Missing Jane’s 23^rd birthday party is par for the course by now. My schedule at Philly General doesn’t allow for sick days or personal hours. Add in the overtime charting and other bullshit—and I’m sufficiently MIA more than I like.

It’s not my favorite thing.

Not even close.

Working inside a hospital wields a certain kind of discomfort for me—suffocating, aggravating, choked—and I didn’t forget its existence but it’s amplified this time around. For too many reasons.

Like missing the quietest, purest moments. My recent 22-hour shift means that I didn’t go to sleep with Maximoff. I didn’t see him wake up, and I couldn’t rake my fingers through his hair. Couldn’t see him struggle into his jeans and glare in my direction before he flips me off.

Hell, I wasn’t even there to laugh or smile or help. And there’ll be other moments to make up for those. Sure. But I sense what I’m losing because I’ve had those powerful minutes, those unbearably beautiful seconds before.

I’m trying my best not to keep tally of what could’ve been with Maximoff. Because then it starts feeling like regret. And I can honestly say that I don’t know how to deal with that emotion other than change course.

I can’t change this.

I just have to remind myself that the goal isn’t to work at a hospital. That’s not what I’m chasing.

I’m running after the concierge position. To be a doctor to these famous families so I’m not an outlier but involved. And needed.

Unfortunately, the path to that ideal job is this residency at Philly General.

Three years.

Just three fucking years, and then I’m out and working for the Hales, Meadows, and Cobalts again.

I climb stairs to the rooftop of Superheroes & Scones, motorcycle helmet tucked beneath my arm.

It’s still June 10^th. I may’ve missed Jane’s birthday party at the Cobalt Estate, but I’m on time to make the tail end of her birthday tradition. Typically it’s just her and Maximoff (plus their bodyguards) but Jane extended an invite to me.

I swing open the metal door to the roof, and before I come face-to-face with the eccentric putt-putt course—made with milk bottles, garden gnomes, antique gas station signs—I hear a phrase that I really, really do not want to fucking hear.

“Is it Rowin?” Jane asks.

Rowin.

As in my ex-boyfriend. As in an official concierge doctor to the famous families.

If they called him, then someone must be injured.

Maximoff.

A pit is in my stomach, and with more urgency, I walk onto the makeshift putt-putt course, door thudding behind me.

Strung outdoor lights twinkle in the night, and Jane and Maximoff have their phones out like pistols. I assess each of them as I near.

Maximoff drapes his metal putter over his left shoulder like a baseball bat. He grips his cell in his right hand, and Jane leans her weight on a pink putter, blue eyes on me.

Both look okay.

“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you,” Maximoff says, hurt somehow hardening his face. “Christ, I’ve called you like seventeen times.”

Shit. I absolutely hate being inaccessible to the people I care about, and he’s my number one. “I had 1% battery before I left the hospital,” I say. “My phone must’ve died.” I hook my motorcycle helmet on the arm of a six-foot red-and-black Deadpool statue. The third putt-putt hole is an overturned bucket between the statue’s legs. “Why’d you call Rowin?”

His eyes dance over my features like he hasn’t seen me in years. I look at him just the same, sweeping his jawline, his chest that falls and rises in time with my chest, and his stiff neck, the fresh scar peeking out of his T-shirt collar.

Before I reach Maximoff, he starts redialing a number. “Since you weren’t picking up, he was the only choice. I’m trying to get ahold of him. To tell him not to come.”

“Out of loyalty, we would have waited longer,” Jane says to me. “But Thatcher started looking pale.”

And that’s when I notice six-foot-seven brooding-as-hell Thatcher Moretti. He’s uncharacteristically sitting down on a lawn chair, and a plaid flannel shirt is wrapped around his hand.

Blood soaks the fabric.

His cheeks are a little pallid, and as soon as our gazes meet, he glowers. “I told them I could just go to the hospital.” He braces his forearms on his knees. “I don’t need to get involved in your petty drama.”

Petty drama.

Wow.

See, the concierge team extends to security. It saves time and resources from a famous one having to call in a temp bodyguard for the day. But Thatcher Moretti asking to go to a hospital is a motherfucking surprise. Because that means he’s choosing to break security rules just to avoid me and my “petty drama.”

My brows rise. “Interesting.” I dig in my pocket and cup a silver chain in my fist. “Considering you didn’t care about me and my petty drama when you socked me in the face.” I turn to Jane. “Happy Birthday.” I drop a necklace in her palm, a cursive pendant spells: merde.

She’s distracted a little since her bodyguard is bleeding, but her face brightens as she says, “A shit necklace.”

“Love it?” I ask.

“Oui.” She presses the necklace to her chest, and then she looks over at her bodyguard. Concerned and troubled.

This is all more complicated than I like.

“I thought I was defending a client,” Thatcher suddenly tells me.

I turn and roll a yellow golf ball beneath my boot. “A client, as in Maximoff. So you thought you were protecting my boyfriend from me?”

Does he realize how that sounds?

Thatcher lets out a heavier breath. He’s trying not to glare at me, even when I’m definitely glaring at him. “I was wrong,” he confesses. “I crossed a fucking line just to set you off towards the end. It was out of anger, and I’ve already apologized to Maximoff tonight.”

I glance at Maximoff, and he nods once to me, still dialing Rowin’s number. My ex is going to have about fifty missed calls from my boyfriend.

Thatcher tightens the knot on the flannel shirt. “You want to lay into me. Go ahead, but don’t fucking come at me for wanting to go to the hospital so your ex doesn’t have to share a rooftop with your current boyfriend.”

I kick the golf ball at a gnome. “You really think you’re doing me a favor?”

It takes him a hot second, but he admits, “No.” He curls a piece of hair behind his ears. “I think my hand is sliced open from a rusted sheet of metal. And I’d prefer not to be stitched up by the guy who hates me. Nor the guy who hates you.”

Okay.

Okay. I’m here and more than capable of helping this tool, and he needs to suck up his fucking pride like I’m about to do. “I have a med kit on my bike,” I tell Thatcher. “Do you really want to wait five hours in an emergency room when I could do it right now?”

“Rowin is still on his way,” Jane reminds me.

“I’m better at suturing,” I say. It’s just a fact.

Thatcher rolls his eyes and just shakes his head. But the words out of his mouth are, “Go get it.”

Thank you.

It takes me three minutes to jog back down the staircase, grab the med kit and then return to the roof. And when I arrive, Thatcher has changed seats to a picnic table bench.

Jane is on the phone, chatting to someone. Hushed and serious. She paces up and down the makeshift putt-putt course.

“What the hell is going on?” I ask Maximoff, who calls Rowin again—that’s it, I steal his phone, and he glares.

“Farrow.”

“It’s fine. He’s coming here. Don’t worry about him, wolf scout.” Once I finish my residency, I’ll be working with Rowin Hart on the newly named med team, and I haven’t been imagining what that’ll be like. It’ll happen when it happens. In three years time. So there’s no point in obsessing.

But Maximoff—I wonder if he’s been overthinking. He hasn’t mentioned anything about my ex and medicine and me.

I look him up and down, more concerned. “Are you okay with him—”

“Yeah,” he cuts me off, definitely knowing where this is headed. “It doesn’t bother me.” He drops his putter off his shoulder.

I’m not sure I believe him. “If it does—”

“It doesn’t,” he says, voice firm.

I let it go. It’s not a talk that has to happen tonight. I return his phone to him, and he slips his cell in his back pocket.

Maximoff glances briefly at Jane and then tells me, “Your father called her back. She messaged Dr. Keene earlier asking for tips on how to treat a cut from a sheet of metal.”

“Sheet of metal?” I repeat, and he points to the rusted metal shaped like a mushroom.

“That was on top of a Grinch statue,” he explains. “It fell and almost hit Jane. Thatcher caught it.”

Thatcher is a good bodyguard, and I wouldn’t deny that just because I dislike the guy.

“Let’s get this over with,” I say and we head over to Moretti. Dropping the trauma bag on the picnic table, I rummage for gloves and other supplies.

Thatcher watches tentatively.

And as Maximoff leaves to go speak to Jane, I’m left alone with him. We don’t talk. I rest my knee on the bench next to Thatcher, hovering slightly over him.

I snap my gloves on and take his hand. He’s already removed the plaid flannel shirt. The air pulls taut every time our narrowed eyes meet, and believe me, I’ve thought about punching Thatcher plenty of times. But digging a needle in further while I’m treating him, just to hurt him—I would never.

That’s not who I am, and since he’s let me stitch him, he at least believes that.

I inspect the wound. A deep gash slices diagonally across his palm. It missed his thumb and fingers. He’s lucky.

“You have all your fingers,” I tell him, cleaning and disinfecting the wound.

Thatcher doesn’t wince. Or blink. He looks over at Jane and Maximoff, but I can’t read his gaze that well.

With a needle and syringe, I pierce his skin to numb the gash. Gentle and precise. He takes his eyes off his client and watches me work.

“I want stability for these families,” Thatcher tells me. “It’s why I voted to keep you as his bodyguard. Maximoff needed you to stick around. And if you planned to quit, I just wanted you to fucking do it—and I was pissed when you finally did. Because you just proved me right, and I wanted to be wrong.”

I suture his cut. “Well, you are wrong.” I don’t look up at him while I stitch. “I’m going to be honest, I don’t know a lot about you, Moretti. We don’t talk about personal shit, and I’m okay with that. But for you to act like you know me inside-and-out and for you to presume all of my intentions…that’s annoying.”

He opens his mouth, closes it, and in his silence, I lift my gaze more. He shuts down, staring impassively at me. Expression hard like reinforced steel. I recognize that look.

This is something my boyfriend does.

I don’t prod Thatcher to speak, and I finish the last suture, clean up, and bandage his hand.

“Done,” I tell him.

He stands, opening and closing his hand in a fist. I straighten up and snap off my gloves, discarding them…

Something wet drips down my forehead. I touch the droplet and look at my fingers…I see blood. My pulse spikes. I blink. No.

It’s not blood. It’s clear, but I feel like it’s all over me. Drenched in blood, limbs slipping against my limbs while I try to hold a body down. On floorboards. I can’t get a good grip.

I blink.

I look up. I see the night sky. Not ceiling rafters. I’m on the roof. And rain starts pelting my face. I smell rain on metal. My heart speeds. I hear the violent crunch, I feel the impact against my body—I struggle for the next breath.

Fuck. I shut my eyes tightly.

Fuck.

I hear screaming in the distance.

Fuck.

Slowly, I open my eyes, and I block out everyone but him. Maximoff is in front of me. Unyielding forest-greens holding me upright. “Farrow,” he calls out to me. “Farrow.” He grips my neck, and I’m more alert. Looking at him.

He knows.

He knows what’s wrong.

My eyes burn, and I shake my head. These traumatic events have clung on, and I can’t rip them off now. And I’m pissed that this is happening.

“It’s the rain,” I say, something thick in my throat. Each word is heavy and coarse.

I grit my teeth, breathing through my nose.

“Let’s go downstairs,” Maximoff says, his tough gaze cradling mine which grapples for clearer focus, and I hold his hand before we move—

The door opens abruptly. Light rain showering the rooftop as Rowin emerges, med bag slung over his shoulder.

Maximoff is about to speak, but someone else beats him to it.

“You can go,” Thatcher says, nearing the entrance. He holds the door open and motions for Rowin to leave back through.

Rowin glances at his bandaged hand and then to me.

“I said you can go,” Thatcher repeats, more sternly this time.

Rowin gives Thatcher a nod, and then he shoots me an annoyed look, as though I made him drive through traffic for no reason.

Right now, I’m honestly just trying not to have sensory overload from the car crash or the confrontation with the stalker.

He leaves, and as soon as I’m downstairs with Maximoff, in the empty Superheroes & Scones store, we wrap our arms around each other. Chest against chest, my pulse beats with his, and I hold the back of his head.

I breathe in his chlorine and citrus scent. He probably shouldn’t have been swimming with his injury. But smelling summer on Maximoff makes me smile.

It grounds me to the here and now.