He Came Back Running (Maya and Mason) novel Chapter 68

Chapter 68

Maya’s POV

I arrived twenty minutes early.

Not because I had planned to, I had planned to arrive with five minutes to spare, the professional’s margin, enough time to settle without enough time to sit with the anticipation.

But my feet had moved faster than intended through the hospital entrance, and the waiting area had received me at nine-forty with the specific, unhurried quality of a space designed for exactly this kind of waiting.

I sat down

Put my phone in my bag

My hand found my stomach without me deciding to put it there.

Today was different

I had known it would be different in the abstract way you know things before they arrive. But sitting in the waiting area with the morning light coming through the high windows and the specific, quiet activity of a hospital at this hour, the difference had a quality I hadn’t fully anticipated.

Today I would see them

The person who had been becoming real in increments… the flutter, the weight of the knowledge, the reflexive hand on the stomach that had become its own language…. would today have a shape.

A size

The particular, visual evidence of something that had previously lived only in the internal register.

I looked at the entrance….

Then at my phone. Then at the entrance.

Then I told myself to stop looking at the entrance and looked at the water dispenser in the corner, which was significantly less relevant but required considerably less composure to observe.

He came through the door at nine-fifty-eight.

I saw him before he saw me, the specific quality of his movement, the coat, the purposeful pace… and I was already standing when the details resolved and something stopped the standing mid-motion.

His face.

Scratches. Not severe….. not the kind that required anything urgent, but visible and specific, the kind that came from something sudden and physical rather than gradual.

Along his jaw, the edge of his cheekbone. The kind of marks that told a story he hadn’t told me.

I crossed to him.

“What happened?” The concern arrived in my voice before I had cleared it through the composure filter, which told me something about the state of the filter.

He looked at me

1/4

+25 Bonus

For a moment… one specific, held moment….something in his expression moved. Then he looked away.

“It’s nothing,” he said

“Those aren’t nothing”

“I’m here,” he said. “The appointment is what matters”

He walked past me toward the reception desk, leaving me standing in the space between the entrance and the waiting chairs with the specific, uncomfortable feeling of someone who has asked a question and received an answer that answered nothing.

I turned

Followed

The nurse appeared before we had fully settled

Young. Friendly in the specific, professionally warm way of someone who was good at their job and aware of the

fact.

She had a small medical tray and the kind of expression that appeared when a person had assessed a situation and found it uncomplicated.

“Those should be cleaned,” she said to Alex, with the tone of someone stating a pleasant fact. “It’ll only take a moment.”

Alex looked at the tray. Then at me. Then back at the nurse

“All right,” he said

She guided him to a chair near the wall with the ease of someone who had done this before… efficient, practiced, and carrying in her efficiency the specific, slightly-too-sustained quality of attention that I noticed immediately and told myself immediately that I had not noticed.

I sat across from them

Opened the folder in my bag.

Read the same line four times.

The nurse leaned slightly closer to Alex as she cleaned the scratches, her voice dropping to the conversational register that existed between professional and something else.

Small talk… the appointment building, the weather, something about the view from this floor. Alex responded in monosyllables, his eyes forward, his expression the contained version

She smiled at his profile

Something in my chest performed a function I had not authorised…

I looked at the folder

The line I had read four times was about procurement timelines.

I looked at the nurse

She was adjusting the angle of the tray with more deliberation than the task required, her hand near his face with the careful, unhurried quality of someone who had decided this moment could last a little longer.

2/4

+25 Bonus

I was not jealous

I was observing a situation with the analytical attention I brought to all situations, and the situation was that a nurse was taking longer than necessary to clean scratches that I could have cleaned in under ninety seconds with the first aid kit that was in my bag, because I had been carrying a first aid kit for three weeks because someone had tried to kidnap me and now lived in a house that had been compromised and had developed the habit of being prepared….

I was not jealous…

The feeling in my chest had no name that I was willing to assign to it.

I crossed my arms

Looked away.

Looked back.

The nurse said something soft and close and Alex…. Alex, who had been responding in monosyllables to everything… turned his head slightly toward her and said something that made her laugh.

My jaw tightened.

I uncrossed my arms.

Recrossed them….

Looked at the procurement timeline line for the fifth time.

The nurse leaned closer again, her attention on his face with the focused warmth of someone who had made a decision about this interaction.

That is enough, said something in my chest that I was absolutely not going to listen to…

Alex’s eyes moved across the waiting room.

Found mine.

Held them for a long moment

Then he turned back toward the reception window and said, in the clear, carrying voice of a man who had decided something:

“How much longer until Dr. Fielding is ready?”

Not to me.

To the receptionist across the room

The nurse straightened slightly, her professional register returning with the efficiency of someone who had received a signal and processed it correctly.

“I’ll check for you now,” the receptionist said

The nurse finished efficiently. Stepped back. Offered a pleasant, professional smile.

“All done,” she said

Alex said thank you without looking at her…

34

I looked at my folder.

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