“I need a drink.”

“Can I get out of here?”

“I don’t know if we should.”

“Don’t want to do anything we’d regret.”

“What if I don’t regret it?”

---

That last line hangs in the air like smoke after a fire. No one reaches out to clear it. No one pretends it wasn’t said. Because both of them heard it. Both of them felt what it meant. And neither of them knows what to do with the truth that just slipped out into the open.

On the surface, this moment between Simone and Lucas looks quiet. Almost peaceful. The kind of conversation two exhausted hospital workers might have at the end of a shift — soft voices, tired eyes, the slow surrender of a day that has taken everything out of them. But underneath? There’s a current running so deep and so dangerous that one wrong move could pull them both under.

The day is over. The hospital has finally gone quiet. Lucas walks through the near-empty corridor and finds Simone sitting alone on a bench near the exit. Her eyes are closed. Her head is tilted back. She looks like she might have finally surrendered to sleep right there in the fluorescent glow.

He stops. Studies her for a moment. Then asks, softly, if she’s asleep.

She opens one eye. A half-smile. No, she tells him. Just resting her eyes. But he can see it — the exhaustion isn’t physical. It’s deeper than that. It’s the kind of tired that settles into your bones when you’ve been holding everything together for too long.

Lucas breaks the silence with some good news. He heard Nick is awake. Going to be okay. Simone nods and confirms it — Nick is expected to pull through. A small victory in a day full of near-disasters. A life saved. A family spared. The kind of outcome that should make everyone feel relieved.

But the conversation doesn’t stop there.

It shifts.

Lucas thanks her.

And Simone is caught completely off guard. She blinks. Tilts her head. For what? In her mind, she didn’t do much. She was just there. Just doing her job. Just being the person she’s always been. Nothing heroic. Nothing worth thanking.

But Lucas shakes his head. He’s not talking about today. Not just about the hospital, the codes, the chaos. He’s talking about everything. He’s talking about the people who matter to him — the people Simone has showed up for without being asked. Especially Katie. Especially when he wasn’t fair to her before.

It’s a rare moment. One of the few times Lucas has fully acknowledged how badly things between them have broken down. How sharp the words have been. How wide the distance has grown.

And Simone, true to form, tries to brush it aside. It’s okay, she says quickly. Too quickly. The way people do when they don’t want to sit in the weight of a conversation that might break something open.

But the energy shifts again. The air thickens.

Lucas suggests getting a drink.

And suddenly neither of them is pretending anymore.

Simone hesitates. Her mouth opens. Closes. Her eyes search his face for something — maybe a sign that he’s joking, maybe a sign that he remembers what she remembers. Because both of them know exactly what happened the last time they drank together.

The night before. The alcohol. The line they crossed. The mistake they made while Simone was still in a relationship with Wes.

And now Lucas is standing in front of her, asking her to do it again.

“Don’t want to do anything we’d regret.”

“What if I don’t regret it?”

That’s the question that changes everything. Because regret was supposed to be the excuse. The safety net. The reason they could tell themselves that what happened was a one-time lapse in judgment. If they regretted it, they could bury it. Move on. Pretend it never meant anything.

But what if one of them doesn’t regret it?

What if neither of them regrets it?

Then they’re not dealing with a mistake. They’re dealing with a choice. And choices have consequences that a busy hospital shift, a quiet bench, and a few hours of distance cannot erase.

Simone sits there, heart pounding beneath a calm exterior, caught between the life she’s supposed to want and the person she’s not supposed to want it with. Lucas waits for her answer, knowing that whatever she says next will change everything — not just between them, but between her and Wes, between him and his own guilt, between this fragile moment and whatever comes after.

The bench. The hallway. The silence.

One drink.

Two people.

And a question neither of them is ready to