Chapter 27 – Catalina #2
His glare is pure disbelief. “All that,” he snaps, “because I got a second doctor’s opinion on my shoulder? You’re acting like I betrayed you!”
I scoop my bra off the floor and yank it on, shove my arms into my shirt, and drag my pants up without bothering with panties.
“Yes.”
I turn to leave. He catches my wrist to stop me.
His cock hangs heavy between his thighs; boxers damp in the front from where his come spilled out. He drags them up his legs with his free hand, chest heaving like he ran a mile instead of fucking.
“You’re not going anywhere until we talk,” he says. “And until I take care of you.”
“I’ve been doing just fine on my own for years.”
I reach for the door. He slams his palm against it, blocking me from leaving, pupils blown wide, breath ragged.
“Catalina,” he says hoarsely. “We both know what we have isn’t something you just throw away.” He swallows hard. “I’m falling for you. If you walk out of here, you're the one choosing to end this.”
He’s falling for me? My heart races. I lift a hand, shaking my head before he can say another word. “I won’t be at your next ride.”
His brow creases. “What? You’re quitting the Series?”
“I’m staying in San Jose. I took a surgery case here.”
“Okay…” He blinks. “So, what, you miss Seattle? But you'll be back for Charlotte and the semis... right?”
I should be. It’s important and the team needs me. This is what I signed up for. This is what I’m paid to do. I never start something and quit halfway. I always finish the job.
But standing here—with Jensen half naked, my heart half broken—I don’t know if I can keep going without figuring out the mess in my head.
I don’t want to hurt Jensen. And I don’t want to hurt anymore either.
Both of those things depend on me dealing with my past. Healing from the trauma and insecurities Davis caused.
I don’t answer his question. “I saw my ex today.”
His expression darkens instantly. “What?”
I look at him. I don’t reply.
“Your ex-fiancé?” he says, anger sharpening every syllable. “The asshole who cheated on you? You saw him? Why?”
I say nothing. I let him fill in the blanks with things that aren’t true. Let the doubt settle where it’ll do the most damage. He doesn’t know that my ex is also the doctor he saw today for his second opinion—but he doesn’t need to. The seed of doubt is planted, and now I’m saying goodbye.
What Jensen doesn't know is that seeing Davis at the hospital is what sent me running to him in the first place after his ride tonight.
That watching my ex ask me to dinner—casual, unbothered, his pregnant mistress somewhere at home waiting for him to get off work—reminded me that most men are exactly what I've always believed them to be.
But not Jensen. That's what I'd decided, somewhere between the hospital corridor and the arena. Jensen was different. Jensen would never quietly work around me. Jensen was the one man I'd met in longer than I could remember who made me feel like being trusted was actually possible.
I'd come to that training room to tell him exactly that.
That I was terrified, and that I wanted to try anyway.
That we could stop whatever this half-defined, sneaking-around thing was and do it properly.
That I wanted him to meet my parents tonight as my boyfriend, not as one of the riders I work for.
I had the whole thing mapped out in my head. I was ready. And then I walked in and heard Davis speaking. That while I was standing in a hospital corridor deciding to finally trust someone, he was quietly doing the one thing guaranteed to prove I shouldn't.
Jensen didn't mean it that way. I know that. Dawson scheduled the consult. Jensen doesn't have a malicious bone in his body, and that almost makes it worse—because it means he just didn't think about what it would mean to me if I’d found out.
I'm so glad I didn't say any of it to him. I’d feel even more foolish than I already do.
What I keep coming back to is that Davis knew exactly what he was doing tonight.
He didn't show up because he had a professional opinion about Jensen's shoulder.
He showed up because he wanted to remind me of my place.
The one he spent years quietly assigning me. And tonight, it worked.
The second I heard his voice through the training room door, I stopped being the woman who's spent the last several weeks slowly, terrifyingly becoming someone new, and turned back into the resident who was never quite good enough. Never quite worth staying faithful to. Never quite worth choosing.
He's been doing that to me for years, and he's still doing it without even trying very hard. And the worst part isn't Davis. The worst part is the question he left behind.
Even if I forgive Jensen—and I think I can, because I believe him when he says he didn't ask for the consult—will I ever actually trust him? Will I ever stop waiting for the moment he realizes I'm too much work? Too cold, too guarded, too difficult to love without a manual?
Will I ever stop finding reasons to leave before someone else can leave me first?
“Goodbye, Jensen.”
I crack the door open an inch before his hand is back on my wrist. His ease with touching me still guts me every time. I don't flinch. I'm used to it now. I'll have to unlearn that soon.
He swallows. “Is that who you’re going to see tonight? With June? Your fucking ex?”
I don’t answer. Because I already know I’m cancelling that double date with June, and there’s no universe that it would be with Davis anyway. But if it makes it easier for Jensen to forget about me and move on, then maybe that's a good thing. He deserves better.
His jaw tightens. “Catalina… answer me.”
I don’t flinch. I don’t blink. I keep my face blank, cold, immovable.
He stares at me for a long moment. Then he releases my wrist and steps back, dragging a hand down his face before he yanks his jeans back on and tucks himself behind the zipper.
“You know what?” he chuckles humorlessly while shaking his head. “You should quit the series now.”
That sentence lands hard.
“Maybe I will.”
“Good.”
“Maybe I’ll move back to San Jose. Permanently.”
“Fine.”
I glare at him now. Push it. Push him until there's no coming back. “Maybe I’ll move to Whitewood Creek.”
He steps closer but doesn’t touch me anymore. His voice drops to something deeper and lethal. “You could move to the ends of the earth, and it still wouldn’t be far enough away from me, Pulse.”
Then he turns and yanks the bathroom door open so hard the springs protest, storming out and leaving me alone in the wreckage we created.
And for a woman who’s spent years perfecting the cold shoulder, I don’t think I’ve ever been this cold in my life.