CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE #2
“I have an appointment with Nixon coming up.” I set my stuff down and open my laptop to find my schedule and staff admin updates . . . “Lucas Hale – 10 a.m.” He’s before James Nixon. “It’s in fifteen minutes.”
“It was a late add from this morning,” he says, eyes holding mine. The scent of his soap and shampoo cling to the air in the room and cloud my thoughts, making me angry at myself. “This won’t be long.”
“Is something wrong?” My eyes narrow as I scroll through my emails on my computer to see if there are any from Coach or Owen about Lucas and his shoulder. “I don’t see anything from Coach about it—”
“There won’t be. I made the appointment myself.”
I lift my eyebrows. “You hurt it during weights?” I ask, concern edging out my self-proclaimed need for distance.
Just like him to not tell anyone and hide it.
“Let’s get you into the PT room.” I motion to the door, mind racing over the many possibilities that could have happened to his shoulder while lifting, and walk out, keenly aware that he’s following behind me.
When we reach the PT room, I move us toward the back corner room and point to the table. He sits without speaking, brows knit and eyes on me.
“Tell me what happened during weights,” I say as my hands move to his shoulder to start an assessment.
“What’s wrong, Doc?” he asks in a steady, even tone.
“That’s what you’re supposed to tell me.” I palpate the top part of the joint as I move his arm, feeling for the rotator cuff and the telltale sign of inflammation.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he says.
But I’m so lost in the routine in my mind of assess and observe, that I don’t really hear him. “Pain?” I ask.
“No.”
I rotate his arm gently, feeling a slight click, but I’m not overly concerned about that. “Here?”
“No.”
I readjust my stance and my hold on his bicep as I manipulate his arm’s position. “Any here?”
“No.”
I stop and meet his eyes that I’m now realizing haven’t left my face once. “If there’s no pain in your shoulder . . . where are you hurting?” I ask.
“I never said I was.”
Missed you on our runs the past few mornings.
It’s then his greeting in my office hits my ears again. “This isn’t about your shoulder, is it?” I ask and glance around outside of the PT room to make sure there’s no one there.
His mouth curves slightly. “No. It’s about why you’re avoiding me.”
My breath hitches briefly and my hands relax on his shoulder. And then as if I realize what I’m doing—not being professional—I step back and force a swallow. “I’m not avoiding you,” I state.
“No?”
“No. I’m keeping this where it needs to be kept.”
“That’s a word salad if ever I’ve heard one.” He chuckles and I hate how I’m so keenly aware of the sound and the warmth in it. “And not running with me in the morning is keeping this where it needs to be kept?” He angles his head to the side and studies me.
“It’s not the runs. It was the . . .” The words don’t want to come. The fear of me assuming he wanted to kiss me when maybe he didn’t, has me stuttering over my words. “This—you making an appointment to call me out during office hours when you know damn well it’s not the time nor place is why.”
He nods. “Got it.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“No. I do. Mistake made. It won’t happen again.”
I scrunch my nose in frustration. “You’re making something that didn’t happen more difficult than it needs to be,” I say in exasperation.
“And what exactly happened, Emery?” His voice is low, even, and asking way more questions than the one he voices.
Did you want to kiss me too?
Did you feel that connection?
You’re avoiding me because you did, aren’t you?
I glance around before forcing myself to meet his eyes again. “There was a moment that we got caught up in. In the noise and the . . . things we shouldn’t have been caught up in. And for both of our sakes, that just can’t . . .happen.”
The muscle in his jaw pulses as we hold each other’s stares. “Moments happen all the time, Doc,” he says quietly. “I thought you made the move here to live, not to just work through things.”
The space feels so much smaller.
The air feels too full. Too heavy. Too . . . suffocating.
He’s right. I won’t tell him he’s right, but he is. But by the same token . . . “This is not keeping things where they need to be kept,” I whisper.
“You ready for me, Doc?”
I startle at the sound of James Nixon’s voice as he steps into the room. The smile on my face feels plastered there as I turn toward him. “I sure am. I just finished up with Hale here. I’m ready for you.”
It’s so much easier to breathe with this space between us. I make a concentrated effort to spray and then wipe down the table where Lucas had been sitting.
“Please tell me this is where miracle fixes happen because I’m in need of one,” Nixon says.
“Wrong department,” I tease. “I was hoping I wouldn’t be seeing you. I’m sorry that I am.”
“It’s all good,” he says. “Not the first time. Not the last time.”
“Injuries—pain—always happen,” Lucas says from his spot in the corner where he’s collecting his stuff. “It’s how you come back from them that matters.”
I look up from the table. His eyes are telling me he’s talking about so much more than what it sounds like.
Nixon squints. “Are we talking about my knee?”
“Yes,” I say, although another glance at Lucas says we’re not.
“There are always restrictions with injuries,” Lucas says. “But I’ve found in my career there are ways to get around them.”
“Perfect. You’ll have to show me,” Nixon says, oblivious to the alternate conversation happening here.
“I’m pretty strict with my protocols,” I say and pat the table for Nixon to jump up onto.
“Protocols are . . . so black and white,” Lucas says as he steps toward the door. “Sometimes you have to see how it feels and go from there.” He nods at Nixon. “Right, Doc?”
I look up from where I’m pulling up Nixon’s scans on my tablet to meet Lucas’s eyes. His jaw twitches like he’s fighting a smile.
“Anything else, Hale? It’s Nixon’s turn now.”
“Nope. I’ll make sure from here on out to keep things where they need to be kept.”
“Huh?” Nixon asks.
“It’s just Hale being Hale,” I mutter.
“Goddamn veterans think they know everything,” he jokes.
“True,” I say, but look up and watch Lucas as he walks out.
I thought you came here to live.
No accusation. Just truth.
And somehow, Lucas confronting a problem instead of running away from it, unsettles me more than avoidance ever has.