“T, if you don’t turn that off, I swear to god I’m dumping this red wine all over your stupidly white carpet.”

Tia looked over at Laura, draped like a queen over the sectional couch. She held her wine glass out, tipping it to one side, the edge of the liquid dangerously close to the lip of the glass.

“I just want to see if there’s any updates on how he’s doing!” Tia insisted, feeling mildly embarrassed as she flipped off ESPN and turned to face her sister.

It had been about three weeks since Elijah’s surgery and about two since she’d seen him. Tia had heard next to nothing other than he was recovering. There was no information on whether or not he was going to remain on the Stingray’s roster or if he was going to finally retire. He was young. Still only 34, so if he took this year to recover he could still have another three or so years in the game.

But as much as she enjoyed watching Elijah play football, and she’d missed it these last two years that he’d been benched with his knee injury, she didn’t care whether he ever played again. She just wanted to make sure he was okay.

“I still can’t believe you didn’t ask him for his number.” Satisfied that Tia had turned off the boring sports channel, Laura reclined back even further, her newly-pedicured toes propped up on the armrest.

“That would have been deeply inappropriate considering I was his surgeon.”

Not that Tia hadn’t been kicking herself for that same damn thing at least once a day since she’d seen him. The universe had given her a chance to get back in touch with him and she’d walked right out on it.

She hadn’t been pining for him all these years. Not even close, actually. Her love for him had faded to a crush after years of never seeing him except for the occasional college football game she could catch. She’d been consumed by undergrad and then med school and then her residency. She’d barely been able to keep up with her relationship with Laura, let alone waste brain space on a man she hadn’t seen in years. But that wasn’t to say that her stomach didn’t flip every time she saw him on screen. Every time he flashed that smile for the cameras. And that didn’t mean her stomach didn’t plummet every time she saw that same, handsome and friendly face on the cover of yet another tabloid. He sure did know a lot of beautiful women.

“Oh, please, you told me about what he said at the end. That there weren’t words for how grateful he was. He was totally giving you an opening!”

Tia peeled at the label on the bottle of beer she was sipping. “People say things like that to me all the time. Nobody knows how to talk to a female surgeon. Male surgeons they treat like rock stars. And female surgeons, they feel a connection to. Like I was an angel sent from heaven or something. I was just doing my job and he got caught up in the moment.”

“Alright, whatever.” Laura scrubbed her hands through the air, her wine coming dangerously close to spilling. “But the point, sister dear, isn’t how he feels. It’s how you feel. You deserve to finally, finally tell your high school crush how you feel about him.”

“Felt.”

“Pffft.” Laura raised a skeptical eyebrow at her sister and stared pointedly at the TV that had just been playing ESPN.

“Anyways, I did tell him how I felt. I left that note for him in his yearbook, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember. And you scribbled your signature so that he wouldn’t even know who wrote it! A hell of a lot of closure that provided you, T.”

Tia took a swig of beer. “I don’t need closure for a high school crush, Laura.”

“Fine. But you definitely need to get some ass, for the love of god.”

Well-used to her sister’s crass, dramatic attitude—something they often referred to as dramasstic—Tia barely blinked. “And you’re proposing that I get said ass from the most famous quarterback in the NFL? Yeah, I’ll pass on the inevitable STD, thanks.”

She said it casually, but it hurt her to say it. She didn’t love the fact that Elijah’s reputation was one of a serious partier. Where the liquor was expensive and the women were disposable.

And the fact was, it hadn’t taken much for her dwindling crush on him to have been fanned back into full heat. Seeing him those few times in his hospital room, talking to him, hearing his voice, seeing the smile lines around his eyes squint right up. Well, it was a hell of a powerful drug. Even three weeks later, Tia still felt like she was flushing him out of her system. Part of her was relieved that she hadn’t pursued him at all. She would have had to spend even more time trying to get him out of her head.

“Besides, the last thing I need right now is to get all tied up in another man. I’m still trying to detangle myself from the last one.” Tia glanced warily at her cell phone on the coffee table, which she knew had three unopened texts from Owen.

“He’s still bothering you?” Laura sat upright and reached her hand down to Ham, Tia’s chubby little bull dog mutt. Ham made the rounds from Laura over to Tia, settling on her feet.

“Bothering may be a bit of a strong word.” She bent down and ran a hand over Ham’s scruffy fur. “But yeah, he’s still reaching out a lot.”

“What for?”

Tia chuckled at her sister’s incredulous tone. “We were engaged, Laura. The man is entitled to a little closure.”

“Well, is it closure he’s actually after? Or is he trying to open things back up?”

Tia sighed and fell back in her chair, her eyes starting to fall closed a little. For as intense as her job was, her relaxing skills were just as honed. She could fall asleep anywhere, anytime. She never had a problem kicking back. “I’m not sure. It’s hard to move on because we see one another at the hospital so often. And I know he still feels badly about the way he was with Mom and Dad.”

Owen Hughes was another surgeon at the hospital. It was how Tia and he had met a few years ago. They’d been slow to build a relationship, and even slower to move toward getting married, but Tia had been fairly convinced he was the right person for her. But last year, when she and Laura had had to move their parents into a facility for older people with dementia and Alzheimer's, Owen had been so completely hands off, so removed, so resentful of the drain on her time, that Tia had realized that it wasn’t the right match.

She’d been sad to leave him. And very lonely in the following months. But it had been a year at this point, and she rarely thought about him unless he popped up at work or on her phone.

She didn’t feel so sad about the loss of him. But rather what the loss of him said about her. She knew that she wasn’t the most affectionate person. She knew that she was hard to be in a relationship with. She knew that if she’d learned how to let him in better in the first place, then he would have had a place to fit during all the chaos with her parents. And she’d said all those things in their break-up. She’d taken full responsibility, as she well knew that she should. And then she’d moved on and away from him.

She just wished that he would do the same thing, already. His calls and texts always annoyed her at best and unnerved her at worst.

“Well, he should feel bad, Tia. He was an absolute ass during that time. Trust me. I was there.”

Tia nodded, patted Ham again. “You really think I should have asked for his number?”

“Who? Eli? Hell yes. Come on. You’re the one who has instituted this new ‘no relationships’ rule. So where the hell are you gonna get your lady needs met? You should have seen if you could have hooked up with him a few times. Gotten yours and finally worked that crush out of your system.”

Tia leaned back in her chair and let her sister’s words float over her. It wasn’t her style to do casual hook-ups. Especially not with playboy quarterbacks. But she had to admit that Laura was right. It would be nice to find a way to get over this crush.

***

A few days later, Eli winced as he worked his way up the stairs of the hospital stairwell. He paused and pressed a hand to the sharp bite of pain in his chest. Slow, he reminded himself. Slow.

The problem was, he wasn’t exactly a slow-moving type of guy. He had pretty much moved at one pace since the day he was born. As fast as he possibly could. The only thing that ever tempered his speed was pain. The pain after he blew out his knee and the pain after his accident.

He hated every step of the slow trudge up the rest of the stairs to the third floor. He supposed he could have taken the elevator, but there was something so demoralizing about taking the elevator to the third floor of a building. He was one of the top athletes in the world, for fuck sakes.

Still, he could admit that pushing himself too hard was a good way to get himself landed back here. In this god-forsaken hospital. The antiseptic smell curdled his stomach. There was only one thing that could have gotten him back in these sterile hallways so soon. And he was currently wondering how the hell she dealt with that smell every day.

Eli gripped the potted plant he’d brought and took the last two steps at a measured pace. He took a deep breath before pulling open the door to her floor. Where he’d been told her office was. He’d wanted to wait until he was fully healed to come back and see her. He’d wanted to time it so he could be fresh off a workout, his muscles pumped and jacked. He’d wanted her to see him in all his jock glory.

But he hadn’t been able to wait. Partly because, look, she was really pretty and so serious and he’d just plain wanted to see her. He’d gotten a taste and now he wanted a whole bite. But also because there was something inside him, something deep, that needed to thank her. He needed to thank her and he needed her to hear it. She’d saved his life. Literally.

And he’d brought her a potted plant.

That about made them even.

He rolled his eyes at himself as he strode through the hallway with purpose, reading the names of the doctors on each door.

Dr. Natalia Camellia.

Bingo. He ignored the little nervous jolt in his gut as he read her name. He wasn’t a school boy. He was a highly-trained athlete with a romantic résumé about a mile long. There was no reason to be nervous right now. He gave a sharp rap on her door and pushed it open.

Hell. There was every reason to be nervous.

She sat, not at her desk, but at a little stuffed chair underneath the small window at the back of her office. She wore lavender scrubs that made her golden skin glow and bright white tennis shoes. Her shiny hair was pulled up in a perfect twist at the back of her head and her glasses were different today, still with the thick frames but clear instead of black. She frowned down at her phone as she furiously typed out a message with one hand and clutched a half of what looked like a peanut butter sandwich in the other.

Eli wasn’t totally sure exactly what level of interest this woman held for him. But he was damn sure that his heart was skateboarding around his ribs. She packed a hell of a punch.

Realizing that she had earbuds in and hadn’t noticed him come in, Eli stepped to the side and waved one hand in the air.

Tia jolted when she noticed him, the earbuds flinging out of her ears. She rose up immediately. “Eli!”

Flustered, she attempted to shove the sandwich into the pocket of her scrubs, and then stared in confusion at the phone in her other hand.

Eli tried to bite back his smile. Sure, he wasn’t entirely certain of the feeling that he had growing for her, but it was still a good boost to the ego whenever your unexpected presence was enough to have a woman jamming a sandwich into her pocket.

Tia cleared her throat, tossed back her gentle, side swept bangs and set her things—sandwich included—on the windowsill. Crossing the room to him, she held her hand out for a shake.

“Eli,” she said again. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

He nodded, took her hand, and smiled at the buzzing warmth that took up residence between their palms. “That’s kind of the point of a surprise visit.”

“Oh.” Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses as she zoomed in on the plant in his hand, and Eli was jolted by just how silvery her irises looked behind the clear frames. “Right. So how are you feeling?”

She gestured to a chair reserved for visitors and seated herself behind her desk. Eli forewent the chair, not liking the idea of having a desk between them, and instead opted to place the plant on her desk and saunter over to her window, check out the view.

“I’ve been better. But I’ve also been worse.” For some reason, a memory seared through him at that moment. Screeching brakes, a car horn. An old woman crying over top of him as the world faded. He pushed thoughts of the accident out of his head. He looked away from the view of the cafeteria courtyard and his eyes snagged on the half-eaten sandwich. He couldn’t help the smile that broke out over his face. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch.”

Her cheeks tinged slightly. “No, uh, worries about that. It’s not like it was a gourmet dining experience or anything.” She paused, and Eli knew it was a cue for him to fill in the blanks on why the hell he was randomly popping in to her office.

He found that he wasn’t in any particular hurry to fill in any blanks. He glanced around the room, big hands jammed in the front pockets of his worn jeans. “Nice office you’ve got.” He sauntered over to the gigantic bookshelf that covered an entire wall. There wasn’t a single book under two inches thick. “Jesus. Did you read all these books, Doc?”

“Yes,” she answered solemnly, her serious mouth pressing those luscious lips together.

It was a hell of a combination, Eli had to admit to himself. Something that was both luscious and serious. She was sexy. No reason to deny that fact in his own head. Sexy as hell. But in such a somber way. There wasn’t even a hint of teasing or flirtation about her. She simply watched him sidle around her office with those big eyes, as bright as polished silver.

He found that all the tricks he usually used to soften up a woman, teasing, flirty nicknames, showing off his physique, it all seemed so silly under that bright, serious gaze of hers. It suddenly all seemed like exactly what he’d called it. Tricks. And he didn’t think she could be tricked. More to the point, he didn’t want to trick her. He wanted to talk to her. And goddammit, he wanted to say thank you.

Eli tugged a hand through his hair, slightly longer than he usually kept it. He turned away from the books and faced her dead on, forced himself not to shove his hands in his pockets like a student in the principal’s office.

“I came to say thanks.” He inwardly winced at his casual wording and tone. He felt nothing even remotely close to casual right now.

“Oh.” She blinked. “For the surgery?”

He nodded, continued to stand. He suddenly felt too big for this office. His 6’ 5” frame was well below the ten-foot ceiling, but his arms felt too long, his feet too big. It was his grace and dexterity that had taken the football world by storm when he’d been drafted all those years ago, but right now he felt like a 350-pound offensive lineman in a dollhouse. “For what you did for me.”

“What I did was my job, Eli.” When he just continued to stare at her from across the room, Tia finally shifted in her seat. “Please. Sit down. You’re barely three weeks out from an extremely intense accident and surgery.” And when he didn’t so much as move a muscle: “For the sanity of your surgeon, please sit down.”

That was enough to have him stepping across the room and sitting himself down in the chair across from her. He didn’t particularly care for the seating arrangement, but he had to admit that it was nice to get off his feet. His ribs were killing him.

He let out a breath and stretched his legs out before him, crossing his feet at the ankle. “I brought you a plant.”

Her eyes fell to the perky little aloe plant. She sucked in her bottom lip and reached forward to fuss with the placement of the colorfully painted pot on her desk. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to. I—” He cut himself off before he swore but just barely. Tugging at his hair again, he leaned forward on his knees, winced, and leaned backward again. “Honestly, I want to do a hell of a lot more than buy you a plant, Tia. I have this knot in my chest.” He laid a big hand over his heart and would have been pleased at how much the sight loosened something deep inside Tia. “And it’s because I have to thank you. I have to find some way to thank you and have you accept it. You saved my life.”

This time, Tia was the one who found she couldn’t sit still. She rose from the desk with a sort of smooth, measured grace. She had an economy of movement, Eli thought. Not a second of waste. Probably a good quality to have in a surgeon. He watched in fascination as she walked over to the window and picked up her peanut butter sandwich, the bitten half and the fresh half. “It’s very common for a patient to feel an overlarge amount of gratitude for their surgeon. I did something that you could never have done yourself. I get it. It’s like when you threaded the needle on that 60-yard pass to Overshire in the Superbowl four years ago.”

Eli grinned at the image he got of her as a football fan. “You felt an overlarge amount of gratitude for me?”

“Of course,” she nodded solemnly, absently took a bite of her sandwich. “It needed to be done, I wanted it with every fiber of my being, but I could never in a million years have done it for myself.”

Eli considered her words. He supposed he saw her point. Ever since he’d been drafted into the NFL he’d had to deal with the huge feelings of his fans. The love, devotion, occasional ire, and of course, the gratitude. He understood that being on the receiving end, just for doing your job, wasn’t always the easiest position.

“So if this is such a common occurrence for you, how do you tend to let people thank you?”

Tia polished off one half of her sandwich and held out the other half to Eli. Charmed, he took it without protest.

“What do you mean? I let them say thank you and we all get on with our lives.”

“Well, I said thank you. I brought you a damn plant. And it’s still not enough.”

Tia balled up the sandwich bag and tossed it, across the room, and into the trash can with a confidence and surety that Eli admired greatly. “I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Bird. That sounds like your problem. Not mine.”

And now they were back to Mr. Bird. Great. Just great.

“Come to a party with me.”

“Excuse me?” She was halfway through slipping her doctor’s coat on when she went stock-still, staring at him like he’d lost his royal mind. Maybe he had. A football party was no place for this tidy, elegant doctor.

“Well, not with me, exactly, as it’s at my house, and I’ll already be there. But I really want you to come. Tomorrow night.”

She slid her coat on the rest of the way. One of her dark, perfectly sculpted eyebrows rose. “Three weeks out from major surgery and you’re hosting a party?”

“Marcus and Jay are hosting it. It was my idea though. I’m sick of everybody just swinging by at all hours of the day to see if I’m alright. I want to have one block of time where I sit on the couch, and everybody and their mother can come through and confirm I’m alive and then I can just get back to resting and healing.”

Tia weighed her head from one side to the other. “Makes sense, I guess. As long as you don’t overdo it.”

“I won’t.” Eli motioned to himself reclined in the chair. He took a huge bite of the sandwich and spoke with his mouth full. “I’m being very restrained these days.”

Tia nodded again, and he thought he detected a small hint of humor around her eyes. “If you’ll excuse me, my break is up and I’ll need to head down to check in for my shift now.” Maybe not on the humor, then.

“Tia,” Eli reached out one of his long arms. She’d probably thought she was far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to reach her. She went still as a deer in headlights when his warm palm landed on her shoulder. “You’ll come?”

“I—” She cleared her throat. “I don’t know.”

“It’ll be fun. There’ll be good food and good drinks—that I will not be partaking in—and it’ll go a long way towards repaying this debt of gratitude that I feel. You know, if I can give you a good relaxing night in exchange for the one where I made you perform hours worth of surgery on me.” He smiled, but he knew it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Tia frowned. “You’re talking like that accident was your fault. You know it wasn’t.”

Eli frowned too, on the inside. He didn’t want to have this conversation right now. He just wanted to hear her say yes. A thought occurred to him. What if she wasn’t free? What if she was hesitating because it would be a night away from her boyfriend or husband or, god, tinder hook-up. The part of him that knew it was none of his business smacked the jealous part of him in the face. He forced himself to spit out the words, going for broke.

“You can bring whoever you want and split whenever you want.”

“Oh. Well. I’m on call tomorrow, so maybe I’ll be able to come, but I wouldn’t be able to drink.”

“Of course. Great. Perfect.” Eli knew he was making an ass of himself, but he’d never been able to stop himself from smiling when he was happy. And he was grinning now. The thought lanced through him that she’d only agreed to coming once she’d known she could bring someone. It dimmed his smile a little bit.

Tia’s phone buzzed on the windowsill and made both of them look over at it. She frowned, crossing the room. And then frowned even more when she opened whatever text it was.

“Let’s trade numbers,” Eli said, really wanting to lock this thing down with her.

She exited out of whatever text strand was making her look so glum and handed her phone to him. He handed her his own and quickly input his number, trying not to smile and give away the joke at how he’d identified himself in there.

“Alright,” he couldn’t help but grin again as he walked backwards out of her office. “Tomorrow night. Anytime after six. I’m glad you’re coming. And that thing probably needs sun and water. Honestly, I have no idea. I just liked the pot. And I’m really glad you’re coming tomorrow. Ok. Wow.” He shook his head at himself. Smooth, Eli. A real ladykiller. “I’m gonna go now. But. Just. Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

He was out the door and shaking his head at himself in less than a second, but if he’d popped his head back into her office, he would have seen Tia Camellia with one hand up to her cheek, eyes wide and bemused, and a huge smile on her face.