Page 21 of Hush

“I want him to meet up with our pediatric P.T.,” he said. “I’ve written a referral. You’ll get a call in a couple of days. Most likely, he won’t need it. Kids recover almost completely on their own from injuries like this. They just use it, which strengthens it. But I want to make sure.”

“Okay,” Elise said.

“It’ll probably take another four weeks for it to be completely healed.”

“Oh,” Elise said, her eyes anguished. “I thought…never mind.”

Ben glanced at Jaden, who was completely engaged in the toy. “Will you be at the gym tonight?” he asked. “Maybe we could grab a Vitamin water after.”

Elise’s face brightened. “Oh…yes, I am.” she said. “I’d like that.”

A nervous tingle wormed through his gut. This hadn’t been the plan, but seeing her at once so troubled and so beautiful had frozen his thinking brain.

Thoughts of Elise plagued him for the rest of her day. He was treading into the deep end by asking Elise to spend time with him outside of the clinic. People could see them. But wasn’t it natural for them to casually develop a friendship?You just can’t fuck her, a voice inside his head warned. Ben groaned because fucking her was all he could think about. He’d imagined undressing her a thousand ways since last Friday and had been hard as a rock since, so much so he had to carry his clipboard everywhere he went.

After work, he headed straight for the gym. He changed and jogged up to the court, eager to shrug off the day’s caseload. Passing the classroom, he searched for Elise among the students doing some kind of angular pose on rectangular mats packed end to end on the shiny wood floor, the instructor circulating to correct poses. But Elise wasn’t there. He glanced at the schedule. Adult ballet would start in thirty minutes. A part of him wanted to be here when she arrived, just to see her.Don’t get carried away, he told himself as he hurried to the stairs.

He and Kelly warmed up with a few laps around the track that hung above the court.

“So it’s none of my business,” Kelly said. “But Shelly says you were sucking face with someone in the hallway at the party.”

Ben felt his gut tighten. He’d deliberately not mentioned his time with Elise to Kelly.

Ben forced out a chuckle. “Sucking face? What are we, in seventh grade?” He shook his head. “No, we were just talking.”

Kelly glanced at him, a wary look in his eye. “Isn’t her son your patient?”

“Yep,” Ben said.

“Not that it’s any of my business, but are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Nope,” Ben replied.

They ran in silence for a while. “I get it, I mean, hot single moms are like the horniest species on Earth.” He caught his breath. “But this could blow up.”

“I know,” Ben said, grimacing.

“Just transfer her son’s care to someone else if you’re so set on getting into her pants,” Kelly said.

Ben felt his cock twitch. “You’re right,” he said. “But the kid’s kind of fragile. He’s having a rough time already. I’m afraid he’ll feel like I abandoned him.”

“Not if you’re tapping his mom, he won’t.”

Ben groaned.

“In fact, he might get kind of mixed up about you suddenly appearing late at night.”

Ben realized he hadn’t seen this angle. “You’re right,” he said with a sigh.

Kelly shook his head. “So that means either you’re all in, or you wait for when he’s not around.”

Ben grimaced. He didn’t want to sneak around with Elise, but he also didn’t want to hurt Jaden.

“How about this?” Kelly said. “You had your post-op, right?” he asked.

Ben nodded.

“So you don’t have to follow up with him for another few weeks. At that meeting, you and Dr. Fitzgibbons both go to the appointment and explain it to him. Tell the kid she’s going to monitor his progress because she’s got more experience with that part of his recovery.” Kelly paused to recover his breath. “Or, I don’t know, some shit like that.”

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