Summer’s POV
Xavier found me in the parking garage after my shift, leaning against his car like he'd been waiting there for hours.
Maybe he had been. The thought should have annoyed me more than it did.
"Dinner," he said without preamble. "Somewhere quiet. A chance to actually talk without corridors and interruptions and you running away before I can finish a sentence."
"Oh, sorry for that. How rude of me." I tilted my head, voice dripping with false contrition. "Have you finished your sentence now?"
He blinked, caught off guard. "...Yes."
"Great. The answer is no." I kept walking toward the garage exit, toward the bus stop, toward anywhere that wasn't here.
His footsteps followed. "Summer, please. One hour. That's all I'm asking."
"You asked for patience too. For trust. Look where that got me."
"I know." He moved around me, blocking my path without touching me. "I know I have no right to ask for anything. But I'm asking anyway, because I can't…"
He stopped, ran a hand over his face. The composure I'd always associated with him was cracking at the edges. "I can't keep watching you walk away without at least trying to explain."
"You've explained. Multiple times. The wife, the divorce, the complications." I crossed my arms. "What else is there to say?"
"The truth. All of it, without me trying to manage how you receive it."
His eyes held mine, raw in a way I'd rarely seen.
"I've been a coward, Summer. Telling you pieces instead of the whole picture, thinking I was protecting you when really I was protecting myself. You deserve better than that. You deserve the full story, even if it doesn't change anything."
I should have kept walking, should have maintained the distance I'd been carefully constructing for weeks.
But my defenses were worn thin from days of avoiding Jay, from the memory of his face when I'd left him standing among the equipment shelves, from the exhaustion of fighting battles on multiple fronts.
Part of me was tired of running.
Part of me still ached for the stability Xavier had once represented. And after everything with Jay—the engagement, the impossible revelation, maybe I needed to remember why I'd chosen Xavier in the first place. Maybe what we had was more real than I'd allowed myself to believe.
"One dinner," I heard myself say. "That's all."
His relief was visible, unguarded. "Thank you. I promise you won’t regret it."
The restaurant was the kind of place I'd only seen in movies before Xavier—soft lighting that made everyone look beautiful, white tablecloths that probably cost more to launder than my weekly grocery budget, the quiet murmur of conversations meant to be serious.
He'd chosen well. This wasn't a place for casual small talk or accidental interruptions. This was a place for reckoning.
We ordered wine and appetizers, the familiar ritual of shared meals settling around us like a blanket. Xavier asked about my work at the training facility, about my residency goals, about how my mother was handling having both her children in demanding careers.
He listened with the focused attention that had made me feel seen in those early weeks as an intern—like I was the most important person in the room, like my words carried weight.
I'd forgotten how good that felt. Or maybe I'd forced myself to forget, buried it beneath the anger and betrayal so I wouldn't have to miss it.
"I owe you an apology," he said quietly, setting down his wine glass. "A real one. Not explanations or justifications or reasons why I did what I did. Just... I'm sorry. I handled everything wrong, Summer. From the beginning."
The words landed differently than I expected. No deflection, no careful reframing. Just contrition, raw and genuine.
"I should have told you about Camille from the start. Should have been honest about the complications instead of trying to manage everything myself. I told myself I was protecting you, but that was a lie I was telling myself so I didn't have to face the harder truth."
He met my eyes, his expression stripped of its usual composure. "I was afraid of losing you. Afraid that if you knew the full picture, you'd run. So I kept pieces hidden, and in doing so, I guaranteed exactly the outcome I was trying to avoid."
The anger I'd been carrying loosened its grip slightly. Not forgiveness, not yet, but something shifted in my chest. An acknowledgment that he was trying, that the remorse in his voice wasn't performance.
"What we had was real for me," he continued. "Is still real. I know I don't have the right to ask for another chance. I know the trust is broken. But I needed you to know that you weren't a convenience or a distraction. You were…"
He paused, searching for words. "You were the first time in years I felt like myself instead of the role I was playing."
The wine arrived, deep red in crystal glasses. I took a sip, let the warmth spread through my chest, and tried to sort through the tangle of emotions his words had loosened.
"I don't know how to trust you again," I said honestly. "I don't know if I can."
"I know." He didn't flinch from the truth. "I'm not asking you to decide anything tonight. I just wanted the chance to sit across from you without the walls."
The conversation drifted into easier territory after that. Shared memories from her early weeks at St. Caroline's—the time I'd nearly fainted during my first surgery observation, the patient who'd proposed to me while still under anesthesia, the inside jokes that had accumulated during months of working in proximity.
I found myself laughing at stories I'd forgotten, leaning into the familiar rhythm we'd built before everything shattered. Xavier's hand found mine across the table, and I didn't pull away. His fingers were warm, steady, achingly familiar.
This could work, I told myself. This could still be something.
But even as I smiled at his observations, even as the wine softened the edges of my resistance, my mind kept wandering somewhere else entirely.
To Jay's grin in the equipment room before everything fell apart. The way he'd looked at me when I'd grabbed his arm, pulled him away from the door—genuine fear in his eyes, not for himself but for what losing me would mean.
The desperate, reckless devotion in his voice when he'd threatened to hurt himself just to keep seeing me.
You make me feel more awake than I've felt in years.
Xavier was safe, familiar. Xavier was the kind of steady, reliable presence I'd spent my whole life craving—the antidote to a father who'd abandoned ship, the stability I'd never been able to find.
But Jay made me feel something I couldn't quite name. Something electric and terrifying and alive in ways that had nothing to do with safety. Something that demanded I be present, be real, be the version of myself I'd buried under years of making myself smaller.
With Xavier, I felt protected.
With Jay, I felt seen.
The distinction shouldn't have mattered. Jay was engaged to Mariana, trapped in his own complicated web. Whatever had been building between us was impossible now, a door that had closed before I'd even decided whether to walk through it.
But the impossible didn't stop me from thinking about him. From wondering what he was doing tonight, whether he was sitting through some formal dinner with his fiancée and her family, whether he was thinking about me the way I kept thinking about him despite every rational argument against it.
"You're somewhere else," Xavier observed gently, pulling me back to the present. "Where'd you go?"
I blinked, forced a smile. "Just tired. Long week."
He didn't push, just nodded with understanding that felt both comforting and inadequate. "Let me drive you home. You shouldn't be taking the bus this late."
The car ride was quiet, the city blurring past in streaks of light and shadow. Xavier's hand rested near mine on the center console, not quite touching, giving me space while making his presence known. The familiar gesture of a man who'd learned to read me, who knew when to advance and when to retreat.
He walked me to my building's entrance, stopping at the door with the particular hesitation of someone uncertain of their welcome.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "For tonight. For listening."
Before I could respond, he leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead. Not my lips—nothing that demanded more than I was ready to give. Just tenderness, patience, a promise without pressure.
"I'll give you whatever space you need," he murmured against my hair. "However long it takes. I'm not going anywhere, Summer."
Then he stepped back, waited until I'd unlocked the door, and walked away.
I stood in my empty apartment with his cologne still lingering on my clothes and his kiss still warm on my skin, and I had no idea what I wanted anymore.
Xavier, with his steady hands and his genuine contrition and his willingness to wait?
Or Jay, with his reckless devotion and his impossible engagement and the way he made me feel like I was finally, terrifyingly alive?
Both paths led somewhere complicated. Both men came with baggage I wasn't sure I could carry.
But standing alone in the dark, I couldn't shake the feeling that only one of them had ever really seen me—and I'd just walked away from him in an equipment room, leaving him surrounded by shelves of things he'd never actually needed.
I went to bed alone, more confused than ever.
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