Chapter 11 #2
“Nope.” I grin beneath my mask. “And do you see this?” I swipe my tool along the coarse, fibrotic tissue.
“Way fewer adhesions than we thought, and they’re in a good place to be removed without disrupting surrounding tissue.
” I blow out a breath. “Hey, Dr. Barrows?” I call out and then hear Callan’s crackly voice come through since he’s pressing the intercom button.
“Yes?”
“Would you like a look at this?”
“I would likely have no clue what I’m looking at. I did one ortho rotation in med school and then settled on emergency medicine right after.”
I laugh. “Well, your friend is about to love me. I just cut his recovery time in half, at least. There’s a very real chance he could return this season. There are no repairs to make. No tears. Just some minor cleaning up to do.”
“I’m pretty sure he loved you before this, but if that’s the case, you’re in some trouble now.”
Don’t I know it.
“All right, Dr. Jones.” I snort, and then quickly swivel toward Jequai. “Wow, that makes you totally sound like Indiana Jones. How did I never put that together until now?”
“You have no idea how many times I got that through medical school.” He laughs. “I would tell them I’m a Black Indiana Jones. Patients loved it.”
“I have no doubt they did. Help me clean up these adhesions. It seems Boston might have their favorite quarterback playing sooner than they’re expecting.”
* * *
“Is he awake yet?” I ask Alea, the PACU nurse. The PACU is empty, but it’s still very early in the morning, as Limbick agreed to bump all surgeries back a couple of hours, so it would just be Asher in here.
“Not when I last checked. I was about to go back in and get another set of vitals.”
“I’ll go with you,” I tell her.
“Going to give him the good news?” she asks me with a conspiratorial smile. “My husband will be thrilled. He’s a huge Rebels fan, but also a huge Asher Reyes fan.”
“That seems to be how this town runs,” I note as we pull back the curtain and enter his room. He’s still out, on his back, his gown covering him from the middle of the chest down, a white hospital blanket covering his lower half. “Did Dr. Barrows leave?”
“He went to make some calls,” she informs me. “He said he’d be back soon to take him home.”
Alea starts to check his vitals, and when the blood pressure cuff begins to inflate, that seems to stir him awake.
His gray eyes—almost colorless against the harsh fluorescent lights—slowly blink open.
He shifts and then winces slightly as he blinks some more, becoming more alert, and stares down at his shoulder with an obvious frown.
“Vitals look good,” Alea says in a low voice. “Welcome back, Mr. Reyes. I’m Alea, your nurse. I’m going to get you some ice water. Are you nauseous?”
“No,” he rasps in a groggy voice.
“What’s your pain level?”
“I don’t want drugs.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course you don’t.” At the sound of my voice, he turns his head, and our eyes meet, his filled with a million questions. “You need to be honest about your pain level. On a scale of one to ten, what is it?”
“A four.”
“How about some IV acetaminophen? We’ll hold off on anything stronger for now.”
“I’ll go grab it,” Alea says. “I saw the order in his chart.”
She walks off, leaving us here, and I move in closer. His good hand comes up, his fingers trickling along my arm until they catch my fingers. “Tell me.”
“Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
His frown deepens, and I might be a bit evil for playing this game with him. “Bad news.”
“The bad news is that the MRI was wrong. It didn’t paint anywhere close to an accurate picture of what we found when we went in.”
His eyes close, and he blows out a breath.
I can’t stop myself from running my hand through his hair, and then my mouth dips by his ear.
“There was no labrum tear. No AC separation. Just some minor adhesions that we cleaned up and removed. There was nothing structurally impacted. No screws. No joint repair. No reconstruction. It was simple and clean, and because of that, with the right rehab, you could be back on the field in a couple of months.”
His eyes flash open, and then he squeezes my fingers. “You’re serious?”
“Yes. It was the best-case scenario. I have no idea what happened with the MRI, but your shoulder was fairly healthy. Just those minor adhesions, as I mentioned.”
“Fuck,” he pants like he’s taking in the first breath of dawn after a moonless night. “Wynter, I could kiss you.”
“If you do, I’ll take you back under the knife.”
He plows right past that. “I don’t know what to say. You’re magic. Thank you.”
“Say you won’t rush your rehab. Say you’ll follow the regimen, including the use of pain medication if needed.”
He shakes his head. “No pain meds. I know what can happen with those, and they’re a slippery slope.”
“Not in the first forty-eight hours after surgery.”
He considers this. “I’ll only take them if you come over tonight with Mason. I want both of you to sleep at my place.”
I slip my fingers out of his grasp, and his hand falls to the bed. “Asher, this isn’t grade school. I’m not having a sleepover at your place.”
“You’re moving in with me, and it’s my first night after surgery. Come on. Please, Dr. Hathaway,” he pleads like a lost puppy dog. “I need you.”
“You don’t have anything set up there.”
“Please. I want to see him, and I want you there with me tonight.”
The way this man says please and its resulting effect on me is nothing short of diabolical.
“Fine,” I relent, hating how quickly I did that. “We’ll come over this evening around five. I’ll need to give him dinner and a bath.”
“Great.” A smile curls up his lips. “Bring as much stuff as you can because I might not let you go after tonight.”
“I don’t plan on making the choice yours.” I step back from his bed as the nurse comes in to give him his medicine. “I’ll see you later, Mr. Reyes. Get some rest.”
I don’t wait for him to say anything else. I leave, and I leave quickly. He talked about a slippery slope. I have a bad feeling I’m about to learn exactly what that means.