Chapter 6 #2
Cash smirked, and I shook my head. I could’ve lied. It would have made this easier, but Cash deserved the truth. Even when the truth gave him what would probably end up being a rope of false hope just long enough to hang from.
“Medicine isn’t an exact science. So, no, I cannot know that for a fact. I can’t sit here and tell you there is absolutely no possibility you’ll ever play professional hockey again. You’re a twenty-three-year-old elite athlete. You’ve already demonstrated that you’ll work your ass off.”
“Damn straight I have, and I will again.”
I knew he would. That’s what scared me. “But…Cash…if you were to ask me whether or not I thought…believed professional goal-tending was a likely outcome, I would say no.”
Anger flared to life and his jaw popped as he gritted his teeth. “How unlikely?”
My eyes locked on his. The worst part of my job was robbing the athletes who came to me of hope. “Cash.”
“No! Dammit! You don’t get to do that shit. No fucking sugar coating. No beating around the fucking bush. I want to know. How. Fucking. Unlikely?”
My arms folded over my chest. “Unlikely enough that I will not recommend you for surgery if the only outcome you’ll consider a success is an NHL contract.”
“What’s it fucking matter to you? Is this about your ego?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because this surgery could make you better.”
He scoffed. “My life is hockey.”
“I know.”
“No, you fucking don’t. Because if you did, you’d know there is no better if I don’t make it back.”
“I do know, Cash.”
“Then why the fuck are you telling me to have another surgery if it’s not going to get me back on the ice? I’ve had three fucking surgeries with the same goddamn outcome that you’re suggesting.”
“I know you have.”
“Do you?” His voice rose. “Do you know what that means? Because I do. I know exactly what another surgery means. I know what it feels like to wake up afterward. I know the fucking pain. The swelling. The crutches. The rehab. Spending months doing the same stupid fucking exercises over and over again because somebody keeps telling you that if you work hard enough, maybe you’ll get your life back. ”
“I know.”
“Then give me a reason.”
“I can give you a reason. I just can’t give you the one you want.”
He went still.
I hated this. God, I fucking hated this. And I hated it even more because this was Cash. He wasn’t just another athlete sitting across from me. Another chart. Another knee. Another career-ending injury. I was attracted to him. I gave a shit what happened to him. I cared about him.
More than I should.
Definitely more than I was ready to admit or examine too closely.
“I’ve watched the way you move,” I said.
“I’ve reviewed every image. Every operative report.
Every note from every surgeon who has treated you.
Every rehabilitation report. Every attempt you’ve made to return to play.
I know exactly what has already been done to that knee.
And what you’ve put yourself through to even get here. ”
His jaw clenched. “And?” he asked.
“And I can improve it.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
“I wholeheartedly believe I can give you a better knee than the one you have now. One with significantly less pain. With better function. Better stability. A knee that lets you stand behind a bar without shifting your weight every few minutes because it hurts. One that lets you walk through a grocery store without paying for it afterward. Take stairs. Work. Exercise. Live your life without constantly calculating how much everything is going to hurt.”
“And maybe hockey.”
There it was.
Three words that erased everything else I’d said.
“Maybe,” I said carefully. “But you need to understand what that word means coming from me.”
“Yeah, Thad, you’ve made it clear. It means a chance.”
“A small one.”
“Well…I’ve played against worse odds and won.”
“This isn’t a game.
“No. It’s just my motherfucking life.”
Resignation washed over me. I worried he still didn’t comprehend the warnings I’d voiced. “I know,” I said.
“Then fix it.”
I refused to agree to that. “I can operate. And I’ll give you the best knee I reasonably can, but what happens after that… Well, that’s up to your body and how well it responds.”
“Let me try. Just give me a shot.”
I stared at him. Finally, I said, “If we do this, you follow the rehabilitation protocol to a T. No trying to push because you think you’re healing.
You don’t rush things. You don’t argue. You never mask the pain or the swelling.
You don’t decide you’re ready on your own.
And if your knee tells us it’s had enough, or it can’t tolerate a progression, we listen. ”
“We?” he asked with a smirk. That flirty look from the club heated his face and the air between us, and I realized what I said.
I swallowed, reminded my dick that doing this meant he was off-limits, and said, “Your medical team.” I cleared my throat.
His gaze stayed locked on mine, making me fight the urge to squirm. The smirk grew. “And if I get through it all? I can play again?”
I hesitated. His eyes caught it. “We’ll reassess.”
“And if I can skate…”
A groan grew in my throat. “This is what I’m talking about. The pushing—”
“Doc, I get it. I’m just asking.”
“We will reassess at every step.”
“And if I pass them?”
I hesitated, and his eyes narrowed. “I won’t stop you simply because you’re disproving the predictions I made. If you meet and bypass each hurdle the team puts in front of you, then you’ll progress.”
Cash went silent, his eyes bouncing between mine as if searching—
“You mean that. You promise you won’t move the fucking goalposts?”
“That I can promise.”
“You won’t change your mind?”
“No, Cash. If you demonstrate your knee can safely tolerate the demands of goal-tending on an increasingly elite level, then the evaluation will be based on the progress, not on proving I was right.”
Determination the likes of which I had never seen overtook his face. And that was saying something considering my patient list. It turned me on and scared me all at once.
“Let’s do the surgery.” Before I could fall back to the warnings, he held up his hand. “I got it, Doc. You want me to understand, and I do.”
I wasn’t completely convinced, but I held my tongue. Cash smirked, a cocky confidence joining the determination. He leaned toward me. “You think the odds are against me, and they are. But they’re not zero.”
“No. They’re not.”
The smirk bloomed into a face-changing smile, but instead of being fueled by happiness, the emotion that bled through was pure stubbornness. The kind the doctors and treatment teams had documented in his medical records. “Good. I prefer it that way.”
“What?” I asked, confused as to what he meant.
“I don’t need good odds, Doc. I never have. I’ve busted down every barrier, every obstacle. If I couldn’t go through it, I went over it, under it, or around it. I don’t need the door opened for me. Hell. I don’t even need a fucking door. I’ll make my fucking own.”
I laughed, and somehow his infectious, stubborn belief that he would make it weaseled its way between my ribs.
“Now,” he said, standing, “let’s get this shit scheduled.”
I stood, intending to show him to the door of my office, but rising to my feet put us a hair’s breadth apart.
I had a few inches on him, but we shared a similar upper body build.
His lower body, not as thick as mine, made the pair of jeans he wore look like they had been personally designed to ruin my fucking life.
“Let’s…uh,” I swallowed. “Let’s go talk with the front office.”
With a wave of his hand, he motioned me to go ahead of him, but not before his eyes dragged themselves down my body and back up.
He even took the tiniest step toward me when his eyes found their way back to my face, locking themselves on my mouth.
A groan built in my throat when his tongue slid across his lips, leaving them wet and shiny and oh so fucking welcoming.
“After you, Doc,” he said.