Page 49 of Obeying

"By telling the truth. That a visitor was physically aggressive toward a resident in my department, and I responded as any attending would. Everything after that was professional support during a crisis."

"And the driving me home part?"

"A colleague ensuring another colleague's safety after a traumatic event. It's not romantic. It's basic human decency."

I counter his points, and he counters mine. I catch a gap in his argument about the patient endangerment allegation, and he raises an eyebrow and concedes the point. Barely. I find a flaw in my own timeline, and he helps me restructure it. We go back and forth for hours, and it's exhilarating in a way I wasn't expecting. Two minds so used to competing against each other finally aimed at the same target.

Around five, he pushes back from the table, takes off his glasses, and rubs his eyes. "That's enough for today, or we're both going to combust."

I laugh because he's right. My brain is fried. I lean back in my chair and look at him across the spread of papers and coffee cups. Something about the moment is so familiar it aches: the two of us at a table surrounded by work, refusing to quit before the other one did.

"This feels familiar," I say.

"It does. Except we're on the same side this time. Who would've thought?"

"Weird, isn't it?"

"Deeply uncomfortable." He crosses his arms. "I keep wanting to argue with you."

I laugh. "You did argue with me. For three hours."

"That was strategic pressure testing. Not quite the same."

"That was arguing, Logan."

He almost smiles. I almost smile back. And for a second, we're just sitting there, wrung out and looking at each other across a table full of evidence. It feels good. It feels like us.

He cooks dinner—which surprises me and doesn't—because Logan Maxwell doesn't do anything halfway. He moves around the kitchen like he's done this a thousand times, opening cabinets without looking, finding spices by feel.

"You can cook," I say from the counter where I'm sitting with my wine.

"Don't sound so shocked."

"I am shocked. I figured growing up as a Maxwell meant you had someone cooking for you your whole life."

"We did. My mother hired a private chef when I was seven. My parents didn't really have time to cook."

"So how did you learn?"

"My grandfather." He pulls a pan out and sets it on the stove. "He taught me when I was fifteen. He said a man who can't cook for himself is a man who can't take care of himself. Didn't matter that we had a chef at home. Up here, you cooked or you didn't eat."

"I like your grandfather."

"You would have. He would have liked you too. He had a thing for stubborn people."

"I'm not stubborn."

He gives me a look over his shoulder. Just a look. One eyebrow slightly raised, glasses slipping down his nose, and I have to look away because the combination of him cooking and giving me that look is doing something to my brain.

He rolls his sleeves up to his elbows. I watch his forearms as he works, and I take a very long sip of wine. This cabin is full of beautiful views, isn't it?

We eat on the balcony. The sun is going down over the mountains, turning everything gold and amber. The air is cool enough that I pull my jacket tighter and tuck my feet under me on the chair. The food is good. Really good. I tell him this, and he says, "I know." I roll my eyes, and he almost smiles again.

The conversation starts easy. Work stories, cases, he tells me about the time an intern fainted during a surgery, and he caught the retractor before it hit the patient. I tell him about Walter threatening to sue Miguel with his nephew's mediocre lawyer. He laughs, like I did when Walter said it.

Then it gets personal. He tells me about his grandfather—the man who built this house. A retired general practitioner who lived up here for thirty years, reading, gardening, and not caring one bit about the Maxwell legacy.

"He was the only person in my family who ever told me it was okay to want something that wasn't on the plan," Logan tells me, looking out at the mountains. "Everyone else had my life mapped out before I was born. But he was the one who asked, ‘What do you actually want?’"