Page 39 of Rookie Recovery

“So?”

“You’re in a gym, and you’re wearing a button-down,” I repeated, louder.

“I have appointments today in my therapy room. You’re not my only patient, you know?”

“But you could change?” And he would. I’d seen his little collection of dry-cleaner bags in his office. But changing from one button-down to another was … odd. Even for Dr Perfect … “Oh, I get it now.”

Jamie paused, like he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to ask. He did eventually. “Get what?”

This whole look of his. His one-thousand-times pressed shirts, his ultra manicured five o’clock shadow, his Hollywood smile, that cologne. Total professionalism. No tattoos on show, not a hair out of place—I bet he even combed his pubes—was all a front. A mask to hide behind. He’d built a fortress. A big super-doctor stronghold.

There was Jamie, and there was Dr James Sullivan, PT, DPT. We had more in common than I realised. Archie and Jamie. Both of us with our secret selves.

Like the brief glimpses of Archie I’d let through, Jamie had occasionally given me insights into the real him. Like at the lake. Those tattoos.

There were animals, from what I could make out. Bears, and snarling predator types, a big bird and skull on his chest, a few people-ish ones, and some scrolling text I couldn’t read because he wouldn’t let me look at him long enough.

I decided not to answer his question. “What do your tattoos mean?”

Jamie opened his mouth to speak, closed it again. “You’re doing the stretch wrong,” he said.

“Well, come here and help me with it, then.” Okay, he wasn’t ready to talk about the tattoos.

Jamie obliged, affecting a little eye-roll like, Oh, this kid. He moved between my thighs (hot) and dropped to his knees (super fucking hot). I stuck my leg up straight into the air at a forty-five degree angle.

His warm hands closed around my ankle and supported my knee, and he pushed the leg towards me. “How’s this?”

I groaned, because I was mature like that.

Jamie shook his head infinitesimally, but I didn’t miss the gesture. “Tell me about England. What’s it like? I’ve only been once, a long time ago.”

“Did you go anywhere besides London?”

“No,” he admitted. “I had a g—a thing in London. We didn’t get much time to explore. What’s Burton Willesberry like?”

“Bru-ton Wills-bree,” I corrected. “Well, there are a lot of farms, and it rains ninety-percent of the time. We get two weeks of summer, usually in May or September, then it’s cold for the rest of the year. My neighbours—my folks’ neighbours are having a decade long feud about which bins go out on which days.

“The main pub is called The White Hart. The landlady is Chris. She’s one of those people who’s just, like, always there when you need her to be. You could knock on her pub doors at five A.M. and ask for a jacket potato with cheesy beans and she’d invite you in and get the fire on and the kettle and … On Thursdays they do a pub quiz. I won it once. Chris rigged it, though. She made the picture round NHL logos. My brothers were fuming.” I laughed, remembering how irritated Harry had been, furiously Googling them under the table, until Chris caught him and confiscated his phone.

“What are your brothers like?” Jamie asked in a quiet voice. He laid my leg flat on the ground and motioned for me to lift the other. “Do they live at home?”

“No. Well, Theo’s just moved back from uni, so I guess he does for now, and Finley’s still studying. But he only went to Bristol. Mostly so he can come home on the weekends and get Mum to do his washing. My older brothers Olly and Harry live in the village, but in their own houses.”

I laughed again. “I’m the smallest, out of all my brothers, right? Olly’s like six-nine, and he lives in this three-hundred-year-old cottage. Like, why? The ceilings are literally about six-feet tall. Even I have to bend down to get through the doors in the old part of his house. On Sundays we all go to Mum and Dad’s for a roast. Sometimes Chris will come round with her girlfriend, or my mum’s friend Lyn, or my aunt and cousins. It’s always a very busy and noisy house.”

I stopped talking and looked at Jamie, properly looked at him. He was smiling. A sort of soft, dreamlike smile.

“It sounds incredible,” he said, in a voice that matched his expression.

I suddenly remembered where we were. What we were doing. Me, flat on my back, my entire leg in Jamie’s grip. I didn’t want to ruin the moment, but …

“Harder, Kitty,” I whispered, gazing into his eyes. He frowned at me. “Stretch me harder.”

To his credit, Jamie was a pro at maintaining his cool, even when I deliberately took things to a weird, and one-hundred percent inappropriate, place.

“Kitty, harder. Come on, I can barely feel that.”

Jamie pressed his chest against my calf and pushed forward. “Do you go home for the holidays much? Do you stay in your old room, or do you get a hotel?”

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