Chapter 31
My body hurt in the good way.
Not the concussion way—that had been fading all week.
The other way. The way that came from multiple days of Nathan Cross having nowhere to be and nothing to manage and the full attention he brought to everything applied to—this. To us.
To being in love.
To the unhurried version of things that happened when there was a warm room and an open window and a jacuzzi tub.
I stood in the shower and took inventory.
Shoulders: yes. Neck: also yes. The general situation: significant.
Nathan Cross was thorough. This had always been true. I had understood it in training rooms and offices. I had not understood what it meant here, in this context, with this much time and this much intention.
I was understanding it now.
I turned the water off.
Got a towel. Ran a hand through my hair, which was doing the thing it always did, which was whatever it wanted.
I opened the bathroom door.
Nathan was at the window, phone to his ear, back to the room.
I didn't say anything. I sat on the edge of the bed and I waited, which was the thing I had been getting better at, and I listened to the sound of his voice without being able to hear the words, and I knew.
Not the specifics. Just the shape of it. The phone call that had been coming since the committee started meeting. The outside world arriving on the last day of the vacation because of course it was the last day, of course it waited until now.
Nathan said something. Listened for a long time. Said something else.
Then: "I understand. Yes. I'll be in touch when I'm back."
He ended the call.
Stood at the window.
I waited.
He turned around.
The professional face was gone. Not the wall—the wall had been gone for weeks. Just Nathan, in the last light of the vacation, with the phone in his hand and the thing he was about to say already visible in the set of his jaw.
"The review committee," he said.
"And?”
He came and sat on the edge of the bed next to me.
We sat there for a moment. The window was still open. The warm night was starting.
"They've concluded," he said.
"And?"
"Reinstatement is possible." He said each word carefully. "With conditions."
"What conditions?"
He told me.
The conditions were what they were, standard conflict of interest protocol, the kind of language that covered situations like this, that had never been relevant before because Nathan Cross had never had a situation like this.
He couldn't hold the team physician role while in a personal relationship with a player under his direct medical care.
He said it clinically. Precisely. No editorializing.
I listened.
When he finished, I said, "So."
"Yes," he said. "So."
We sat there.
"I could request a trade," I said. "Vancouver has been—"
"No," Nathan said.
"Nathan—"
"You're not going to Vancouver." Flat. Certain. The voice that meant the decision had been made and this part of the conversation was over. "That's not a solution. That's a different problem."
"Then what—"
"I've been looking into other positions," he said.
I stared at him.
Then I got up off the bed.
The towel I'd been wearing since the shower made a decision about whether it was coming with me and the decision was no, and I didn't have time for that, I was already moving.
"Wesley—"
"Where's your phone?"
"What?"
"Your phone, Nathan. Where is it?"
"Why do you need my—"
"I'm going to delete your browser history," I said, locating his phone on the nightstand and picking it up. It was locked. Of course it was locked. "What's your passcode?”
A pause.
"1203," Nathan said.
I unlocked the phone.
I stood there.
I stood there for a second with Nathan's unlocked phone in my hand because 1203 was my birthday. December third.
Nathan had my birthday as his passcode.
I put the phone down very carefully on the nightstand.
"That's my birthday."
"I'm aware of what it is."
"Nathan. That's my—" I stopped. Started again. "How long has that been your passcode?"
A pause that was its own answer.
"Nathan Cross."
"Sit down," he said. He reached over to the chair where his clothes were folded and held out a pair of boxers. "Put these on. And sit down."
I sat down.
I was completely in love with him. I had been in love with him and he had been typing my birthday into his phone every single day and hadn't said anything about it, not once, not ever, just carried it the way Nathan carried everything, quietly and completely and without making it anyone else's problem.
1203.
"You've been on vacation," I said, when I could find words again. "We've been on vacation. We have been in a warm place for a week doing nothing, which you are famously bad at, and you spent the mornings—"
"Running," he said. "And some research."
"Research."
"The consulting market in Boston sports medicine is actually quite—"
"Nathan."
"Yes."
"You did job research. On vacation. Before I woke up. Every morning."
"You sleep until nine," he said. "I have a lot of time."
"You were going to tell me this when?"
"Now," he said. "I'm telling you now."
I looked at him.
"Nathan. Your job—"
"Is one job," he said. "I'm not leaving medicine.
I'm leaving one job." He looked at his hands.
"There are consulting positions. Advisory roles.
Work I can do that doesn't put me in direct conflict of interest with the Wardens roster.
" He paused. "I've already spoken to two practices. One of them is very interested."
I tried to process this information.
"You did research. On your phone. On vacation. Before I woke up. Every day."
"Yes."
"Because you'd already decided."
"Yes."
"Before we left Boston."
A pause. "Approximately," he said.
The hat was on the nightstand. The compression cubes were in the corner, repacked and organized for tomorrow's flight.
The sunscreen was on the bathroom counter in a row with everything else.
Nathan Cross, who prepared for things, who arrived at conclusions before other people had finished forming the question, who had looked at the reinstatement conditions at some point before we got on a plane and had decided what he was going to do about them and had not said a word.
"I was going to tell you when the committee called," he said. "Which I was expecting today."
"How did you know it would be today?"
"The timeline suggested—"
"Nathan."
"Yes."
"This is—" I stopped. Tried again. "You planned this."
"I prepared," he said. "There's a difference."
My heart was thumping against my chest.
"Let me do something," Nathan said. Quieter.
"You've been—" He stopped. Started again.
"Since the beginning you've been the one who showed up.
Who knocked on doors. Who ordered food and stayed and said things to my father that I—" He stopped again.
The jaw. "Let me do something. Let me be the one who figured it out first for once. "
I looked at him for a long moment.
"You already did do it," I said.
"I know," he said. "I wanted you to know that I did."
The window was open.
The warm night was doing its last night.
I reached over and put my hand over his, which was on the bed between us, which was where it usually ended up.
He turned it over.
We sat there.
"Okay," I said eventually.
"Okay," he said.
"We should probably pack," I said. "We fly tomorrow."
"I already packed," he said.
I looked at the compression cubes in the corner. Of course he had.
"My bag—"
"I repacked yours as well," he said. "Your sunscreen was loose."
"Nathan."
"Yes."
"Thank you," I said.
A pause.
"You're welcome," he said.
We sat there a while longer.
The warm night did its thing.
Tomorrow we were going home.
Nathan had already figured out what home looked like.
I was, I was fully aware, completely in love with him.
That hadn't changed.
That was not going to change.
"Nathan," I said.
"Mm."
"Obviously," I said.
A pause.
"Obviously," he said.