“You’re wasting yourself down here,” he said, guiding you forward with a steady hand at your lower back as he pushed into the room, the motion seamless, like you belonged exactly where he placed you. His attention stayed on the patient, on the films already waiting, but the pressure of his hand lingered a second longer than necessary before he let go.

He didn’t look at you when he kept speaking, voice even, controlled. “You’ve got steady hands. You anticipate instead of react. That’s not ER.” He reached past you, close enough that his chest nearly brushed your shoulder, one arm coming around to adjust the chart in your grip, pulling you into his space without acknowledgment. “That’s surgical.”

The X-ray snapped into place under the light. Clean break. Straightforward.

He shifted, nudging you with his hip so he could step in closer to the table, brief but deliberate, and then you were exactly where he wanted you without a word.

“You’d do better upstairs,” he added, like it was already decided.

His gaze flicked to you then, brief but focused, the usual edge in it dulled in a way that didn’t happen with anyone else. No impatience. No expectation that you’d get in his way. If anything, the opposite.

“You like kids,” he said, quieter, turning back to the patient.

It wasn’t casual. He’d noticed the way you softened, the way your movements changed. It didn’t fit the ER.

For a moment, something in his expression shifted, subtle and contained. Pediatrics. He understood the appeal—but not the part that mattered most to you.

His jaw tightened faintly, thoughtful.

He could give you that. His kids.

The thought settled in cleanly, without hesitation, as if it had always been there waiting to be named.

His hand brushed your arm as he reached for an instrument, slower this time, unnecessary. “Pediatrics isn’t the only place you can be useful,” he went on, voice lower now, meant for you. “You’d have more control upstairs. Better cases. Better outcomes.”

And you wouldn’t disappear somewhere he couldn’t follow.

The procedure moved quickly under his direction, precise and efficient, but his awareness of you never dropped. He guided you more than once with a light touch at your waist, repositioning you instead of asking, leaning over you to check alignment, his voice dipping when he gave instructions like it belonged closer, like it was meant to stay between you.

When it was done, he stripped off his gloves, gaze finding you again, lingering just long enough to register.

“You’ll think about it,” he said, not asking.

He stepped past you, his hand lifting to catch lightly on the end of your braid. It looked absentminded, but the motion was too clean. The tie slipped free into his fingers, and he didn’t break stride as he looped it around his wrist.

You didn’t notice.

He didn’t look back.

—

A week later, he was back, already scanning the ER before he’d fully stepped inside. He found you easily. He always did.

There was a brief pause when your attention dropped to his wrist.

Recognition.

He continued toward you, unhurried, stopping just close enough to pull your focus back up to him. He didn’t speak. Instead he reached past you for a chart, his wrist turning just enough to make the hair tie impossible to miss.

Not an accident.