Page 19 of Offside for Christmas
And despite everything, she was smiling as she walked down the stairs.
By the time Ellie reached her car, her hands were shaking.
She sat in the driver's seat, key in the ignition but not turning it, and stared at the dashboard like it might have answers.
What the hell had that been?
Ellie didn't do confrontation. She was the peacemaker, the accommodating one, the therapist who could get the most difficult patients to comply through patience and gentle encouragement. She smoothed over conflicts, made people comfortable, kept everything running smoothly.
She didn't barge into people's apartments and yell at them.
But something about Cole Hansen made her want to fight. Made her want to push back, to call him on his bullshit, to crack through that armor he wore like it was made of titanium.
He's rude,she told herself firmly, starting the car.He's closed off. He's exactly the kind of person I should stay away from.
And when he stood there looking at me like I was the first person to be real with him in years...
"Absolutely not," Ellie said aloud to her empty car. "No. We are not doing this."
She pulled out of the loading zone and drove three blocks before she realized she was heading toward Sophie's café instead of back to the facility.
She needed coffee. And possibly an intervention.
Sophie's café—The Daily Grind, a name Sophie claimed was ironic but Ellie suspected was just practical—was busy with the morning rush. Ellie slipped in through the back door, waved at Sophie's assistant manager, and found Sophie herself in the kitchen, piping whipped cream onto a peppermint mocha with the focused intensity of a surgeon.
"I need caffeine and possibly therapy," Ellie announced.
Sophie glanced up, took one look at Ellie's face, and set down the piping bag. "Bad morning?"
"I yelled at a patient."
"You never yell at patients."
"I yelled at the hot hockey player."
Sophie's eyes went wide, then delighted. "Oh, this I need to hear. Give me two minutes."
Three minutes later—Sophie's sense of time was flexible—they were sitting at the corner table in the café, the one Sophie kept reserved for "emergencies and gossip," with two ridiculously large peppermint mochas and a blueberry muffin that Ellie was stress-eating with more violence than it probably deserved.
"So," Sophie said, cradling her mug and looking way too entertained. "You yelled at Cole Hansen."
"I didn't yell. I... firmly communicated expectations."
"Where?"
"At the facility."
Sophie's grin widened. "Try again."
Ellie took an aggressive bite of muffin. "His apartment."
"You went to his apartment?"
"He missed PT!"
"And you couldn't just call him?"
Ellie paused mid-chew. That was a good question. Why hadn't she just called him?
