Page 11 of What About Us

I admit, I was attracted to her at the bar. Here in my living room with her green scrubs? She’s hot.

She’s also off limits because I can’t fuck her and then go on with my life, and I don’t do anything permanent.

Too bad.

“Can we sit somewhere and chat before we start the workout?” she asks, pulling me out of my inappropriate thoughts, and I gesture toward the kitchen.

“Come this way. Do you want something to drink?”

“I have water.” She holds up her refillable water bottle. “But thanks. Are you getting enough water?”

I lift an eyebrow. “Is my water intake part of physical therapy?”

“Hell yeah, it is. I need you hydrated, Xander. I need you well fed and healthy because I’m going to be putting you through your paces.”

“You look smug about that.”

Ivy grins and my heart rolls over.

What the fuck, heart?

“Oh, I’m smug. I’m excited for this job. I want to help you.”

“Why?”

She blinks at that and boosts herself up into the stool. She’s short, but she’s strong. I can see biceps flex as she shifts on the seat. She’d have to be strong to move people around the way she does.

“Why do I want to help you?”

“Yeah.”

I lean back against the countertop and cross my arms over my chest, and her eyes immediately drift to my shoulders.

“Because working with elite athletes is exactly what I went to school for. This part of PT is what gets me excited. At one time, I thought I’d work with a professional team.”

She frowns and clears her throat, as if she didn’t mean to tell me that much.

“Why aren’t you, then?”

She shakes her head, schools her face, and ignores the question.

“I’m excited to work with you because this is what I’m trained to do. I’ve looked over your medical records from the incident, but I want to hear from your own mouth how you’re feeling. Does the knee feel unstable?”

“Not as much as it did,” I admit. “I don’t wear the brace when I sleep anymore. Range of motion is coming along.”

“We’ll test that today,” she says, nodding. This professional side of Ivy is . . . sexy. If she pulls out glasses to read something later, I’ll be a goner. “I’ll evaluate you and decide what exercises are best for you at this stage of healing. The fact that you are an elite athlete is on your side. You tend to recover more quickly from these things, but it’s still a lengthy process.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

She offers me a small smile. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I watched that game. Well, I watch every game. My stomach sank when I watched it happen.”

“Wait. You watch every game?”

For some reason, that fills me with satisfaction.

“Yeah, I’m a hockey fan.”

She blinks and looks down at her phone.