Chapter 5 #2
“That’s what I hated most,” I admitted. “Not losing him. By the end, I don’t even think I wanted him anymore.
I hated that he made me question myself.
My judgment. My instincts. I hated wondering if everyone else knew before I did.
I hated feeling like the last person to understand my own relationship. ”
Hunter’s eyes stayed on me. I felt them even when I didn’t look.
After a moment, he said, “That part messes with your head.”
My fingers tightened around the treadmill rail. He hadn’t said it like a guess.
He said it like memory.
I turned my head slowly. “Yeah. It does.”
Something passed between us then, heavier than flirtation and more dangerous than attraction.
I knew pieces of Hunter’s past. Everyone in my father’s world knew pieces, whether they admitted it or not.
The disastrous wedding. The ex who lied.
I had been younger then, old enough to know adults whispered when they thought teenagers weren’t listening, but not old enough to understand all the ways a betrayal like that could brand a person.
Now I was old enough. And standing in front of Hunter, I understood more than I wanted to.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
His brow creased. “For what?”
“For whatever made you learn that,” I said with a frown.
He stared at me for a long moment, his face unreadable in the harsh gym lighting. Then he looked down and dragged a hand over the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Me too.” It wasn’t an answer or explanation, but it held weight.
For a while, neither of us spoke. I slowed my treadmill completely, then stepped off and reached for my water bottle. My hands felt unsteady, which annoyed me, but I decided to blame the run.
Hunter cleared his throat. “You want to lift?”
The subject change was abrupt, but I understood it for what it was. A door opening away from something too exposed.
“Sure.”
He moved toward the free weights, and I followed.
The room suddenly felt smaller now that the treadmills were off.
Hunter chose a heavy set of dumbbells and sat on the bench.
I picked up lighter weights and positioned myself near the mirror, telling myself I was choosing that spot for form.
That was a lie. The mirror gave me Hunter without requiring me to turn around.
He started shoulder presses, his movements controlled and powerful, and I focused on my curls like they were the most interesting thing in the world when really, I couldn’t rip my gaze from his arms and shoulders.
The way his shirt pulled across his chest was downright sinful.
The way his face tightened with effort made me wonder what he looked like when he was coming.
I was pathetic. No, I was a grown woman with a functioning body and inconvenient taste. There was a difference.
“So,” he said after a few reps, his voice more even now. “Are you happy about the elective?”
That, at least, was safe ground.
“Yes,” I said immediately.
His mouth tipped at the corner. “Fast answer.”
“Because it’s true.” I lowered the weights, then lifted them again. “I’m happy. Nervous, but happy.”
“Nervous why?”
I watched my reflection in the mirror. My cheeks were flushed from the run, and my ponytail brushed the back of my neck as I moved. “Because I don’t want anyone thinking I’m there because of my dad.”
Hunter’s reps slowed.
“I know some people will,” I continued. “It’s unavoidable.
He’s the coach, and I’m his daughter. I can earn every grade, show up early, stay late, know the anatomy, ask the right questions, work twice as hard as anyone expects, and there will still be someone who assumes the door opened because of my last name. ”
“Did it?” he asked.
I looked at him. Hunter had never been the kind of man to decorate a question just to make it easier to swallow.
“The connection helped,” I said. “I’m not na?ve enough to pretend it didn’t. But it didn’t do the work for me.”
“I believe that,” he said sincerely.
I paused. “You do?”
“Yes.”
That simple answer struck deeper than I expected. He set his dumbbells down on his thighs and leaned forward, forearms braced against them. “Cole wouldn’t let you near the team if he didn’t think you could handle it. He loves you, but he’s not careless with his players.”
My chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with exertion.
Dad had always been proud of me. Loudly, embarrassingly proud.
He had never missed a chance to tell someone what I was studying or where I was placed or how hard I worked.
But Hunter understood the other side of it.
The part that mattered here. My father could be proud of me as his daughter and still respect the work enough not to turn the team into a family favor.
“I needed to hear that,” I said.
Hunter’s gaze softened with a smile that touched his hazel eyes, making it look like he had gold swirling inside them. “I figured.”
I set the weights down and flexed my fingers.
“My parents set a high bar. Daddy with hockey, Mom with medicine. They both built careers that took everything from them and somehow still made our family feel like the center of their world. I don’t know if I always understood that when I was younger, but I understand it now. ”
Hunter listened without interrupting.
“I think that’s why sports medicine makes sense to me,” I continued.
“It’s the place where both parts of my life collide.
My father’s world and my mother’s. I grew up around athletes, but I also grew up watching my mom study until she could barely keep her eyes open because medicine mattered to her that much. ”
“You sound like her,” he said thoughtfully.
I looked at him through the mirror. “That’s the best compliment you could give me.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
I picked up the weights again, mostly because if I stood there letting him look at me like that, I was going to forget why this was a bad idea.
“I like the puzzle of medicine,” I said.
“The way the body tells a story even when the patient doesn’t have the words for it.
But with athletes, there’s another layer.
Injuries don’t just hurt. They threaten everything.
Their routine, their role, their confidence, their future.
One bad hit can make a player wonder who he is without the game. ”
Hunter’s expression shifted. “I’ve had my share of injuries over the years. I’m lucky to still be able to play. I’m thankful for the therapists and doctors who keep me on the ice.”
“I want to be the kind of doctor who remembers that. Not just the scan, the rehab plan, the protocol. The person. The fear. The identity crisis under the injury. Because I remember Dad. I remember watching games where he got hurt and my heart dropped. I remember how hard he had to work to get back on the ice.”
“You’re going to be good at it. Not many people have seen those things from the player’s perspective,” he said. “I got injured last year. A concussion. It took me off the ice for a few weeks, but it messes with your head. I never know if there will be a career-ending injury.”
“It’s not easy. I remember when my dad decided to retire. It took a huge weight off my mom,” I admitted.
“Now he’s busy whipping my ass,” Hunter joked, reaching for his towel. “But in all honesty, CC, I’m sure you’re going to be great.”
I lowered the weights and looked at him through the mirror. “Catherine.”
His hand stilled on the towel. “What?”
“Call me Catherine.” I tried to keep my voice light, but it came out steadier than I expected. “The only people who really call me CC anymore are my parents, siblings, and Max.”
Hunter’s gaze held mine in the mirror. “You don’t like CC?”
“I do,” I said, because I did. “CC is what people call me when they remember me as a kid.”
Something shifted in his expression. I turned to face him, the weights hanging at my sides. “But I’m not only that girl anymore.”
Hunter didn’t say anything right away. The gym was quiet around us, the kind of quiet that made every breath feel too loud.
He was still flushed from running, his hair damp, his shirt clinging to his chest in a way I was trying very hard not to notice.
But his eyes were on my face, not my body, and somehow that felt more intimate.
“Catherine,” he said at last.
My breath caught. I hated that he noticed and hated even more that I wanted him to.
“Better?” he asked.
I managed a small smile. “Much.”
For a second, neither of us said anything.
The gym was quiet around us, but the silence between us wasn’t empty.
It was full of everything we had both avoided saying since the pool house.
The shower, steam, me getting off to thoughts of him.
That part he didn’t need to know. What I still didn’t understand was the fact that neither of us had moved right away.
We weren’t horrified, which was the problem.
I shifted my towel from one hand to the other. “We should probably talk about what happened.”
Hunter went very still. His eyes stayed on mine, but the rest of him locked up like I had just dropped a puck at center ice and asked him to fight for his life.
“What happened?” he asked, swallowing hard.
I arched a brow. “You know exactly what happened.”
He dragged a hand over the back of his neck. “Right. Yeah. The… thing.”
“The thing?” I held back the urge to laugh. This was not the reaction I was expecting.
“The pool house thing.” He winced immediately. “Not thing. That sounds worse. The shower. The accident. The accidental shower thing.”
I pressed my lips together to stop myself from laughing because this burly grown man was behaving like an embarrassed teenager, and I didn’t get it. Hunter looked toward the ceiling like he was asking the universe to intervene. “That was not my best sentence.”
“No,” I said, the smile slipping out. “It wasn’t.”
“I’m usually better with words,” he assured me.
“Are you?” I asked playfully, unable to help myself.