Abbott wasn’t a man of touch. Not anymore.

In surgery, his hands were instruments—precise, deliberate, detached. Outside of it, they were idle tools kept behind crossed arms or in the pockets of his lab coat. He didn’t reach. He didn’t linger. He didn’t let anyone close enough to.

But lately, something had shifted. Specifically, something that had everything to do with one of his residents.

It started small. His hand brushing against hers to guide a retractor. A steady palm at the small of her back when space in a trauma room was too tight. A light grip on her elbow when the hallways got too crowded, when he needed her to follow without a word.

He’d tell himself it was instinct. Efficiency. Necessity.

But instinct doesn’t make your pulse stutter. It doesn’t make you keep your hand there just a second longer than needed. And it doesn’t burn in your chest when she looks up at you and doesn’t even flinch.

She never said anything. Not when he moved behind her in the OR and his hand found her waist without thinking. Not when his fingers brushed the back of hers while passing suture. Not even when his palm settled over the curve of her shoulder during rounds—grounding her, steadying him.

He knew she hadn’t noticed. And it was honestly relieving.

Until the whispers started.

He caught them during changeover—nurses huddled too close to the whiteboard, med students avoiding eye contact. Quiet remarks when they passed together down the corridor.

“Did you see the way he touched her?” “He never lets anyone that close.” “Must be nice to be his exception.”

He heard them. So did she.

Abbott watched her expression change the first time she realized it. Just a flicker—eyes faltering, breath catching, a hesitation he hadn’t seen in her before.

It stopped him cold.

For the first time in a long time, he questioned his own movements. What had always been calculated now felt exposed. Messy. Vulnerable. He was a man who built walls for a living, yet somehow, she’d slipped past all of them—and worse, he’d let her.

She didn’t bring it up. Neither did he.

“Ready to present your next case?”

He asked as she handed him the next chart—routine, automatic—but something in her movement had changed. Deliberate. Slower than necessary. Her fingers, instead of simply letting go, lingered against his hand. Warm. Unmistakable.

He noticed. God, he noticed.

The contact was barely a second too long. But it was charged, like a held breath before a storm. Her skin against his—it wasn’t accidental. Not this time. And when she didn’t pull away, when her eyes flicked up to his for just a heartbeat, everything between them shifted.