I’d never scrubbed my skin so hard. What in the hell was he thinking? And why hadn’t I noticed the past week or longer that his hand was healing faster than any natural process? He wore his sling and acted like it bothered him. He tried to throw me off. That might have pissed me off the most.

I cut the hot water and reached for a towel. In a short amount of time, I had basically moved into Wes’s apartment. He had taken one look at my rented extended stay and decided I needed a place with a view, and preferably one with a view of him.

I arrived with an entirely new wardrobe and my own closet. Dating a highly paid quarterback had its advantages. He was a millionaire on top of having a rock hard body and eyes that stirred every impulse under my skin.

And the sex. God, the sex. There was nothing like it. There never had been, and I knew that the day Wes walked out of my life, I’d never have anything like it again. That was the problem. I knew this was temporary. There would be a day when we’d both wake up and realize there was no way we were compatible.

He’d never had a girlfriend before. Why did I think he’d suddenly change now? It was insane to think he wanted commitment and all the things that came with it. I laughed. This was probably the first time he’d had an actual argument with a woman and didn’t kick her out. Ben and I fought. That’s what regular couples did.

We fought about what movie to watch or whose parents were more annoying. We fought about what shifts we should work, and who should buy groceries. But had we ever fought about an ethical and moral issue? Had Ben and I ever fought about something that mattered like this?

I toweled off my hair, slipped on Wes’s jersey and a pair of yoga pants, and trotted off to face him.

I sat on the barstool. He plated a pasta dish and placed it in front of me. “Dinner.”

“Smells good.” I picked up my wine glass. “We have to finish this discussion. You know that, right?”

“I know that I’ve said everything I want to say. And I don’t expect you to keep questioning me.”

I fought back the anger and tried to remind myself he was new at this. “Whatever it is we’re doing here, Wes. This thing between us… it’s not going to include lies. I’m not compromising on that.”

He gripped his fork. “You knew what you were getting into with me. I drink. I gamble. I sleep around. Uh, used to sleep around. I cross lines that have to be crossed so we can win. I do the things that other people don’t want to do.”

“What is it with you and winning? Damn it, Wes. Winning isn’t everything.”

He slammed the fork on the counter. “Yes it is. You don’t get it. You don’t understand my life, or what it’s taken for me to get here. You live in a happy black and white land where you get to save people and put them back together. It’s my job to tear them down. To trample and stomp. To tackle and defeat. That’s my life. I’ve fought for everything I have. Every victory. Every dollar. Every single damn thing. Everything.”

“Hey, hey. I’m not judging you.” I saw the flames in his eyes. The vein on the side of his neck was throbbing. “Tell me. Just tell me. Explain it. All of it.”

He hunched back in his seat, letting an expansive breath escape his chest. “It’s not a great story. Let’s just let it go. I don’t want to fight with you.”

I pulled his right hand into my lap. Something desperate had made him do what he did. And I knew enough about my connection to him that I wanted to understand it. I wanted to know what would drive a man who had everything to risk it all. Put his health at stake. I still had no idea what he had taken, and that scared me.

I traced the side of his jaw. “No. I’m not letting it go. I care about you. And if we’re doing this, then I’m here for all of it. Not just the sex and the beautiful clothes.” I smiled. “Although, those are nice perks.”

“The truth comes out.”

“It always does.” My thumb rubbed his bottom lip. “You can trust me. Talk to me. I want to know why you have to win.”

“Huh. I think that’s the first time someone has asked me that. Doesn’t everyone want to win? Isn’t an instinct?”

I shook my head. “Not at the risk of everything. There’s something driving you. I see it. I feel it. It’s even with me. You wanted to win me over.”

“And I did.” He winked.

“Yeah, you did. And here we are. So, I’m asking you, where does it come from?”

He closed his eyes. “This is fucking hard.”

My heart pounded. I wanted to pull him to my chest and cradle him and tell him he could trust me with everything. Even if he had done something I thought was completely unethical. But that wasn’t really the problem. Whatever he had done to regenerate his hand wasn’t the core issue. It came from something far deeper. There was something Wes wasn’t telling me.

“Where does all this come from?” I pressed him for an answer. Some kind of explanation.

I had seen two sides of him. There was the competitor. The cocky bastard who wanted people to fall at his feet. The man who dominated me in the bedroom. The womanizer. The reckless millionaire who threw money around.

And then there was this man in front of me. The one who had cooked dinner for me after I had a hard day at the hospital. The one who made sure I had everything I needed. The one who sent flowers and kissed me like every kiss was making him whole again. That man was the reason I was here. That man was the reason I slept under his sheets and wore his jersey.

I waited, trying to be patient. Trying to understand why it was so hard for him to open up. He wasn’t used to this.

“You’re not from Texas, Doc.”

I shook my head. “No, this has all been a culture shock.”

“What you have to understand is that football is life here. My dad shoved a helmet on my head and a set of pads on me when the ball was still bigger than my head. He had me run drills on Saturday mornings at 6am when most kids were still sleeping. I threw the ball until it was time for dinner. He hired a private coach when I was eight. I was scouted by the time I was twelve.” Wes’s eyes hardened. “It didn’t matter to him if I liked football or not, I was going to be a champion.”

“But did you like it? Did you want to play?” I tried to imagine a younger version of the strong man sitting in front of me, spending his every waking minute on a football field instead of playing Chutes and Ladders or watching cartoons.

“I didn’t know what I wanted. He didn’t ask. I never had a choice. By the time I was in high school, I was already getting scholarship offers for top schools. It was a no brainer. Football was in my blood by then. It was my life and I kept riding the train.”

“But you love it now?” I questioned.

“It’s who I am. I can’t separate it. I don’t even think about it. I live and breathe football. I always have.”

I touched his hand, the one I had so carefully put back together. I didn’t know what lengths he had gone through to heal it in record time, but I was starting to understand pieces of his story.

“But your dad isn’t making you do those things now, is he? You’re your own person, Wes.”

His eyes hardened. “He made me into a winner. A champion. And that’s who I am. I’m who I am because he pushed me. He made me.”

I swallowed. It sounded like brainwashing. It sounded like a child being robbed of precious years of imagination and happiness. It sounded like a tyrant parent living out his own dream vicariously through his talented son. The entire story pissed me off.

“I know it’s not the same as playing for a national team or having the world watch my every move.” Although lately, it seemed like the press was following me around. “But when I’m in surgery, I know that feeling. I want to win. I want to succeed.”

“No, that’s not the same.”

“Just hear me out.” I ran my fingers along his arm, swirling over the ink that ran the length of his bicep. “When I’m in there, I know I can’t win every time. People count on me. The patient. Their family. The surgical team under my direction. But we can’t win every time. And I have to live with that. That has to be okay. Because if it’s not, I can’t be a good surgeon. If every time something went wrong and I believed we were failures, how would I ever walk back into the next OR? How could I ever give someone else hope?” His eyes were on me, and I prayed he understood what I was saying. “Being a good surgeon means accepting loss. And I think it’s the same thing for you, too. Everything can’t be a win. There is a line drawn that isn’t worth crossing. Not for winning. Not if it means being unethical. Not if it means it will let more people down. Not if it costs you your health, or possibly your life.”

He gently brushed the hair off my shoulder. I sighed, believing I had struck a nerve with him.

“I don’t think we’re wired the same way.” His words smacked me in the face.

“You didn’t agree with any of that?”

“You were right about one thing. Being a surgeon isn’t the same as being a quarterback. You don’t know the weight on my shoulders.” He stood and took our plates to the sink. “You don’t know what I’ll do to win.”

I looked at the empty counter, feeling the disappointment sink in. Our first fight had transformed into an emotional story, and now I couldn’t believe I’d never felt more disconnected from him than I did at this minute.

Maybe I didn’t have the warrior’s spirit to win like he did, but I wasn’t going to give up. Not yet.