Chapter 20 #2
But, despite being painful, all the Blake stuff was ultimately just proof that we were never going to work—that no relationship could. I’d been right to put a relationship on the back burner because there was no alternative.
I had to be successful.
I couldn’t let myself just be Dr. Felix Mercado’s daughter forever. I had the talent to be even better, and I wanted to prove
it.
I didn’t want to dwell on this anymore, so I decided to move the topic of conversation along. “What about you? Who do you
feel like you owe? Your agent?”
He chuckled. “No, but Jesse is known to use a good guilt trip strategically.” He turned his glass for a second before going
on. “Theo, my best friend. He was pretty much the person who made everything good that’s happened in my life happen. When
I was a kid, after a string of really shitty foster homes, I almost got moved pretty far from where I grew up in Queens, so
Theo’s family fostered me until I was eighteen. Theo practiced with me every day till I got scouted to play in London. I sort
of owe him . . . everything.”
“Wow.” My mouth hung open a bit. I didn’t know that about him and it made my heart ache. I was almost thirty and didn’t really
feel grown sometimes. I couldn’t imagine being a kid without a stable home. Or eighteen, on my own and my best friend an ocean
away. “Premier League superstar: Austin Cade. I’m sure he was proud.”
“I guess.” He chuckled offhandedly, almost self-deprecatingly, as if his notable career was something to scoff at. “Although,
there were a lot of lucky breaks involved.”
It irked me and I couldn’t figure out why. At first, it sounded like he was being humble, and now it felt like he was reminding himself.
“The professional athlete who’s trying to build an entire sports infrastructure where it doesn’t exist,” I stated almost harshly.
“That requires a lot more than luck. You’ll figure that part out, too,” I went on, not waiting for a response. “If you weren’t going to, you would have given
up,” I explained. He was here doing this favor—which was all sorts of unconventional—for me in exchange for my help with the
foundation. That was determination. “Your heart’s in it, so you’ll do it.”
His cheeks lifted, but not in a smile. It was like recognition of something. A silent realization. Maybe my manner of tough
motivation worked.
“Are you . . .” The smile finally crested again into a wide grin, a bright one that made my body warm. “Being nice?”
“No.” I crossed my arms with an almost offended dip in my brow. “I believe in you and I’m right about most things. So, don’t
make me wrong, Cade.”
He watched me for a few extended seconds, like he was taking notes in his head or wordlessly trying to solve a puzzle.
“You make a lot of sense now,” he admitted, looking composed but sounding a little flustered.
I couldn’t help but grin, my heart beating a little faster. “What’s that mean?”
He looked up at the city’s skyline in front of the early sunset. “I don’t know, I was just curious how Isa became . . . Isa.”
I swallowed against the butterfly-inducing reality that he was thinking about me. And I sort of liked that.
“What do you mean?”
“Based on how you start, I always figured life either hardens you or softens you,” he continued.
In a knee-jerk reaction to something that made me a little nervous—feelings I wasn’t expecting—my lips sealed together with
the joke I wanted to make. They tried their best not to open with a laugh, but the corners tipped up and gave me away.
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t make a dirty joke.”
Just like that, the conversation that was leaning toward intimate, swung all the way back to playful. I leaned forward and
across the table to smack his shoulder with the back of my hand. “Come on. You set me up.”
Despite the confidence I carried most of time, suddenly I felt a little nervous. I kept this part of myself guarded. I always
told myself it was because I didn’t need to bother opening up—that I didn’t have time to make new relationships. But in truth,
it just wasn’t easy for me. It always felt like an editorial review, where all the messy, complicated parts of you were laid
bare for scrutiny, and maybe you’d get feedback you didn’t want, if not outright rejection.
“I can’t believe they let you operate on people.” He squeezed his eyes for a second.
“It could have been on you,” I added. His eyebrows arched. “If I had asked to scrub in on the case.”
He dropped his hand around his drink, taking a pause like he was deciding which direction this conversation might go. “Is
that what you want?”
“To be your doctor?” I teased. “I feel like we’ve been through this.”
“No.” Despite my light banter, his tone stayed immovably serious. “The job. What Dr. Reinhold does.”
“It’s not . . .” I stammered, having been dragged away from playfulness again. I took a long sip of beer—it was a sour one
from Alsace and I was finishing it faster than I had expected because he was pushing me to share things, and despite the knee-jerk
reluctance, I sort of wanted to.
“The Winthrop fellowship was always the goal.” I failed to answer his actual question.
Winthrop meant I’d spend a lot of time operating and a lot of time researching. I’d burn the candle at both ends, but I’d
live a future where the work I did was used by orthopedic surgeons around the world. In comparison to that, completing a sports
medicine fellowship and going on to simply enjoying operating felt like an insult to my potential.
“But Dr. Reinhold’s work is fine, I guess. I could take it or leave it,” I finally spat out.
Regret dug a hole in my lungs; a long sigh that I didn’t mean to make slipped out. I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince.
“Okay.” Austin’s eyes ran along the horizon. A few seconds passed as he took a sip of his beer. “That little crush you have
on me probably influenced your experience anyway.”
A reflexive laugh popped out of my mouth.
“I liked being there because I liked the work. Did that ever occur to you?” I rolled my eyes. “You egomaniac.”
“Yeah. It’s my ego that’s the problem,” he said glibly, sitting forward.
“And it did occur to me that you liked the work, judging by all those yellow highlighted cases. Those are sports injuries, right?” He leaned both arms on the table with a taunting little flourish.
He didn’t wait for me to confirm that he was correct.
The optional cases I requested to be in were largely sports injuries, highlighted in yellow in that case log.
“And since you spent the little free time you have working on research for it. So yeah, it did occur to me that you enjoyed the work. I happen to be a part of that work, but that’s neither here nor there. ”
My stomach flipped again. I did like the work.
The joy any regular person feels when they see someone they helped, to some degree, do well was a universal feeling.
“Yeah,” I reiterated with an unamused scowl that fought a smile. “The work I’ve dedicated my life to is something I enjoy.”
“You’re absolutely sure, nothing else had you so engaged?” He leaned in and tucked a few stray strands behind my ear. “Because I thought you said sports medicine was just ‘fine’
and you ‘could take it or leave it.’ Which one is it, Doc?”
“I . . .” I was caught in a game. The more I told him, the less I felt like I knew. “Just because I like something doesn’t
mean I have to pursue it. I like blowing out birthday candles—doesn’t make me a firefighter.”
He pulled away completely to lean back in his seat, leaving behind a haze that took a few seconds to clear. One side of his
mouth climbed up his cheek. “Got it.”
As much as I hated that he cornered me into the logical conclusion that I was ignoring the fellowship I might actually want,
I couldn’t help but smile back.
The clever bastard.