3. Zoey
Zoey
The nursing station at Pine Hollow was clean and sparsely furnished with a narrow bed bolted to the wall, cabinets labeled in tidy handwriting, and a rolling stool parked in the corner.
“This isn’t necessary,” I said, which was my default setting. I said it about most things that involved care or attention targeted at me.
Liam shut the door behind us. He turned, and for a second, I just… noticed.
He was big. Not gym-big, but structurally large.
The kind of big that made doorways seem impossibly small.
Standing that close to him did something irritating to my sense of scale.
I wasn’t short—had never been. And yet my brain kept insisting I was suddenly taking up less space in comparison to him, but strangely, it made me feel safe instead of small.
It felt illegal.
“The nurse practitioner lives on the property,” he said. “Same as me. I’m going to see if she’s available.”
“That’s really not necessary,” I repeated, climbing onto the bed anyway. “It’s the middle of the night. I’m sure there’s an ice pack I could use for a few minutes and be right back to normal.”
I peeled off my shoe and set it on the floor. Swelling had arrived with confidence. It looked proud of itself, all red and puffy.
I stared at it. “Okay, that’s rude.”
He took his phone out, typed, paused, deleted something, typed again. His thumb hovered for a beat before he sent the message.
“She’s on her way,” he said.
I scowled. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“You stepped in a hole on our property,” he said. “You’re dizzy. You can’t put weight on it.”
“I can put weight on it. The dizziness is from the booze.”
I tried to stand to prove my point. The room tilted immediately. My body made a brief, misguided suggestion toward movement, and my ankle rejected it.
He moved without touching me, close enough that I was again very aware of how much space he occupied and how easily he could steady me if he needed to.
I didn’t ask him to.
“May I?” he asked, gesturing to my foot.
Nodding, I sat back down. I was not prepared for how careful he was.
He cradled my heel with both hands, steady and sure, like he had done this before. His thumbs pressed lightly around the swollen area. He watched my face, not my ankle.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a deeply unhelpful thought surfaced: At least I’d gotten a pedicure.
This was not the moment to be grateful for aesthetic foresight, and yet…
I swallowed and immediately hated myself for it.
“That hurt?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
He nodded as if it was a data point. He adjusted his grip, slower this time, and my skin tingled beneath his warm, steady hands.
I told myself to look anywhere else. At the cabinets, or the labels, the ceiling, or the floor. Instead, I met his gaze.
Huge mistake.
I didn’t like the way my stomach flipped. I didn’t like the way my thoughts scattered. I especially didn’t like the part of me that wanted to stay right here and let him keep holding me like this.
“You’re doing great,” he said.
“I’m literally sitting,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Very impressive.”
A moment later, a knock sounded at the door, and Liam opened it. The nurse practitioner seemed cheerful and unbothered, and I quickly snapped back to reality.
Liam greeted her by name. She greeted him right back, easy and familiar. There was a rhythm there. Comfort. The kind you only get after a lot of late nights and mutually solved problems.
Liam stepped back; he checked the door again, the light, the cart by the wall.
I watched him do it and felt something settle in my chest. I really, really didn’t like that something.
“Evening,” the nurse practitioner said in a no-fuss tone, setting her bag down and washing her hands. “I’m Marlene.”
“Zoey,” I said. “Sorry about the hour.”
She waved it off. “I live close by.”
Marlene glanced at my ankle, then at the two of us, and smiled slowly. “So, this is the result of the lake incident.”
“Wow, word travels fast here,” I said. “I would like it noted that the lake started it.”
She laughed as she dried her hands. “You’re lucky it was Liam who found you.”
“The old crotchety neighbor actually got there first.”
Her brows shot up. “He did?”
“Yes,” I said. “Very loud. Very committed to the idea that shame is dead.”
Marlene winced. “Sounds like him.”
“He called us animals,” I added.
“That’s actually one of his nicer openers,” she said, then looked back at Liam.
“If it had been anyone else other than Liam who came across you, this would have ended with the cops and a lecture about standards. Liam has a way with people. He has an energy about him that makes people feel comfortable.”
Liam cleared his throat and looked at the wall, but I didn’t miss the way his ears had gone pink.
Marlene’s smile sharpened as she watched him. “You know,” she said casually, “this one is very popular around here.”
I didn’t like how my stomach reacted to that.
“With every woman,” she continued, “and some of the men.”
“I’m standing right here,” Liam said.
She waved him off. “You are. And normally you nod politely and retreat. Tonight, you’re… participating. Which is why I’m committed to embarrassing you.”
“I am not participating,” he said. “I’m concerned about her ankle. And I’m only laughing at her jokes because she’s funny.”
“Oh,” Marlene said, pleased. “That explains it.”
“I’m not funny,” I said automatically.
Liam turned to me and really looked at me. “You are. And apparently also self-deprecating.”
It was said simply. No buildup. No joke attached.
I hated that my face heated. I hated that I didn’t immediately deflect like I should have.
Marlene slid a clipboard across the counter before I could recover. “Paperwork first,” she said. “I need this before I treat you.”
“That’s fair,” I said, grateful for the interruption.
I took the pen and focused. Name. Address. Insurance. I was sober enough for this. The cold water and pain had done their job. My head was clear. My body was loud.
Marlene moved around the room, lining up supplies and pulling on gloves. Liam watched her do it, then adjusted the trash bin an inch closer to the table.
“How did you end up working all the way out here?” I asked, mostly to keep my mind occupied.
Marlene smiled without looking up. “I work under Dr. Patel at the hospital downtown, but we set it up so I can run my own practice here.”
“That sounds nice,” I said.
“It is,” she said cheerfully. “I see my regular patients here during the week. Folks who don’t want to trek into town. And Pine Hollow keeps me on as an emergency station for allergic reactions, bad sunburns, and twisted ankles.”
“That last one feels targeted.”
She laughed. “You’d be surprised how often I see it.”
I looked back down at the papers. Emergency contact.
I paused.
My mother was on a long cruise somewhere in the Indian Ocean. We talked when the satellite cooperated, or when she needed something from me. Usually, the second. She was not the type of person who showed up when things went wrong. That had always been me.
Even when I was a kid.
And if she did get called for something medical, she would treat it like an engraved invitation to meddle. She’d unleash her opinions and interpret my boundaries as suggestions.
I was working on not doing that anymore. On not handing her the keys to my life every time something went sideways.
This was not the moment to relapse.
I could put one of the women upstairs. I liked them. That was the problem. Liking people came with expectations. Also, I didn’t have their actual phone numbers. Just years of Slack messages and mutual trauma.
I looked up. Liam was wiping the counter. He stopped when he noticed me watching.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said, which wasn’t true.
I wrote his name, then the number from the card he had handed me earlier.
Emergencies only.
Marlene took the clipboard and raised her brows. “Bold choice.”
“He’s an employee,” I said with a shrug. “Plus, I don’t have anyone else.”
Liam blinked, then nodded. “I’m on site,” he said. “I can help if needed.”
Marlene smiled like she’d just seen something click. “All right then.” She turned back to my ankle and got to work, all efficient and confident.
I told myself this meant nothing.
I told myself I would never need him.
Marlene pressed and prodded my ankle with the confidence of someone who had seen worse and might see worse again before breakfast.
“Tell me when it hurts,” she said.
“It hurts,” I said.
She adjusted her grip. “Helpful.”
She moved it side to side. Up. Down. A little rotation that made me clench my jaw and reconsider all my life choices.
“Okay,” she said after a minute. “Nothing feels unstable. No obvious fracture. Likely a minor strain or sprain.”
“Minor,” I repeated. “Love that word.”
“If the swelling gets worse after three days, you’ll need an X-ray,” she continued. “Until then, rest, elevation, ice. Be gentle.”
“I will absolutely do all of that,” I said, lying with absolute confidence.
She wrapped it neatly, firm but not cruel, and taped it like she meant it to stay that way. When she was done, she stepped back and nodded at her work.
“You can walk. Just don’t be heroic about it.”
“I have never been heroic in my life,” I said.
Liam crouched and picked up my shoe, careful to keep his hands to himself, like proximity was a privilege he didn’t abuse.
Marlene peeled off her gloves. “One more thing.”
I braced myself.
“A short soak in the outdoor heated spa should help loosen things up,” she said. “Just don’t fall in.”
“I would never,” I said.
She looked at me, then at my ankle, raising one eyebrow. “Have a good night,” she said, already moving toward the door.
When Liam and I stepped back outside, the quiet wrapped around us again. Pine Hollow had returned to its usual state. I hesitated, then cleared my throat. “So. Hypothetically.”
Liam turned to me.
“If someone had a freshly bandaged ankle,” I continued, “and a noted history of poor decisions around wet surfaces...”
He nodded once.
“And if that someone wanted to take medical advice very seriously…”
Another nod.
“It might be safer,” I said, carefully, “to not be alone near the spa. In case of slipping. Or… further heroics.”
He considered that, his gaze moving over the path ahead, the light, and the ground, as if my hypothetical required a full safety assessment.
“I can stay,” he said. “If you want.”
I pretended this was purely logistical. “That would be wise.”
We started walking, and I stuck to the convenient fiction that this was about safety, despite the fact that my pulse clearly had other opinions.