Chapter 9 #2
I watch him step away again, seamlessly slipping back into the room, somehow everywhere without ever making it about himself.
And the lie I’ve been telling myself cracks just a little more.
Because this isn’t boredom, this isn’t him doing something to fill in the rehab time while he’s off the ice.
This is intentional.
A few other surgeons mill nearby, including Levi’s oncologist, Dr. Branson. Brilliant and kind and absolutely terrible at small talk. She waves at me with the hand that isn’t clutching a wine glass and immediately turns back to her clipboard.
“Don’t tell me you’re still stressed,” Heidi says from behind me.
“I’m not,” I lie.
She raises an eyebrow. “You are. But fine, I won’t tell anyone.” Then she nudges me with a gleam in her eye. “He did good, huh?”
I arch a brow. “Who?”
“Oh, please.” She leans in conspiratorially. “The six-foot-three goalie who caught you crying in my office weeks ago about this gala and decided to make it his personal mission to ensure it was successful?”
My lips twitch. “You’re reaching, Heids.”
“Sure I am. Because every pro athlete we’ve ever met has been this invested in the outcome of a fundraiser. To the point where they bring you coffee unannounced…”
“It’s not like that.”
“Maybe not yet.” She clinks her glass gently against mine. “But the night’s still young.”
I shake my head and take a sip. I don’t drink often, not because I can’t, but because I usually don’t have the time or the bandwidth. Or an excuse.
Tonight, I have all three. And I need to take the edge off.
After speeches and a hilarious round of auction bidding from the most competitive athletes known to man, I find myself in a corner alone, setting down my empty glass.
“Doin’ okay, Doc?”
Reid sits down on the stool next to mine, and I watch as he eases his leg out in front of him. He slides me a fresh flute of champagne, and I take it with a nod.
“You brought half the city’s pro league,” I say under my breath.
He shrugs.“You’re welcome.”
I narrow my eyes. “How did you even get them to show?”
“Asked.”
“Just like that?”
He hums. “I said it was for a sick kid, and they said yes.”
I don’t believe him, not fully, and he knows it.
“I might’ve promised there’d be good catering, too,” he admits. “And… you said he liked mascots.”
I blink. “Levi?”
Reid nods once, slowly rising from his stool and smirking over his shoulder at me as he walks toward a side door.
“So I thought I’d give the kid a show.”
I barely have time to register what Reid’s saying before the room erupts. It starts with a shriek. A high-pitched, ecstatic, unrestrained one. Definitely Levi’s.
I turn just in time to see Thunder, the Colorado Storm mascot, barrel through the side doors in full regalia, arms flung wide.
“Thunder! Hi!!” Levi cheers, happiness written all over his face.
Thunder drops to one knee in front of him, taps his oversized glove to his chest, then points at Levi like he’s the only one in the room.
And at this moment, he is. Every set of eyes is on this kid.
Levi squeals with full-body joy, clapping his hands as Thunder pulls out a mini Storm jersey with his name on the back.
I feel it then. Not tears, but this sharp, hollow ache in my chest. Before I can process it, the doors swing open again.
The Denver Miners mascot strides in with exaggerated swagger and all bravado, flexing to the crowd.
The reaction doubles, and the phones start to come out.
Then the Denver Mustangs mascot, an oversized horse, charges in like he’s late to a brawl, skidding to a stop near the bar and doing an over-the-top bow that sends the room into hysterics.
And just when I think my brain can’t keep up anymore, the Denver Dynamite mascot appears, a neon-haired fireball, flipping a soccer ball into the air and trapping it effortlessly on one knee before they start breakdancing.
Breakdancing.
In the middle of a medical fundraising event.
Levi’s jaw drops, and then he’s wheeling toward them, arms flailing and losing his mind. The mascots surround him and hype him up, and the music shifts up a notch.
Chase Walton yells “MASCOT-OFF!” at the top of his lungs, and a dance battle begins.
I laugh before I can stop myself, hands pressed to my mouth as the room explodes. Levi laughs so hard he has to grab the edge of his wheelchair to stay upright.
The mascots take turns with coordinated spins and ridiculous wiggles, the Miners’ mascot twerking so hard his helmet falls off. A phone flashes to my left, and I realize it’s Chase again, filming, and a second later, he’s waving his phone in the air.
“Zo Face! You need to post this on socials right now,” he shouts into his phone speaker, clearly filming this dance-off live for someone to see.
People crowd in, snapping photos and videos. Someone starts chanting, and someone else climbs onto a chair. The mascots ham it up, spinning, moonwalking, mock-arguing over who’s cooler.
“Holy shit,” Heidi mutters as she walks up beside me, looking down at her phone. “This is going viral.”
I can’t speak, my eyes darting to Reid’s across the crowd.
He remembered. Not just that Levi liked hockey, but that he loves mascots. That he knows their names and all their quirks, and their stupid little dances between periods.
Reid didn’t just bring athletes, he built something special for Levi.
I watch him across the room, leaning casually against a high table, his arms folded as he watches Levi with a small, satisfied curve to his mouth. He’s not soaking up any of the attention, he’s just watching the kid have the time of his life.
I make my way over, threading through the crowd.
“You didn’t,” I murmur when I reach him, standing to his side to watch the continued chaos.
“Didn’t what?”
“Coordinate a multi-sport mascot ambush.”
He takes a sip of champagne. “Can’t take all the credit. Dynamite’s mascot owes Jake a favor, and the Miners’ guy plays poker with Walton in the off-season.”
I stare at him. “You made a four-team mascot dance-off happen. Do you even hear yourself?”
Reid shrugs, unbothered. It takes all my effort not to let the sound that slips from my mouth turn into something dangerous.
“You’re unreal,” I say quietly.
He turns slowly, his eyes meeting mine.
“So are you.”
My breath catches, and I’m not quite sure how to reply, but before I can even begin to figure it out, Jake appears and drags Reid toward a bidding table. I step back as they disappear into the crowd, and I find myself standing alone, heart skittering in my chest.
The auction starts on a high I don’t think anyone could’ve manufactured if they tried.
Items that should’ve gone for a few thousand skyrocket within seconds, catching the bids of athletes who aren’t even here but saw the viral mascot video online, and are now tuning in to bid remotely.
A signed Storm stick becomes a competitive blood sport between Chase Walton and his rival Jordan Boucher, both throwing money around like lunatics as they drive the bid higher and higher just to outdo each other.
A “dinner with the Miners” package turns into chaos when one of their forwards throws in box seats and a locker room tour on a dare. Someone bids twenty grand on a custom jersey just because Viktor Karlsson muttered, “That is embarrassing,” but then refused to be outdone.
The room feeds on itself. Every cheer gets louder, every bid pushes higher.
I stand near the edge of it all, watching numbers climb on the screen until—
Target reached.
There’s a beat of stunned silence as the room takes it in, but then the number ticks again. And again.
The cheer that follows is visceral, and I can hear Levi’s mom let out a sob.
I don’t remember moving, but suddenly, I’m in the service corridor outside the main event space, palm pressed to the cool brick wall, breathing hard.
It worked. We did it. Levi gets his trial.
The realization hits hard and fast. My vision blurs before I can stop it, and I drag in a breath that shudders on the way out, annoyed at myself for losing composure now of all times. I swipe impatiently at my eyes, blinking until the sting fades, until I feel like I can breathe again.
“Here.”
I look up to find Reid standing in front of me, holding out a bottle of water.
“Drink,” he adds.
I take it without arguing, fingers brushing his momentarily before I twist the cap off. The first swallow is almost painfully welcome, the coolness cutting through the haze and settling my pulse back into something manageable.
“Thank you,” I say, quietly.
He watches me closely, eyes tracking every detail. My breathing, the way my shoulders finally drop, the way I lean back into the wall to steady myself.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod, then let out a soft, breathless laugh.
“I think so. I just—” I gesture back toward the room, toward the noise and the joy and the chaos. “I didn’t think it would feel like this.”
He shifts closer, not crowding me, but close enough that I can hear him without strain over the music and voices bleeding through the doorway.
“It’s a good night,” he says simply.
“It’s more than that.” I meet his eyes, the words pressing up and out of me before I can stop them. “You did this, and I don’t even know how to say thank you without it sounding… insufficient.”
He shakes his head in protest, so fast I almost miss it. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“I do,” I insist. “You didn’t need to get this involved. You didn’t need to remember all those details, or pull in half the city’s professional athletes, or—”
“Carina,” he interrupts gently. “I wanted to.”
There it is again. Not Doc, not Havoc. My name, so quiet and unadorned on his lips, loaded in a way that makes my pulse thunder.
We stand there for a beat too long, the air between us suddenly aware of itself. I can feel the heat of him, the solid presence of his body so close to mine, the faint scent of his cologne mixing with the cold corridor air.
My gaze drops unintentionally to his mouth. I catch myself just in time, but the damage is done. The navy specks in his blue eyes seem to darken, just a fraction.
“We should…” I nod back toward the door, bringing a palm up to my cheek to pat away my tears, and pray I haven’t smudged my mascara. The water in my hand is already half gone.
Reid nods at it. “Better?”
“Yes.” I glance down at the bottle, then back up at him. “Thank you. For noticing.”
“It’s hard not to notice you.”
I huff a nervous laugh, then swipe at my face again.
Reid’s hand comes up gently, as though he’s giving me every opportunity to pull away.
His fingers graze the shell of my shoulder first, then trail upward.
The contact sends a shiver through me that has nothing to do with the cold, and all I can do is stand there, relishing in his touch.
“You, uhh,” he murmurs, thumb brushing just beneath my eye, “missed a spot.”
The touch is absurdly gentle for a man built like him, reverent in a way that makes my throat tighten.
“Of course I did,” I manage.
His fingers linger, then slide down along the curve of my jaw, traveling back to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. The motion is intimate in a way that makes me want to stay in this moment forever, with his knuckles warm against my cheek and his thumb resting just below my jaw.
For a second, we both just stare at each other, breathing differently.
“I was right,” he mutters.
“About?”
“Your hair.” His eyes drop to my mouth, then lift again. “It’s just as soft as I thought it would be.”
I tilt my head without meaning to, leaning into his touch. His thumb shifts, tracing over the edge of my jaw, the rough pad skating over my lower lip, and his body angles closer.
I can feel his breath now, warm against my skin. I’m aware, distantly, that this is a terrible idea. That we’re in a service corridor at a medical fundraiser with donors and colleagues ten steps away. That he’s my ex-patient, and ten years older than me, and this is entirely inappropriate.
But I don’t care.
His gaze flicks to my mouth again, and this time, I don’t look away. I rise onto the balls of my feet without thinking, closing the last inch between us.
CRASH!
A sharp clatter erupts from the catering kitchen nearby, metal against tile, followed by a muttered curse.
Our spell shatters, and we both pull back at the same time, too fast and too aware of what we were about to do. Reid drops his hand immediately, shoving it into his pocket as though it betrayed him. I clear my throat and focus very hard on the water bottle in my hand.
“Thank you again,” I say, shaking the bottle. “For thinking of me.”
He holds my stare for a beat longer than necessary, eyes traveling over my face.
“Always.”
Then he steps aside, gesturing toward the doorway to let me move through first. Ever the gentleman.
I nod in thanks, grateful for the cover of the crowd as we reenter the event space, the noise rushing back in around us.
My skin still hums where he touched me, and I can’t look at him as I make my way over to some investors to mingle with.
But I feel his eyes on me the entire time.