Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Melissa
He finds me in the hallway between patient rooms, like he’s been looking for me. He’s not rushing to avoid me this time. He’s just waiting.
“Melissa,” he says, quiet enough that it feels private, even with people passing nearby.
I turn, my stomach tightening immediately. His face looks different.
“Can we talk tonight?” he asks. “At my place.”
There it is. The thing I’ve been bracing for since his text.
“I don’t want to do this here,” he adds quickly. “And I don’t want to rush it. I just … need to talk.”
I study him for a moment, trying to read what’s underneath the words.
This isn’t an apology tour or him trying to smooth things over. If anything, he looks like he’s standing on unstable ground and knows it. My heart hurts for him.
“I’m not coming over to fix you,” I say carefully.
His mouth twitches. “I know.”
“And I’m not making promises,” I continue. “I’ve done that before.”
He nods. “I wouldn’t ask you to.”
The sincerity in his voice is what makes me say yes.
“Okay,” I say. “We can talk.”
I try to push my thoughts about Colton away the rest of the day, but they’re there, wondering and waiting for what he could possibly want to talk about.
That evening, the doorman greets me by name.
That alone makes my nerves spike with the reminder of how different our worlds are, how effortlessly his money opens doors without him even being present. He smiles and gestures toward the private elevator, telling me Colton said the door would be open.
My pulse is loud in my ears as the elevator climbs.
When I open the door to his apartment, it’s oddly quiet and dark. The city lights spill in through the massive windows, painting everything in soft gold and shadow.
“Colton?” I call wearily.
“In here,” his voice echoes from his bedroom.
I hesitate only a second before walking in.
He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, fully dressed, elbows resting on his knees. He’s staring out the window, but I don’t think he’s really seeing anything.
He looks … dazed. Like he’s been underwater too long and only just surfaced.
I close the door behind me softly.
He turns his head when he hears it, eyes settling on me like he’s anchoring himself.
“Thanks for coming,” he says.
I nod and sit beside him, close enough that our knees touch. The contact is gentle. For a moment, neither of us speaks.
Then he exhales slowly, dragging a hand down his face.
“When Frank died,” he begins, voice low, “it felt like a crack split through everything that I’d spent years keeping sealed.”
I don’t interrupt.
“I’ve lost patients before,” he continues. “Hundreds. Maybe more. I know how this ends. I know how to compartmentalize. I know how to keep functioning.”
His hands flex together, knuckles whitening.
“But this …” His voice drops. “This hit a nerve I hadn’t expected.”
I watch his jaw tighten, the muscle jumping like he’s biting back something sharp.
“It reminded me of my sister.”
The air changes instantly.
“Molly,” he says. “She was eleven.”
My chest tightens painfully.
“Hodgkin lymphoma,” he adds, flat and clinical, the way doctors say things.
He swallows hard.
“I was sixteen,” he continues. “Aubrey was thirteen.”
His voice cracks, and my heart breaks at the restraint of it.
“She followed me everywhere,” he says. “Sat on my bed while I did homework. Snuck my headphones when she thought I wasn’t looking. Asked me a thousand questions about everything.”
A breath escapes him.
“She trusted me. Completely. I was her safe place.”
His shoulders tense as if the memory physically hurts.
“When she got sick, I told her it would be okay,” he says quietly. “I promised her.”
He drags a hand down his face, pressing his fingers into his eyes, like he’s trying to hold something back.
“My parents broke,” he says. “Not slowly. All at once.”
His words come faster now, uneven.
“My dad worked constantly. Nights. Weekends. He stopped talking unless he had to. My mom …” He shakes his head. “She disappeared. Stayed in her room. Cried. Slept. Cried again.”
His breathing grows shallow.
“So, I stepped in,” he says. “I made dinner. I made sure Aubrey got to school. I checked homework. I became the adult.”
At sixteen. The unfairness of it makes my chest ache.
“I wasn’t allowed to grieve,” he says bitterly. “There wasn’t space for it. Someone had to hold everything together.”
His voice breaks. “I resented them,” he admits. “For leaving me with it. For making me grow up while I was still drowning.”
Tears spill freely now, and he doesn’t wipe them away.
“I loved Molly so much,” he whispers. “And I hated that loving her that much destroyed everything.”
My own tears fall silently as I reach for his hand, wrapping both of mine around it.
He grips back hard.
“I went into oncology because I thought if I could save others,” he says, voice shaking, “if I could stop someone else from feeling this … then maybe her death would mean something.”
A sob tears out of him that’s completely raw.
“But it didn’t heal me,” he gasps. “Nothing healed me. I only learned how to bury it deeper.”
He folds forward suddenly, breath hitching violently, grief pouring out of him in waves he’s clearly never allowed himself to feel.
I pull him into me without thinking, his forehead pressing into my shoulder as his body trembles.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, rubbing slow circles into his back. “You don’t have to carry this alone.”
He clings to me like he’s afraid he’ll fall apart completely if I let go.
“I haven’t cried like this since she died,” he says into my shoulder.
And I believe him. He stays there, breaths uneven, grief pouring out of him like it’s been waiting decades for permission.
When he finally pulls back, his eyes are red, his expression raw.
“Frank wrote me a letter,” he says. “Told me he doesn’t want me to live like this anymore. Closed off. Afraid.”
He looks at me closely.
“I don’t either,” he says quietly. “But I don’t know how to change overnight.”
I nod. “I can give you time,” I say honestly. “But I can’t promise more than that.”
He studies my face, then leans in slowly, carefully, as he gives me every chance to pull away, but I don’t. I can’t.
Our lips meet in a soft, deliberate kiss. It’s not frantic or desperate. Just real.
His hands slide to my waist. We stand up, and I wrap my arms around his neck. He deepens the kiss and guides me gently backward toward the bathroom. Heat blooms low in my stomach.
He opens the shower and leads me inside. The shower tiles are cool against my back as his forehead rests against mine.
“Tell me if this is too much,” he murmurs.
“It’s not,” I breathe.
His mouth finds mine again.
The bathroom is quiet, except for the faint hum of the city outside.
Colton doesn’t turn on the shower. He doesn’t rush. His hands rest at my waist like he needs to know I’m real, that I didn’t disappear the moment he said her name out loud.
Molly.
His forehead presses to mine again, his breath uneven but slowing.
“I’ve never said any of that out loud,” he murmurs.
I don’t answer right away. I don’t want to rush him past this moment just because silence makes people uncomfortable. Some things need space to breathe.
“I know,” I say softly. “I can tell.”
His thumb traces a slow, absent line along my hip.
“I didn’t plan to tell you,” he admits. “I planned to keep functioning. That’s always been the plan.”
I pull back enough to look at him. “And how’s that been working out for you?”
His mouth lifts faintly. “You’re standing in my shower, so … not great.”
I smile despite everything.
He exhales, shoulders loosening another fraction. “I’m afraid,” he says quietly. “Not of you. Of what letting you stay might undo.”
I rest my hand over his heart, feeling it beat hard and fast beneath my palm.
“Undoing isn’t always destruction,” I say. “Sometimes, it’s just … making room.”
He closes his eyes. When he opens them, there’s something different there. Less guarded. Less braced.
“You’re not asking me to promise anything,” he says.
“No,” I agree. “I’m asking you not to disappear.”
He nods slowly. “I can try.”
The honesty in that answer is what makes my throat tighten.
“That’s all I want,” I say.
He leans in again, kissing me with a depth that feels heavier now. His hands slide up my arms, over my shoulders, skimming my neck, like he’s memorizing the feeling of being close without armor.
I feel the shift in him before he speaks again.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he murmurs.
I shake my head.
His mouth traces along my jaw, down my neck, lingering there in a way that makes my breath hitch, not because of what he’s doing, but because of what it means. He’s present and not running.
His hands slip to the hem of my shirt, hesitating long enough to make sure I’m still with him.
I am.
He lifts it slowly. His gaze follows the movement, dark and focused, his restraint almost palpable.
I reach for him then, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, grounding him the way he grounded me earlier.
“This isn’t about escaping,” I say quietly. “Not for me.”
His jaw tightens. “I know.”
“And I don’t expect you to be healed,” I continue. “I expect you to be honest.”
He cups my face, thumbs brushing beneath my eyes, as if checking for tears.
“I can do that,” he says. “I don’t know how to do it well. But I can do it.”
That’s enough.
He kisses me again, slower this time. The kiss feels different from the others we’ve shared. Less about tension. More about trust.
When he breaks away, he rests his forehead against mine again, breathing us both back down.
“I don’t want to rush this,” he says. “Not because I don’t want you. Because I do.”
My pulse stutters at that.
“But because I want to remember it,” he continues. “I want to know I didn’t hide from it.”
My chest aches in the best way.
I nod. “Okay.”
He lets out a breath that sounds like relief.
His hands slide to mine, fingers lacing together.
“Stay,” he says quietly.
Not as a demand.
As a request.
I squeeze his hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The city glows outside the bathroom window, indifferent and alive, and for the first time since I’ve known him, Colton doesn’t look like he’s bracing against it.
He looks like he’s finally stepping into it.
The water never turns on.
That’s what surprises me most.
We’re standing in his shower, the city glowing beyond glass, and he hasn’t reached for the handle. He hasn’t rushed anything. He hasn’t tried to drown the moment in heat or distraction.
Colton stands there with me, his hands warm at my waist, his forehead resting against mine, like he’s afraid if he lets go even for a second, everything he said might break him.
His breathing evens out first. Mine follows.
I slide my hands up his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heart beneath my palms.
He swallows, eyes flicking down to my mouth and back up again.
“I don’t want to disappear again,” he says. “I don’t want to wake up and realize I pushed you away because it was easier than facing myself.”
A tightness grips my chest.
“Then don’t,” I say simply.
He exhales, a slow release, like he’s been holding that breath for years.
His hands move then. They aren’t urgent or frantic. He cups my face, thumbs brushing my cheeks with a tenderness that makes my throat ache.
I feel the weight of everything he’s told me in the way his mouth lingers, the way his hands don’t roam aimlessly but hold me like he’s afraid of losing his grip on something important.
“I don’t want to pretend I’m suddenly … healed.”
“I wouldn’t believe you if you did,” I admit.
That earns me the ghost of a smile.
“But I don’t want to live the way I’ve been living anymore,” he continues.
His hands slide to my back, warm and steady.
“And I don’t want to keep wanting you and pretending it doesn’t mean anything.”
My pulse jumps.
“It matters to me,” I say softly.
His eyes darken, not with lust alone, but with something heavier.
“Good,” he murmurs. “Because it does to me too.”
That admission lands between us like a quiet vow, not a promise, not a declaration of forever. Just truth.
He tucks his thumbs into my sweatpants and pushes them down slowly, his eyes holding mine the whole time. It feels like the most intimate thing we’ve ever done.
They hit the ground, and I kick them off. I strip him of his clothes, taking my time.
It’s hard to breathe when I see this man naked in front of me. He’s perfectly sculpted, like he spends all his time in a gym and not saving lives.
He reaches over to the wall and puts the shower on, though we don’t move under the water.
Instead, the steam builds around us as he starts to trail soft kisses along my neck, then down to my chest. My breathing becomes labored as he falls to his knees and kisses my stomach and hips, worshipping every inch of my skin.
He puts one large hand on my thigh and moves it over a couple of inches, making my stance wider. Then he dips his thumb down to my pussy and spreads the evidence of my arousal up to my clit.
Then he stands up and kisses me. When he pulls apart, his eyes are unmistakably darker. “I’m clean.”
That’s all he needs to say. I know what he wants.
“Me too,” I admit. “And I’m on the pill.”
With that, he lifts me into the air. I wrap my legs around his waist, and he presses my back against the tiles. Then he lines his dick up and pushes inside.
It’s not hard, but he pushes all the way in, then groans a deep, guttural sound as his forehead falls to my shoulder.
“I’ve never done this before,” he admits, voice sounding pained. “This feels amazing.”
I’m lost in the sensations as he moves slowly inside of me. I know we are not past the hard stuff, but for the first time, I feel like he has consciously chosen to face it all … with me by his side.