Elias doesn't respond to Lucas's teasing.
He's too busy replaying the treatment room in his head—the moment Mia's expression had shuttered, the specific way she'd looked at him like he was something she'd already decided to be done with.
He'd assumed the worst, like an i***t, and said it out loud, like a bigger i***t. She hadn't known about the assignment. The math is humiliatingly simple now that his head has cooled.
The larger problem is, he's missed another chance to get her number, and without the physio-patient schedule as a bridge, they have no connection at all.
He watches her move up in the queue.
She looks exhausted, faint shadows under her eyes.
She studies the menu with total seriousness and comes away with a Spaghetti Bolognese and a blood orange soda, which Elias finds,
