Chapter 11 - Nicole
Nicole
The trauma unit never slept. It only inhaled and exhaled, a constant mechanical breath made of monitor beeps, rolling gurneys, clipped voices, and the sharp tang of antiseptic that clung to the back of my throat.
I’d been on my feet since before sunrise, my coffee long since reduced to a memory and a headache pulsing just behind my eyes.
“Nicole, you’re up for vitals in room one-oh-four,” Parker, the head nurse, called from behind the intake desk. She was multi-tasking, watching Marcie’s fingers fly over the keyboard.
We always had a lot to say about Parker when she wasn’t around, but this place would be chaos if it weren’t for her. The kind of woman who could run any floor through a power outage and an earthquake without spilling her tea.
“I’m on it,” I said, already moving.
I slipped into 104, all muscle memory and routine. Blood pressure cuff. Pulse ox. A calm smile for the middle-aged man grimacing at the ceiling in mild pain. I kept my voice even and friendly, the way you learn to do when the world is in tethers just beyond the curtain.
Outside, a trauma bay curtain ripped open. Someone shouted a blood type and the unit surged, a living thing responding to stimulus.
By the time I stepped back into the hall, recording 104’s numbers into my tablet, I felt like I’d officially reached the point of exhaustion where I was no longer in my body.
My feet ached in a dull, distant way, like they belonged to someone else.
Double shift. Again. My own fault for swapping nights so I could catch games, but knowing that didn’t make my eyelids feel any less gritty.
“Nicole.”
I stopped.
I knew that voice. Too smooth for a hospital. Too cock-sure.
I turned, already bracing myself, and there he was. Landon Cross. Star winger. Media darling. Human complication.
He stood just inside the trauma unit doors like he’d taken a wrong turn on the way to somewhere shinier, broad shoulders stretching a black jacket that definitely cost more than my monthly grocery bill.
He looked awake. Vibrant. Like he hadn’t spent the last sixteen hours sprinting between beds and bodily fluids and other people’s emergencies.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, pulling him out of the way of general foot traffic.
His grin spread, bright and pleased with itself. “Nice to see you too.”
“Landon…” I lowered my voice as a gurney rushed past behind me. “You can’t just show up here.”
“I can,” he said easily. “I did.”
Parker’s gaze flicked up from the desk, and I lifted a hand in a quick, apologetic wave and mouthed, I’ve got it.
Landon leaned as if he were about to share a secret, forget that we were in the middle of the busiest part of the hospital. “I got a lead.”
My exhaustion receded just enough for my heart to trip. I was too tired to care about whether it was his mouth right by my ear, or the promise of this lead.
“What is it?”
“Your holy grail.” He looked smug as he straightened again, hands in his jacket pockets.
I stared at him. “Don’t even play with me right now, Cross. I’m in a fragile state, but I will always have the strength to kick your ass.”
“I mean it,” he said, chuckling softly. His eyes danced with amusement and I felt myself gravitating toward it. “And this time it doesn’t sound like the dead-end we found back at the arena. This time it sounds legit. Authentic.”
The unit leapt to life around us. Someone laughed too loudly, another person shouted for their mother. A monitor alarm chirped, then went quiet. All of it felt far away.
“You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“I never joke about hockey history,” Landon said, solemn as a vow. Then he grinned again. “Okay, that’s a lie. But I’m not joking about this. Promise.”
I should’ve been happy. I’d been hunting that helmet for years, scrolling auction sites at three in the morning, following collector forums, setting alerts that never pinged. This was the thing. The impossible thing.
“That’s… great,” I said, and even to my own ears it sounded wrong.
Landon’s smile faltered. “Great? That’s it?”
“I just— I wasn’t expecting you to show up here in the middle of a double. On trauma. I’m sorry. I’m happy, I swear. I’m also just dead on my feet.”
He glanced around, finally clocking the controlled mayhem. “Yeah, this place is intense.”
“Understatement of the year.”
Parker cleared her throat pointedly from the desk.
“I need to get back to work,” I said with a sigh. “We can talk later.”
Landon’s brows drew together. “It’s not me, is it?”
I looked at him. Perfect posture. Zero bags under his eyes. The kind of man who could nap between periods and wake up ready to stop pucks at ninety miles an hour.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it, even though it wasn’t really an apology for him. “I’m just… exhausted. My schedule’s a mess, but that’s on me.”
He softened then, some of the ego draining away. “Okay. Okay. My timing sucks.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Parker called my name this time, but I ignored it for half a second longer.
“And also,” I added, because the words had been sitting on my tongue for a while, heavy and insistent, “while you’re here, I’m going to say something.”
Landon’s mouth twitched. “That sounds ominous.”
“You should try being less of a dick sometimes.”
His eyebrows shot up and he took a step back for good measure. “Wow.”
“Don’t,” I said, already tired of his expression. “Don’t act all surprised, as if you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“I am surprised,” he said. “I’m a delight.”
I stared at him, exhaling slowly through my nose.
He shifted, clearing his throat. “Okay, I can be… a dick. I know.”
“You’re talented,” I said. “You’re disciplined. You work your ass off. All true. But you walk around thinking you’re better than everyone else and that’s… not cool.”
“But I am better than everyone else.”
I didn’t return his smile.
A stretcher barreled past, a paramedic rattling off vitals. The unit jumped to life again, pulling my attention like a tide.
“You’re good,” I said quietly. “Good enough to be remembered. But you won’t be, not the way you could be, if people only remember you as an asshole with great reflexes.”
Landon opened his mouth, probably to joke, to deflect, to turn it into something shiny and painless. Whatever he saw on my face made him stop.
For a beat, the noise around us seemed to dim.
“You don’t know what it’s like out there.”
“But I know you have it in you to handle it better,” I countered.
Parker appeared at my elbow. “Nicole. We need you in bay three.”
“I’m coming,” I said.
I looked back at Landon. He looked less polished now. More human. It suited him.
“Thank you,” he said, quietly enough that only I heard.
“For what?”
“For not letting me get away with it.”
I nodded, then turned toward the chaos, my body slipping back into motion as easily as breathing. Behind me, Landon stepped aside, finally understanding where he was.
The trauma unit swallowed me again, and I accepted it with relief.
This was the kind of tension I could navigate with my eyes closed.
The kind I didn’t have to think twice about.
Minutes stretched, and my hands worked of their own accord, feet following familiar paths as I fulfilled my duty for the doctors on call.
I came out of bay three with adrenaline still buzzing under my skin, gloves peeled off and stuffed into the bin, when I looked up and into his face again.
“This probably counts as loitering,” I said, going over to Landon. “Either you move, or security will make you.”
He tipped his head. “I decided to stay and make sure you took five minutes.”
“I’ll take five when people stop needing me.” But my voice lacked its usual bite.
Before I could decide whether to shoo him away or surrender to the weird comfort of his presence, his hand brushed my elbow. An unspoken question. I hesitated, then nodded once.
He led me to the stairwell at the end of the hall, the one no one ever used unless an elevator was down. He pushed the door open and guided me inside, the noise of the unit muffling instantly behind us. Quiet pressed in. Concrete walls. The faint echo of our breathing.
“You can’t keep pushing like this,” he said, already stepping closer. “You’re a ball of tension.”
“This is a hospital. Everyone has tension.”
His hands settled on my shoulders anyway. Warm. Solid. He started rubbing slow circles, thumbs pressing into knots I hadn’t even realized were screaming out for attention. My eyes slid shut before I could stop them.
“Landon,” I warned, but it came out soft. Useless.
“You’re running on fumes,” he said. “You forget to eat. You forget to sit. You forget you’re human. I may not have the scrubs, but trust me, I know the deal.”
I let my head tip forward an inch, giving him better access, hating how good it felt. The stairwell smelled faintly of disinfectant and concrete dust. His jacket brushed my arms when he leaned in, close enough that I could feel his heat at my back.
“This is highly inappropriate,” I murmured.
“Pep talk,” he said. “Very professional and thus, totally appropriate.”
I huffed out a tired laugh. “Careful. Someone might think you’re interested.”
Then his hands stilled. For half a second, neither of us moved.
He stepped back quickly, like he’d only just realized he’d touched something hot. I watched his hands fall to his sides, fingers flexing once before going still.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and this time there was no teasing in it. “I didn’t mean to. You’re right. That crossed a line.”
He looked different in the stark stairwell light. It made him look more honest.
“It’s just…” He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “We’re gunning for playoffs, and for some reason we can’t get out of fifth. Every game matters. I don’t have room for anything else right now.”
“Anything else,” I repeated. “Like dating.”
“Like dating,” he confirmed. “It’s off the cards.”
I studied him, then lifted an eyebrow. “You had time to track down a mythical Alex Granger helmet.”
“That’s different,” he said immediately.
“How?”
He hesitated. Just a flicker. “Because that didn’t ask anything back.”
I felt that land somewhere low in my chest.
“For now,” he added, firmer. “This is just how it has to be.”
I nodded, even if part of me didn’t like it. “Okay. I get it.”
The silence stretched, not awkward exactly, just charged. Then his mouth curved into something lighter.
“I do have a proposition for you, though.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Landon.”
“The team anniversary gala,” he said, ignoring my warning. “Valentine’s Day. I figured you could use your fan club perks to score a ticket.”
“I don’t do galas.” I made to head back out, but he grabbed my arm.
“You’d like this one,” he said. “Because some of the old guard will be there.”
I paused. “Define old guard.”
He smiled, slow and knowing. “Old Surge legends. Think of the autographs, new photos for your shrine back home…”
My resolve crumbled instantly. “You’re evil.”
“You’re coming,” he replied.
By the time we stepped back into the unit, my feet still hurt and my shift was far from over. But my head felt clearer. Lighter.
I hadn’t thought it was possible.
Apparently, Landon Cross hovering in a hospital stairwell had been exactly what I’d needed.
I watched him go the same way he’d come in, through the emergency doors, the chaos bowing aside just enough to let him pass.
A gurney burst through at the last second, wheels squealing, a paramedic rambling vitals, and Landon barely missed getting taken out at the knees. He hopped sideways, awkward and graceless, arms flying out to regain his balance. I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing.
Idiot.
A cute idiot, unfortunately.
He glanced back once, caught my eye, and lifted his chin in something that might’ve been a salute before disappearing through the doors and into the night.
I stood there a beat too long, the unit roaring back into full volume around me.
Monitors chimed. Someone yelled for blood. A cart rattled past my hip.
“Nicole.”
I turned straight into a broad chest.
“Sorry,” I said automatically, already stepping back—
James smiled down at me, hands in the pockets of his lab coat, dark hair doing that unfair thing where it looked good no matter how long the shift dragged on. Fourth-year surgical resident. Always calm. Always clean around the edges, even when the rest of us were fraying.
“Perfect timing,” he said. “You’re exactly who I was looking for.”
My stomach dipped. “If this is about bay five, I already—”
“Not work,” he said, quick to clarify. His smile shifted, a little more sultry than the environment called for. “I mean, eventually work. But right now… me.”
Oh.
He gestured vaguely toward the hallway, like he was suddenly very aware we were standing in the middle of controlled chaos.
“Do you want to get dinner with me? Not hospital food. Real food. Somewhere with chairs that don’t squeak.”
I glanced, without meaning to, toward the emergency doors.
They swung open and shut, open and shut. Patients. Staff. Night pressing in from outside. Landon was long gone, but his voice echoed anyway, steady and final.
Playoffs. Fifth place. No room.
I looked back at James. At the way he was waiting, not crowding me, not assuming.
The truth settled in, heavy but clear: My shot with Landon wasn’t coming. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“Yeah,” I said, surprising myself with how sure it sounded. “I’d love to.”
Relief flashed across his face. “Awesome. Tomorrow night?”
I nodded, and watched him walk off to answer a page. When I turned back toward the nurses’ station, my heart did something complicated in my chest.
I didn’t look toward the emergency doors again.