Carlottax
Cindy knowns how to keep people at a safe distance - a sharp tongue, a dry joke, a well-timed deflection. Working in a research lab in the middle of chaotic, sun-drenched Sydney, she built her world exactly the way she likes it: controlled, quiet, predictable.
Rick is none of those things.
A surgeon with no filter and too much presence, he's been her colleague for years. She knows his voice before she sees his face, knows the way he opens doors as the world owes him space. She knows him, or at least she thought she did.
When something shifts between them, neither of them is ready for it. He's carrying a past he doesn't talk about. She's carrying walls she doesn't acknowledge. And somewhere between late nights at the hospital, a scent of magnolia that won't leave the room, and two words neither of them planned to say - they'll have to decide whether looking away is still an option.
Or whether it's time to look again.