocked off-balance like a bowling pin struck out of the blue.
“I recused myself.” He said it like it held resonance, like I was meant to make sense of it.
“From what?” I asked.
“Fellowship selection. Told the committee I’ve got a personal connection to one of the possible candidates and shouldn’t weigh in—not even informally.”
He’d…
He’d admitted he was compromised? Just like that, when I knew it would’ve cost him.
Nothing tangible, maybe, nothing quite so simple as a career setback—but he’d spent years perfecting an image that reflected the surgical ideal: precise, clinical, no distractions.
And now he’d walked into a room and declared himself biased?
“You gave up a seat at the table?” I turned a fraction, just enough to catch the proud tilt of his head.
“I wanted to make sure you’ll be judged on your CV, not rumors.”
Something like shock rippled under my skin. “But I don’t even know yet if I’ll apply for CT. Might choose peds.”
“Yes.” He didn’t look away, eyes ocean blue.
“But this way, you’re free to choose what you want, not what you think will keep me comfortable.
And no one can say I tilted the scales in your favor.
If…” Another moment of hesitation that marked a striking contrast to how he usually carried himself. “If you still want to try this. Us.”
“Dean, I…” Thoughts I hadn’t sorted, words lagging even further. This was—this. Us. That’s what he’d said.
“I fucked up,” he said into the space between us—more urgent now, shoulders straight while the rest of him seemed to fray around the seams. “Got scared. Loving someone—loving you—it means you can hurt me. And I built my whole life around never giving anyone that kind of power. But it’s…
” He stopped abruptly, shook his head, and when he spoke again, it was the mere weight of a whisper.
“That’s no way to live. And you already hold that power. ”
“I don’t…” Words slipped through my fingers before they could fully form, hard to focus past the blinding radiance of liquid gold that trickled through my veins and filled my mind.
“Us.”
“Loving you.”
“You already hold that power.”
Dean edged half a step closer, then halted as if unsure he was allowed.
His voice dropped. “Remember when I walked into that café? And you were already there, smiling and waving at me, and I think there was this moment—even then. I saw you, and there was this moment when I thought, Oh, I’m in trouble.
Because you were just… the brightest thing I’d ever seen.
” His expression shifted, summer skin under the weak glow of a winter sky.
“But I’m not scared anymore. Even if it took me a couple of days to find my courage—I love you, Tay. I really do.”
The world spun like a globe tipped on its side, radiant like the sun-kissed band of the river and the miles of space in my chest. Say something.
I drew a breath, a small, incredulous chuckle slipping out. “You had me at ‘Where’s my watch?’”
He went very still, his focus on me so complete it felt like a spotlight. A beat thudded by. Then color crept into his cheeks. “That’s”—voice a little rough, almost laughing—“such a lie.”
“Maybe.” I inhaled the wind. “But it’s a pretty one, right?”
“I love you.” He said it less like a declaration and more like confirming a fact—steady and deliberate, utterly sure of himself. My lungs felt too wide for my chest even as doubt still hung around the outer limits of my mind. He’d run once, hadn’t he?
I shifted a little closer, fingertips catching on flaking paint along the railing. “Might need to hear it a couple more times,” I said, just a hint wobbly. “Or, you know. A dozen.”
“That’s fine.” His eyes were bright as candles in the gentle wash of the winter day. “I’ve got no plans for—oh, the rest of my life or so.”
It punched a laugh out of me, soft and stunned, and he used it to close the final inches between us, one hand coming up to touch my cheek, stopping just shy of making contact. A question. I tilted into it—an answer.
He kissed me. Gentle at first, breath tangling in a careful brush of our mouths.
Then his fingers slid into my hair and I fisted a hand in his coat—pulled him into me.
Brightness behind my eyes and the taste of coffee on his tongue, the angle of our bodies familiar as he crowded me against the railing, the cold, solid weight of metal steadying me. Dean.
“I love you.”
I had yet to say it back. When we drew apart by reluctant inches, foreheads pressed together and his fingers still wound through my hair, the words were balanced on the tip of my tongue—sweet but fragile, like cotton candy that might melt under the sun.
My hand smoothed the collar of his coat, the fabric coarse under my palm. Real. “I need to get back.”
“I know.” He didn’t let me go, though. “And we’ve got things to unpack, okay? I know that. But I’m in this. I want this—you. Everything.”
“Yeah?” Hope, still a little thin around the edges after two days of silence.
“Yeah. Yes.” He inhaled. “Do you—when your shift’s over. I can make us dinner, if you want to come by?” He sounded unsure, like I might actually say no, and it pulled another slightly helpless laugh from me. As if.
“Please, yes. I’d love that. But it’s fine if you just want to order something.”
“No, I’ll cook.” He said it with the steely determination of readying himself for a particularly difficult surgery. Then he dug into his pocket for a key—attached to a simple metal keyring, unmarked and practical. “Here. I might be wrists deep in dough, so let yourself in.”
A key.
A key to his place—just like that, like it was no big deal when he would have specifically brought it along. Not like he’d randomly have a spare on him. It was so Dean that I needed to blink against a stupid swell of emotions.
“Thanks,” I said, fingers curling tight around metal that warmed against my skin. I love you. Felt but didn’t say it, the words too fragile to rush. Not this second time.
I turned to leave, then stopped.
“Tay?” he asked from behind me, almost shy.
Winter sky and biting cold, a grin that started in the tips of my toes. I spun around and dragged him in for one more kiss that carried the weight of a promise, pulled back while he blinked at me, his eyes blown wide.
“I’ll see you later,” I told him. Turned, pulse hammering in my ears with each step I took, and let the stairway swallow me.
Later.