Page 126 of Heal Me, Love Me

“I know you’ve been putting in the time with physical therapy.”

“I feel like there’s a but in there,” I huffed.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “There is.”

I sighed.

“But getting healthy has to be your full-time job right now.”

“Yeah, I’m aware.”

“Except you’ve also got a long-distance relationship on top of that,” he continued. “Rowan’s heading into camp, you’re working your way back from an injury, and neither of you can afford to waste energy wondering where the other one stands.”

Fight camp wasn’t something you squeezed into the rest of your life. It became your entire existence. Hell, I’d been through camp before, and I knew everything else got pushed to the side, whether you wanted it to or not. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

“Maybe not.” He shrugged. “But I’ve seen plenty of fighters get distracted by shit outside the gym. Family stuff, relationships, money, whatever it is. If you carry it around in your head all day, it eventually follows you into training.”

His advice sounded reasonable and was the sort of thing a coach would say. The problem was that hearing it out loud made the distance between Tampa and Sacramento feel even greater than it already had.

I left his office a few minutes later, but his words stayed with me as I headed to the bikes. The other fighters were still moving through their drills and laughing between rounds. Everyone looked as if they knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing.

Meanwhile, I felt more lost than ever.

Over the next two weeks,I thought a lot about what Devon had said. As expected, Rowan threw himself into fight camp the same way he did everything else. Between training sessions, he was busy with meetings with Grant, interviews, and whatever else Atlantic Combat had him doing. He had nearly no downtime.

My schedule wasn’t much better.

Audrey had cleared me for more activity, so Coach Luis had me working through movement drills again, and Coach Carson was easing me back into strength training. I also returned to my usual schedule at the bar.

Life was moving fast for both of us, but Rowan and I did our best to make time for one another. Some days, we’d manage a twenty-minute video call while I drove to work or when he got home from the gym. Other days, we’d play phone tag and settle for sporadic text messages squeezed into whatever space we could find. The hardest part was that neither of us was doing anything wrong. We were both just busy with other things, and that somehow made the lack of connection feel even worse.

I’d just finished cleaning up after making dinner when Mason sauntered into our kitchen, furiously typing on his phone.

“What’s up?” I asked.

Without looking up, he replied, “Just creating a profile on The Click.”

I lifted a brow. “The dating app?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s how people meet now.”

I laughed. “Dude, you sound eighty.”

Finally, he looked up from his phone. “I’ve spent the past twenty minutes trying to answer a question about my ideal first date.”

I closed the dishwasher and pressed the start button. “So, what brought this on?”

He groaned dramatically and slid onto a stool at the island. “Thanksgiving.”

I raised a brow. “Thanksgiving? That was over two weeks ago.”

“It was, and ever since then, my mother has made finding me a girlfriend her life’s purpose. She keeps sending me pictures.”

I snorted while I kept cleaning the kitchen. “What kind of pictures?”

“Daughters of family friends and business associates, or of people she met at charity events.”

“Wow.”