“Thanks,” I muttered, the word scraping my throat on the way out.
She gave a quick little nod, like that settled that, and didn’t push. No questions about how I’d slept. No comment about the leg. No bright, chirpy monologue to fill the silence.
Instead, she took her own mug and flitted right past me, out of the kitchen, like it was the most natural thing in the world to leave a grumpy man alone with his thoughts and fresh coffee.
I was left standing there in my own house, blinking at the spot she’d just vacated, feeling weirdly exposed in a room where nothing had actually happened.
Great.
Now I was stewing over coffee and a “good morning” like a goddamn teenager. I wrapped my hand around the mug and took a careful sip. It was strong and hot and exactly how I liked it, which irritated me on principle.
My phone buzzed on the counter.
I ignored it at first, expecting another check-in text from Hayes or some automated email about a bill. It buzzed again, this time with the sharp little chime I’d never bothered to change on my calendar app. The screen illuminated where it lay face up by the knife block.
PT—10:00 a.m.
I’d forgotten I’d even left that alert on. I had already planned to call and cancel later. I could blame the weather or a scheduling conflict or anything except the truth—that I didn’t feel like being poked, prodded, and measured like a science project today.
The buzzing stopped, but the banner stayed on the screen, glaring at me.
Of course that was the moment Clara drifted back in, mug in hand. She crossed to the sink, rinsed out the last of her coffee, and set the cup upside down on the drying mat. The whole time, I willed my phone to go dark again.
It didn’t.
Her gaze flicked down as she turned from the sink. Just a quick glance, the way anyone’s eyes would catch on a lit screen.She didn’t lean in, didn’t pick it up, didn’t act like she’d been caught snooping.
“Do you need to be somewhere this morning?” she asked, reaching for a towel to wipe a ring of water off the counter. Her tone was light. Neutral.
“I’m fine,” I said automatically.
“That’s not what I asked.” She nodded toward the phone without really looking at it. “You’ve got an appointment?”
The muscles in my neck went tight. “I’m not a child, Clara. I don’t need a keeper.”
She stilled, the dish towel in her hand. I braced for a lecture—some combo of guilt and my therapist’s pep talks.
Instead, she just shrugged, folding the towel back over the oven handle. “Okay. I can drive you, or you can call and cancel. It’s your leg. Your choice.”
No pity. No lecture. Just that.
Somehow that pissed me off more. If she’d nagged, I could’ve dug in my heels and blamed her for being overbearing. If she’d begged, I could’ve felt righteous turning her down.
But this—this dropped the decision squarely in my lap. If I skipped, it wasn’t because the roads were bad or I couldn’t get there. It was because I’d chosen not to try.
“I was going to reschedule,” I muttered.
She nodded, unbothered. “Then reschedule.” She turned toward the doorway like the conversation was already over. “I’ll be around if you change your mind.”
I stared at the back of her head, at the messy knot of blond hair and the way it bounced slightly as she walked away.
I hated the idea of her driving me. Hated the image of myself hobbling out of her car under the fluorescent lights of the PT clinic, of her watching me wobble and sweat through exercises that used to be nothing.
But I hated the idea of calling and canceling more.
“Be ready in twenty,” I said, the words out of my mouth before I’d fully decided on them.
She paused halfway up the stairs and glanced back with a small, unreadable smile. “You got it.”