Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
His jaw sharpens and he steps onto the stationary track, legs spread. It always hurts seeing him hurt, a rock wedging in my ribs.
He snaps his eyes shut for a longer second.
I lower my machine’s speed to a walk. “What do you need?” I ask.
He blows out a measured breath, opening his eyes on me. “Your honesty.”
I stay walking on the moving belt next to his powered off treadmill. “I honestly believe you’re too hard on yourself and you’re too afraid of disappointing Sulli.”
Maximoff listens intently. He’s thinking hard, and then rests his weight against the machine’s handlebar and monitor. Not starting the treadmill back up.
I’m about to stop mine—
“Don’t,” he says. “You wanted to workout. You should.”
I can do a lot of things, but I can’t sprint in front of my boyfriend while he’s dying to run. It’s not even my workout of choice. It’s one of his, and if I stay on this track, it’s just being callous towards someone who’s extremely kind.
I turn off my machine. “I’m doing abs on the mats.”
Maximoff adjusts his sling. “You sure?”
I hang on my handlebar and careen towards him. “I’m always sure.” Shit, that’s not entirely true. There is something I’m unsure about…but before I retract my statement, Maximoff gestures to me.
“You know,” he says, “watching you run wouldn’t upset me. It’d probably just make me hornier.”
My smile reaches cheek-to-cheek.
He blinks into a glare. “I take it back. You didn’t hear that.”
“I heard that,” I say matter-of-factly, leaning over my handlebar towards his treadmill. “Watching me run does it for you. So does when I walk, talk, smile, breathe—”
“Thank you for listing my turn-offs.”
“Anytime.” I remember what I needed to talk about again, and my smile vanishes faster.
Maximoff notices, and questions flash in his eyes. “I’d been meaning to ask—at the appointment earlier, you didn’t like my doctor, did you?”
Now I really can’t stop staring at him, a surprised breath in my throat. He hit the topic almost dead center, and it’d take someone who truly understands me to put these small pieces together.
My affection for Maximoff overflows me, swelling up inside my chest. This is the overwhelming effect of spending almost every minute with each other. To the point where being with him has felt like years stacked on top of years. And my only fear is it ending.
I comb a hand through my white hair. “No, I didn’t like that doctor.” I step off my treadmill. “Did you?”
Maximoff follows me to the gym mats near the rock wall. “He seemed fine to me. He was polite, professional, and it’s not like he’s my primary care physician.” Because he still doesn’t have one.
“He was professional,” I agree, watching Maximoff lower to the mat, his back up against the multi-colored anchors and bolts. I add, “My dislike has more to do with me than him.”
His brows furrow. “What do you mean?”
Taking a seat in front of my boyfriend, I hang my arm on my bent knee. “I was jealous.” It’s not a small statement. It’s the start of something much larger and more consequential.
His strong-willed eyes never drift off mine. Maximoff exudes quiet compassion that feels louder than thunder. “Is your jealousy from wanting to be my doctor?” he asks. “Or because you aren’t practicing medicine at all?”
I tilt my head back-and-forth. “Both.” I nod, certain. Both. “It wasn’t just this morning at the doctor’s office. It was when you were rushed into Philly General on a stretcher.” I pause. Remembering that night, and I explain how when I finally made the choice to leave medicine four years ago, I had no reservations.
There was no longing to return.
Only a peace to let go and never look back.
“I always thought I’d go through those hospital doors and feel nostalgic. Not bitter or envious,” I tell him while he listens carefully. “I was pushed aside trying to help you in the ER, and I chalked up my emotion to being protective of you and being frustrated that I couldn’t do more.” I pause again.
Maximoff takes my hand into his, hard calluses on his palm against similar ones on mine. “It wasn’t that then?” he asks.
“It was that, but it was definitely something else, too.” I’m conflicted. I tell him that I am, and I explain how that same night I ran into a doctor who’d been in my first-year residency. Tristan MacNair. We talked for a few minutes in the hallway, and then he was paged.
My first thought should’ve been, I’m glad that’s not my call. But all I could think and feel was, I wish that were me. I watched him sprint away to aid a patient. Instinct told me, follow, go help.
And my hunger for medicine just pummeled me.
It’s been eating at me on-and-off since, and then seeing the doctor this morning, that hunger returned. I stop rehashing my story and feelings here, a pit in my stomach.