Chapter 6
Chapter six
A top-up of whatever you’re running low on
Carina
My coffee sits cold to my right, untouched for long enough that the surface has gone dull. I took two sips earlier and forgot about it.
Checking the time on my screen, I do the math automatically—how long since I ate, how long until I realistically will. My stomach lurches, more out of habit than hunger.
I close the chart I’m on and open another.
Levi’s name jumps out at me before anything else. I skim his notes even though I know them already, my brain replaying the last meeting I had with his family.
I exhale slowly through my nose and focus on the screen. Not on his age or his face. Lab values. Imaging. Facts I can control. Facts that don’t look back at me with too-big blue eyes.
The fundraiser tab is still open in the corner of my desktop. I haven’t closed it since this morning, and I tell myself it’s because I’ll get back to it between patients, that I just need a minute to breathe first. The truth is, every time I look at the numbers, my throat goes dry.
It’s still not enough.
Reid’s offer flashes through my mind uninvited, the way it has all morning, but I push it away.
Of course he offered to help. He’s decent, and he’s bored. He’s sidelined with an injury while the Olympics happen without him, and half his friends are probably playing. He needs something to do with his hands, somewhere to put the excess energy that used to belong to the ice.
That’s all this is. Circumstantial kindness.
I take another breath, straighten the pen on my desk so it lines up with the edge, and reach for the next chart.
The buzz from the desk phone cuts through the quiet, and I glance at it, irritated despite myself.
“Carina,” I answer.
“Dr. Park.” Jenny’s voice slides through the receiver, all fakely polished. “You have a visitor.”
I close my eyes for half a second. “I’m not scheduled.”
“I know,” she says. “But he asked very nicely.”
“Who?”
There’s the faintest pause, the kind that tells me she’s judging. “Reid Hutchison.”
My hand stills on the desk.
“He’s not my patient,” I say automatically.
“Oh, I’m aware,” Jenny replies. “He said he just wanted a quick word. He’s standing right here.”
I stare at the wall in front of me, at the framed print I’ve seen so many times, it’s lost all meaning. This is not appropriate. He doesn’t have an appointment, and he doesn’t belong on my schedule anymore. Boundaries exist for a reason, and I’m very good at maintaining them.
“Tell him—” I start, then stop.
Tell him what? That I’m busy? That I don’t have time? That I can’t spare five minutes?
I picture him standing at the desk, tall and immovable, with his serious mustache, probably pretending not to notice Jenny’s performative smile.
“…Tell him he can come through,” I say, already regretting it.
Jenny’s satisfaction is audible. “Of course.”
The line clicks dead.
I stand, smoothing the front of my coat even though it doesn’t need it, then stop and sit back down again. Then I stand again, take the coat off and drape it over my chair, and sit again. Cross my legs. Uncross them.
When there’s a knock at my door, I look up too quickly.
Reid opens it without waiting for an invitation, his big frame blocking out half the hallway behind him. He doesn’t smile or frown, just looks at me with his steady blue eyes, taking me in with that quiet attentiveness that always makes me feel like he’s seeing right through me.
“Hi.”
“Hi back,” I reply, then clear my throat. “You don’t have an appointment.”
“I know.” His mustache twitches as he rolls his lips. “Was hoping to talk fundraiser stuff. Got a minute?”
I gesture toward the chair across from my desk. “I’ve got five.”
He steps inside, closing the door behind him with care, probably aware of how thin the walls are. But he doesn’t sit right away, instead letting his gaze drift around my space.
“Your fake plant count is up to what, five now?”
He reaches out and taps one of the plants on the shelf beside my desk, and the leaf bends unnaturally under his finger.
“Six, actually. But only because Fernanda the First finally gave up last week.”
His eyes flick to mine, amusement shining through despite the lack of a smile.
“Rest in peace, Fernanda.”
“They’re low maintenance,” I offer in explanation. “And they don’t die when I forget about them.”
“You, Ms. Controlled and Organized, forget about plants?”
“I’m a surgeon, not a gardener,” I say. “You should see my apartment. That’s where the real ones are, and half of them are clinging to life.”
That earns me a huff of soft, surprised laughter. Then, he finally sits, long legs stretching out in front of him, hands resting loosely on his thighs.
“You need succulents,” he says. “They thrive on neglect.”
I arch a brow. “Is that professional gardening advice?”
“Life advice,” he corrects. “My house is full of them. I’m away so much, they’ve learned to fend for themselves.”
We both seem to realize what he’s said at the same time, and the silence stretches. I watch as his jaw tightens almost imperceptibly before he shrugs it off.
Was away so much. Not anymore.
“They’re still alive,” he adds. “So. Proof of concept.”
I smile despite myself, the tension in my chest easing a notch. “I’ll add it to my list of failures to address.”
He leans back in the chair, watching me. “You look tired.”
I bristle instinctively. “I’m fine.”
“Right,” he says quickly. “That was a stupid thing to say.”
“It’s okay.” I shake my head and wave my hand. “So the fundraiser gala—you said you wanted to help?”
“I did,” he replies. “I do. But I don’t want to deal with a committee, and I don’t want to sit through a presentation that tells me things I don’t need to know.”
That sounds exactly like him, and fair enough. Neither do I.
“So I thought I’d just deal with you,” he continues. “You know what actually matters, what’s missing. What would actually make a difference.”
The sincerity in his voice catches me off guard. There’s no bravado or performance, just a straightforward offer with no ego attached.
“I’m not the organizer,” I remind him.
“I know,” he says. “But you care more about this than they do.”
I look at him, at the way he sits so solidly in my office, at the faint tension in his shoulders, the restraint threaded through every movement—and something shifts in me.
This doesn’t feel like boredom at all. It feels more intentional than that. And despite myself, despite the rules I’ve built around my life, I feel the smallest flicker of something warm and unwelcome bloom in my chest.
“I don’t want meetings,” he continues, his attention narrowing in a way I’ve seen before when he’s focused. “And I definitely don’t want to sit in a room clapping politely while people pat themselves on the back.”
“You’re describing most charity planning and events.”
“Exactly,” he replies. “I want to help, not perform.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “Then you need to understand what actually moves the needle.”
He nods once.
“Give it to me, Doc.”
His deep rasp, with such directness, stirs something in me. It's the kind of response I don't usually have the luxury of indulging, and definitely don’t let surface in professional settings. It's also the type of demand I’d scramble to fulfill in an entirely different environment.
But I push it down and focus on the work instead, explaining everything to him the way I explain things to patients’ families when they ask what they can do—plain, honest, and no sugarcoating. All the things I've had Sam, a fundraising event planning friend of mine, explain to me previously.
Athlete presence matters, but only when it’s intentional. It requires the right names, not just numbers. Donors who don’t need convincing, just access. Press optics that highlight the cause, not the ego. Moments that make people care long enough to open their wallets.
Reid listens, and he doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t nod along performatively or jump in with half-formed ideas meant to impress.
Instead, he asks specific questions.
“How do appearances actually convert to donations?”
“Is it better to stack a night with many big names or just one?”
“Who do you need in the room that you don’t have yet?”
Each question lands exactly where it should, like he’s mapping the problem in his head and adjusting angles until it fits.
He stops mid-sentence when he realizes I’m watching him, and no longer responding.
“What?”
I shake my head. “Nothing. I just… didn’t expect you to think about it like this.”
His mouth curves faintly. “I’m not dumb, Doc.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
“You implied it.”
“I was merely implying that this doesn’t seem like a hockey player’s wheelhouse.”
He exhales a quiet laugh. “Fair.”
I glance at the clock on my screen without meaning to. My lunch break is already bleeding into the afternoon, and my stomach growls loudly in response.
“You haven’t eaten,” he says.
I look down at my mug. “I had coffee.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“It does if you’re busy.”
He studies me for a beat, then shifts forward in his chair. “Come eat with me.”
“What?”
“Come have lunch,” he repeats, like it’s obvious. “You can give me the rest of the rundown. We’ll call it a working lunch.”
Every instinct I have tightens at once, because technically, this isn’t really appropriate. This is a line. This is—
“It’s public,” he adds, reading me too easily. “You’re not my doctor anymore, and this is fundraiser-related.”
For the most part, he’s right. But even though he’s not my patient anymore, there are still rules and ethics that span longer than active treatment windows. And I hate that I’m going to say yes anyway.
“It’ll need to be quick,” I say. “I have patients this afternoon.”
He’s already standing.
“I’ll take what I can get.”
Outside, the winter sun is bright but not warm, a sharp wind chasing us down the sidewalk. I cast my eyes toward the mountains where it was raining earlier, noting the half arc of a rainbow’s light breaking through the clouds.