Chapter 3 #2
One down, one to go. On a tremulous breath and wobbly legs, I push myself on, clenching and unclenching my fists as I find my way closer and closer to Joe’s office.
I need to face him if I’m ever going to do my job.
That was also part of the plan I conjured in the wee hours of the morning. I won’t hide from him, and I won’t run.
I’ll show him just how little he means to me.
But when I approach his door and see the placard with his name imprinted in bold black letters, I realize all my bravado is a joke.
Part of me—a hateful part of me—is still that vulnerable little girl who stole her mother’s phone so she could call her dad with the hope and the prayer that he’d pick up and talk to me.
Something he never did. Even when I’d leave voice messages, he’d never call back.
He meant so much to me—I worshipped him—and I meant nothing to him.
And now he’s doing this, and I don’t understand why.
With a shaky hand— my hands never shake, I’m a goddamn surgeon!— I tap on his office door.
“Come in,” he grumbles, and that voice. It’s the same voice he had when I cried out his name as I found him in bed with that woman. The same voice that echoed through my head when I’d cry myself to sleep for months and months after he left us.
Armed with an artillery of bitter and pissed off to go into battle with, I snap the doorknob and fling open the door, practically kicking it with the tip of my black, somewhat classy, yet badass bitch heels.
His perturbed gaze flashes up to mine, and the moment he realizes it’s me, he falls back in his seat as his hand covers his mouth and his green eyes hold mine.
“Wyn.”
I shake my head. “No nicknames. I need answers from you this very second, or I’m walking out of this building, and I will never return.”
He nods slowly, sitting up straight in his chair, clearing his throat, and waving me into his office. “Come sit down then.”
“I want to stab you in multiple places, not sit down.”
He grins, and it makes me hate him more. Something he must read because it quickly slips from his lips.
“Start talking, Joe. Why am I here?”
“I have a player who needs you,” he says simply, and I can’t stand that answer.
“Elaborate. Why me specifically? How’d you know I was in Boston? Hell, how’d you know I was a surgeon?”
He stands and rounds his desk, only to sit on the edge of it, cutting the space between us by half.
He looks a lot older than I remember. Older than a typical man in his mid-fifties.
Brown hair that’s streaked with heavy swaths of gray, and lines on his forehead and the sides of his eyes indenting his tanned face.
The only thing we have in common feature-wise is our eyes, only it doesn’t soften me toward him.
Not even a little.
His hands press into the edge of his desk. “I kept track of you. I watched you in nationals and world championships, and I watched every second of you in the Olympics. Then I followed your career in medicine after.”
I turn for the door, unable to listen for another second. “I’m done here.”
“He needs his nonthrowing shoulder fixed,” he calls out, stopping me at the door. “It’s complicated. He’s torn things in there for years that were never fixed, but he needs the force and the momentum of his non-dominant shoulder to deliver.”
My hand finds the frame of his doorway. “Why should I care? There are hundreds of other surgeons who could do this.”
“The last orthopedic surgeon who was considered the best in the country saw the films and said it’ll never heal right, and he’ll never play again.
I don’t believe them. I think they’re cowards.
You graduated top of your class first at Yale and then in medical school at Princeton.
Got selected for a top residency program in Miami.
Beat out how many other surgeons for that fellowship in London? ”
Motherfucker. I had no clue he knew any of this about me. Bastard knows I’m competitive and is using it against me.
“So?”
“So, I also heard shoulders, in addition to knees, were your specialty.”
I grit my teeth because now I want to see the MRI. Now I want to know why the others passed and said it would never heal right. Now I want to prove that I can fix it when those other hotshots chose not to try.
I flip back aground. “Limbick would have done it. You turned him down. Said you only wanted me.”
“He’s not my daughter.”
My fists clench, and my vision grows hazy with rage. “Neither am I.”
He glances away for a moment, nods slowly, and then looks back at me. “You don’t owe me anything, but he’s a great player and deserves another shot at a ring.”
“I don’t give a shit if you win another championship. In fact, I hope you don’t. I hope you sink like the fucking Titanic without being nearly as cool or dramatic.”
“You hate me.”
I laugh caustically. “That’s more than putting it mildly, but the truth is, you aren’t even worth the energy to hate. Hating you requires emotion. It requires thought. I stopped thinking about you when I was barely seven. You are nothing to me now.”
He shifts on his large desk and glances out his window at the base of the stadium beyond. “Football—”
“Shut. Up!” I scream, and I’m not even sure where it comes from.
“I don’t care. I don’t care!” My hands fly out.
“I don’t want to be here, and I don’t want to help you, and I don’t care about your player, and I sure as hell don’t give a shit about football.
You pulled strings with my boss and are fucking with my job. You had no right.”
“Wynter.” He sighs and stands. “I requested you because you’re hungry, and not complacent or afraid. You are the most confident, smart, dedicated, ruthless, and talented person I know.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Fine. You’re right. I don’t know you. But I know the stock you’re built from. Will you please look at his MRI? That’s all I ask. I’ll stay away. I’ll keep my distance. Just look at his damn MRI and tell me if I need to cut him or trade him.”
“So much for he deserves another shot at a ring. Real fucking loyal there, Joe.”
“It’s business.”
I smirk viciously. “Don’t I know it. Loyalty was never your strong suit anyway. Give me one real reason other than your precious game.”
“He’s a good guy. He goes into hospitals and sits with sick kids without ever sharing a second of it on social media. He wants everyone to succeed and motivates his teammates and this town. But more than that, he’s a patient, and he needs your help.”
Dammit .