He Hurt His Back Lifting My Suitcase. I Fell Harder.

§PROLOGUE

Althea Morrison was losing a war against a fifty-five-pound suitcase.

It was a silent, brutal conflict waged in the narrow aisle of an Amtrak Acela Express train, Car 3.

The suitcase, a black behemoth she’d packed with the density of a dying star, refused to ascend into the overhead luggage rack.

Her arms trembled, muscles screaming in protest.

As an Assistant Professor of Kinesiology and Sports Medicine, she knew the precise mechanics of a proper lift—core tight, back straight, power from the legs.

She was demonstrating none of them.

This was pure, stubborn, brute force.

And she was failing.

A low, clear voice cut through her frustration.

“Need a hand with that?”

She glanced over her shoulder.

The man in seat 21B was looking up at her.

He was wearing a surgical mask, but his eyes… they were calm, dark, and held a hint of amusement.

He was young.

A student, probably.

“I’ve got it,” she said, her voice tighter than she intended.

Pride was a terrible thing.

She took a deep breath, regrouped, and gave the suitcase one last desperate heave.

“Easy there,” the voice said again, closer this time. “You’re going to throw your back out.”

Before she could protest, he was standing.

He was tall.

Taller than she’d expected.

He reached for the suitcase, his long fingers brushing against hers.

“Let me,” he said, not as a question, but as a soft command.

He bent slightly, grabbed the handle, and in a single, fluid motion that was biomechanically all wrong, he lifted.

There was a faint, sickening pop.

And then a sharp hiss of breath through his teeth.

He froze.

The fifty-five-pound suitcase was still in his hand, halfway to the rack.

His entire body had gone rigid.

Her professional instincts, a curse she could never turn off, kicked in immediately.

“You torqued your lumbar spine,” she blurted out, the words clinical and cold. “That kind of asymmetrical load without core engagement… it’s going to affect your force production.”

The man slowly, painfully, placed the suitcase back on the floor.

He turned to face her.

His eyes, above the mask, cycled through a universe of reactions.

White.

Red.

Black.

Her brain, catching up to her mouth, screamed at her.

She tried to backpedal, to fix it, but the only words that came out were a chaotic, horrifying mess.

“I… I’ll be responsible for you.”

§01

The long holiday weekend was over.

A new semester at Weymouth University loomed.

Althea sank into her aisle seat, 21A, wishing she could physically retract the last thirty seconds of her life.

The young man in 21B—the one whose back she had just professionally diagnosed and then bizarrely offered to take responsibility for—was now sitting with his eyes closed, leaning heavily against the window.

A perfect stranger.

This was exactly why she preferred to keep to herself.

She hated dealing with social live-wires, those aggressive extroverts who treated every shared space like a networking event.

This guy, at least, seemed to radiate a "do not disturb" aura.

Excellent.

She glanced at him again, this time through a professional lens.

Her curse.

Even when she wasn’t in the lab or the lecture hall, she saw the world in terms of muscle groups and movement patterns.

He was a good specimen.

That was the first thought that flashed through her mind.

Even through his plain t-shirt, she could see the evidence of well-structured training.

The anterior deltoids were full, the lines of his biceps clean.

The curve of his gastrocnemius—his calf muscle—was beautifully defined.

It spoke of consistent athletic activity, and more importantly, a lack of compensation issues.

No muscular imbalances forcing other groups to work overtime.

She wondered about his lats and rectus abdominis.

But those were hidden.

As for his face?

She hadn’t really looked.

It didn't matter.

For someone in her field, perfect leverage ratios and distinct muscle topography were far more captivating than a pretty face.

She shook her head, trying to clear the diagnostic chatter.

She had her own fifty-five-pound beast to conquer.

She stood up, took a firm grip on her own suitcase, tightened her core, and prepared to execute a flawless lift.

“I can get that for you.”

The voice was crisp.

It was 21B.

He must have been disturbed by her movement.

She looked down as he looked up.

Their eyes met.

For a split second, both of them froze.

*Clang—*

*Hiss—*

It turned out that under the mask, 21B was handsome.

Devastatingly handsome.

The kind of face you remembered from your first high school crush.

So handsome, in fact, that it startled her.

And she’d dropped her suitcase squarely on his foot.

§02

“I am so sorry! Oh my god, I’m sorry!”

She scrambled to pull the suitcase away.

Her brain went into full diagnostic mode again.

“Did it hit the top of your foot? Any feeling like you’re stepping on nothing? It probably didn’t fracture a metatarsal, but…”

“I’m fine,” he said, his voice strained.

He stood up, his gaze flicking from her to the luggage rack and back again, deliberately avoiding her eyes.

He was trying to hide the pain.

“Give me the suitcase.”

The kid was tall, and clearly had too much pride.

“No, really, don’t. It’s a dead weight—”

Before she could finish, he’d already grabbed it with one hand.

The veins on his forearm stood out in sharp relief.

A knot of dread tightened in her stomach.

“Wait! Your form is all wrong! You have to brace your core! Drive with your glutes and legs…”

*Hiss—*

Of course.

The prettier the specimen, the less it listened.

He was frozen in place again, the suitcase dangling from his hand.

“Don’t move!”

She snatched the suitcase from him and guided him back into his seat.

Then she turned to face the luggage.

One step forward, knees bent, back straight, engage the core.

A textbook deadlift.

With a clean *swoosh*, the suitcase was on the rack.

*That* was the correct way to generate force.

She dusted off her hands and turned back to him, her professorial tone taking over.

“A strained back affects all your power generation,” she said, unable to stop herself.

“You can’t just muscle through things. You need proper technique, or you’ll regret it later.”

“An unstable core is just empty strength.”

She was about to launch into a free, impromptu lecture on the prevention and rehabilitation of sports injuries.

But then she saw his face.

It was a storm of colors.

Pale, then red, then a dark, thunderous black.

Was her voice too loud?

Or… had he actually herniated a disc?

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