“I said I don’t need her living here,” I told my agent flatly, pacing across the length of the training suite like it was supposed to calm me down. It didn’t. Nothing did lately.
“It’s Premier League protocol,” he said, all smooth and spineless. “She’s the best in the field. If we want you back before the next press cycle buries your career, we follow the protocol.”
“She’s not moving in.”
“She already agreed,” he added like that was supposed to make me feel better. “Thirty percent raise. Full research access. The whole nine.”
I stopped cold.
She agreed?
Riley. Here. Under the same damn roof.
Three doors down, they said.
Of course she’d fight it first. She always did. Always had something to say. Some line she wouldn’t cross—until someone found the price high enough. I didn’t blame her. Not really.
But it still hit like a punch to the ribs.
***
The next morning, I stretched on the mat in the therapy room early. Way too early. But I couldn’t sit still in my room knowing she was that close. The walls were thin. I heard Zara outside earlier, Riley’s caffeine-crazed sidekick. Laughing. Whispering something about “Lucas’s abs” like I was a damn poster and not a person.
Typical.
I kept my eyes on the ceiling, arms behind my head, trying not to think about how Riley would walk in. What she’d say. If she’d look at me like she used to—before Madrid, before everything we didn’t say grew louder than everything we did.
The door opened. Her voice hit first.
“You’re early.”
I didn’t move. “You’re welcome. Figured you’d appreciate the dedication.”
She sounded unimpressed. “I’d appreciate a shirt.”
I grinned. Couldn’t help it. “Why? Am I distracting you?”
She shot back fast. “No. I just don’t want to sterilize the mat after your ego rubs off on it.”
That was Riley. Always sharp. Always fast. Always a step ahead even when I thought I knew her best.
She knelt beside me, all clinical and composed, but her hands hesitated just a beat before making contact. Thigh. Knee. Shoulder. Like she was touching a grenade and pretending it was routine.
I let my breathing match hers. It used to calm me once. Now it set something inside me off like a spark to kindling.
She adjusted the ice wrap. “Don’t smile at me like that while I’m icing your quad.”
I leaned into it, couldn’t help it. “I’d smile anywhere you touch me.”
“And I’d dropkick your ego,” she replied sweetly, “but your knee would cry.”
That laugh slipped out before I could stop it. Low. Warm. Real.
And then the gym blurred, and I was seventeen again. Midnight. Empty bleachers. Just me and her and the scoreboard blinking in the dark.
“I dare you,” I’d said, cocky as hell. “Kiss me.”
She rolled her eyes, said it wasn’t a real dare.
“Then do it,” I challenged.
She grabbed my collar. Kissed me like I was the only air left on earth.
I came back to the present hard, throat thick, muscles tense in a way that had nothing to do with injury.
She stepped back. “Ten more reps.”
I sat up, towel over my neck, heart still stuck in a memory. “Do you ever think about… us?”
She didn’t miss a beat. “No.”
Liar.
“You used to trace the scar on my shoulder with your fingers. Remember that?”
She didn’t look up. “We’re not doing memory lane. We’re doing muscle rehabilitation.”
Right. Of course. That’s what this was.
I stood slowly, testing the weight on my knee. “Got it, Dr. Morgan. Strictly business.”
She nodded. “Exactly.”
Then her phone buzzed. She checked it—and for the first time, her expression cracked.
Her lips parted, then pressed tight. Her shoulders squared again like they always did before a storm. I watched her read the screen in silence, wondering what it said.
Wondering what the hell was about to blow up between us next.