Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MIA
The buzzer goes, and I open the door to find Sophie standing there with two bottles of wine, a bag of popcorn, and a smug smile.
She’s in her usual post-work uniform, slouchy band tee, mom jeans, and a bright red scrunchie pulling her blonde curls into a high ponytail.
Effortlessly cool in a way I’ll never manage.
She’s got winged eyeliner sharp enough to cut glass and combat boots she wears like armour.
Sophie’s always been bold where I’m cautious, loud where I go quiet.
But beneath the confidence is a softness reserved for the people she loves, of which I’m lucky to be one.
“You look like someone who needs to be force-fed emotional clarity and Merlot,” she says, breezing past me into the flat.
I smirk. “I hate how well you know me.”
“Occupational hazard of being your longest-serving emotional support human,” she calls from the kitchen, already raiding my snack cupboard like she owns the place. Which, to be fair, she basically does.
Sophie and I met in our first year at uni; two overachievers with wildly different social settings thrown into the same dorm.
Where I spent nights revising muscle groups and injury protocols, she was rallying people for protest marches and open mic nights.
We shouldn’t have clicked. But somehow, through late-night crisis talks and hungover fry-ups, we did.
We settle in with fluffy socks, a half-hearted movie playing in the background, and the kind of snacks that are just excuses to delay talking about what’s actually going on. But Soph’s patience has a time limit, and she hits it around halfway through the second glass of wine.
“So,” she starts, arching a perfectly shaped brow, “you gonna tell me what’s going on with Hockey Hunk, or am I gonna have to start making up wild scenarios?”
I let out a long breath and sink deeper into the cushions. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s always complicated with you, babe. But last time I checked, complicated doesn’t mean you have to self-destruct.”
I swirl the wine in my glass, watching the light catch the rich red liquid. “I like him.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“No, I mean…” I glance over at her. “I really like him. And it’s terrifying.”
She softens immediately, curling her legs up under her. “Because he’s a player? Or because he’s your client?”
“Both. And neither.” I press my knuckles to my mouth, struggling to find the words. “He’s not who I expected. He’s got this arrogance, yeah, but underneath it there’s something raw. Vulnerable. And he lets me see it.”
Sophie nods. “That sounds like a good thing.”
“It should be. But every time I let myself start to fall into it, I pull back. Because what if I get it wrong? What if I read it wrong, and it’s all just an act? Some kind of game to him.”
“You don’t trust him?”
I hesitate. “I don’t trust me. I’ve spent so long being the strong one. The one with the boundaries and the plan. Getting involved with a player, especially that player, it feels like undoing everything I’ve worked for.”
“Is that about your job or your heart?”
I go quiet. She’s too good at cutting through the noise.
“Both,” I admit finally. “I worked so hard to be taken seriously in this field. You know what the whispers are like, the whole ‘she’s only here to flirt with the lads’ thing. I can’t give anyone a reason to question my place.”
“So, it’s self-preservation.”
“Yeah. But it’s more than that.” I stare at the dark screen, letting the silence stretch for a moment.
“There’s something broken in him. I see it when he talks about his dad, or when he thinks no one’s watching.
It’s like he’s always braced for the next blow.
And I know that feeling, Soph. I know what it’s like to live waiting for the people you love to disappoint you. ”
She reaches out, and covers my hand with hers. “But you can’t protect yourself from everything, Mia. Sometimes loving someone messy is better than loving someone perfect. At least it’s real.”
“I’m scared,” I whisper. “I’m scared of letting my guard down and finding out I was just a distraction. Or worse, that I was the only one who felt it.”
“You don’t believe that though, do you?” she asks gently. “About him?”
My mind flashes back to the way Dylan looked at me in the treatment room. The way his voice softened when he asked if I was okay. How close we were; how close we still are to crossing a line I’m not sure we can come back from.
“No,” I say softly. “That’s what scares me the most. I think he feels it too.”
Sophie gives me a long, knowing look. “Then maybe you’ve got to start asking yourself what you’re more afraid of; being hurt or never giving it a chance.”
I tip my head back against the sofa, blinking up at the ceiling. “How are you always right?”
She grins. “It’s my cross to bear.”
We lapse into comfortable silence for a while.
The movie plays quietly in the background, but neither of us is really watching.
I keep thinking about that moment in the treatment room; the almost-kiss.
The heat in his eyes, the way his hand brushed mine like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed but needed to touch me anyway.
My chest tightens at the memory. There’s a part of me that wanted him to close the distance. To push past the line. But I didn’t stop him because I didn’t want it, I stopped him because if we start, I don’t know how to not fall all the way.
And then what? What happens when my dad gets worse and I have to go home more often? When the job pulls me in a hundred directions and I can’t be what he needs? When the reality of our lives doesn’t fit the fantasy?
I glance over at Sophie. She’s scrolling through her phone now, humming under her breath.
“Do you think it’s selfish to want something you’re not sure you can keep?” I ask.
She doesn’t even look up. “I think it’s human.”
That lands like a stone in my gut.
I’ve spent so much time trying to be the version of myself that’s unshakeable, professional, and respected.
The Mia who doesn’t cry at work, who doesn’t lose her grip, who doesn’t let someone like Dylan Winters get under her skin.
But maybe that Mia is just an armour I wear.
Maybe the real me is the one who wants something more; something messy, complicated, and real.
The kind of more that terrifies me.
The kind Dylan might actually be capable of, if I let him.
Sophie finally sets her phone down and nudges me. “You don’t have to decide tonight, you know. But don’t wait too long. Life has a way of moving without your permission.”
I nod slowly, absorbing the truth of that.
She changes the subject after that and talks about her latest disaster date, her boss’s obsession with motivational mugs, and how she’s considering adopting a third cat.
I let her carry the conversation, grateful for the levity, for the momentary reprieve from the chaos in my head.
But when she leaves later that night, when the door clicks shut and the flat falls silent, the truth she helped me uncover doesn’t leave.
It stays. It settles into the quiet like it belongs there.
I curl up on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, my heart heavy with things unsaid.
I want him.
But I’m still not sure I’m allowed to.