Chapter 8
THAD
I stood watching the door Cash disappeared through, wanting to call him back and try to explain better or more.
But something told me that cornering Cash Benjamin would do nothing but push him further away.
I walked over to Davina’s desk and picked up Cash’s surgical binder from where it lay on the floor next to his chair.
Dammit. I had him take it off for the exam. He didn’t need to be walking around on that knee after working behind the bar like he had last weekend. His knee was still swollen when I examined him today.
I picked up the brace and walked back to my office for my keys. He most likely had multiple braces, but if this was the one he wore to his appointment, it was either the one that felt the best given where his knee was today or the most comfortable one he owned.
Either way, I refused to let him be without it. Especially on the off chance it was the only one he had.
On the way to the parking garage, I ran into the office staff returning from lunch.
“Hey, Doc,” they said, with barely a pause in their conversations.
Their laughing and joking made me happy. The whole team got along well. Their camaraderie made the work we did easier and helped the patients.
Davina waved the others on when she stopped next to me. Once everyone was out of earshot, Davina motioned toward the binder and brace. “He left?”
“Yeah. He did.”
Cash wasn’t the first potential patient to rush out of the office. He certainly wouldn’t be the last.
“Can you help him?” she asked.
I nodded. “I can, but not to the extent he would like.”
She sighed with a nod. “He could surprise you, Thad. He wouldn’t be the first, and he won’t be the last. You’re not all-knowing, you know.”
I chuckled at the way her words mirrored my own thoughts from a moment before. “That he could.”
“Well, Doc, go convince him. Your accountant will be tickled if you could write off another surgery or two before the end of the year.”
“I’m surrounded by smartasses.”
She laughed at me as she walked backward away from me. “You wouldn’t have it any other way, Dr. Vale.”
She wasn’t wrong. My brother, my work at Halo House, and my staff kept me sane and humble. When she disappeared around the corner toward the office, I headed toward my car.
My clinic wasn’t far from Halo House, but I planned a stop first now that Davina mentioned the accountant.
I wanted a listing of all the hours I donated to Halo House and the other donations I made, and the pro bono surgeries I’d performed.
Maybe if he saw I didn’t consider him a charity case, he’d go through with the surgery.
As much as I didn’t think he’d make it back on the ice professionally, I knew the surgery would help him live a better, longer, fuller life.
When I walked into Halo House, voices came from the kitchen, so I headed in that direction. I heard Maxie first, and I smiled at the sound of the little’s voice. But then Cash’s voice came to me, and I stopped, ashamed, though not enough to not eavesdrop.
“I grew up in a world where you had to prove your worth. Where nothing came without a price—usually a pretty steep one.” He paused, and then he said, so softly I barely caught it, “I worry what the price will be.”
The way he worded it gave me pause. It also made me question, and not for the first time, a world that allowed people who should never lay eyes on a child, much less have one, to do so, while others who desperately wanted a child and would do anything for them couldn’t.
I stepped into the room, unable to listen to Cash worry about my intentions, or those of Phoenix and Halo House, any longer.
His words made me glad I’d stopped at the accountant’s office though.
Maybe if he saw that any price to be paid came from the benefits of a tax write-off, he’d be willing to move forward with the surgery.
“Maxie…can you give Cash and me the room?”
Maxie looked between Cash and me before standing. “Sure thing, Dr. Vale,” he said, then hurried out of the kitchen.
I sat in the chair Maxie vacated, setting the surgical binder and the accountant’s report on the table between us. Pushing the brace toward him, I said, “You left this.”
He finished chewing the food he’d shoveled into his mouth before dragging the back of his hand over his lips. “Thanks. The other one needs some adjustments.”
I nodded and cleared my throat. “Well, I can’t make those. I’d likely fuck it up more than it already is, but if you want to bring it by the clinic, Davina can have one of the physical therapists work on it.”
He stared at me, his chin cocked at an odd angle. His tongue ran over his upper teeth before he sucked at them. There was no mistaking the heat in his gaze. I’d pissed him off.
“You’re a resident of Halo House. Davina knows of my work here. She can arrange for the adjustments, and she’s also in charge of ensuring that any services the network of medical professionals provides that aren’t pro bono get paid for.”
“So you pay for all the medical care for the residents?” he asked, his gaze locked on the bowl of food before him. He pushed the food around with his fork.
“Yes,” I answered, then expanded, “If it’s not provided free of charge, then yes, I pay for the resident’s medical care until we can get them approved for insurance.”
He chewed on those words for a moment. “And if they can’t get approved?”
“Then I continue paying until the resident chooses a patron, and the patron pays for medical care until the resident can provide for themselves.”
“Why?”
Confused, I asked, “What do you mean, why?”
A half-laugh, half-scoff preceded what he said next, “Why do you and everyone here do this shit? Is there some kind of do-gooder award or—”
“Stop. No one here is doing anything for an award. There are good people in the world, Cash. I get that you have trouble believing that, but there are people who want to see other people succeed. I give medical care because it’s what I have to give, and because the healthcare system in this country is fucked. I have the means to help, so I do.”
He rolled his eyes. “Again—”
I interrupted him. “No. There is no again, Cash. That’s it. I have no ulterior motives. Neither does Phoenix, nor any of the patrons. Neither did my brother, did he?”
“So some stranger agrees to pay my bills and wants absolutely nothing from me?”
“They’re not necessarily strangers.”
“That’s not the fucking point,” he growled.
“I know.”
“Then explain it to me because that sounds like bullshit.”
I leaned back in the chair. Phoenix had explained the program to hundreds of people over the years. I’d heard him do it dozens of times. Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to me that no one had explained it to Cash. Or more likely, Cash came in so overwrought he didn’t hear it all.
“What do you think a patron is?”
“Rich person who pays for shit?”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. His glare told me he found nothing about this funny.
“Sorry.” I cleared my throat. “That can be part of it, and in your case, the patron you choose, if you choose one, would probably help you through recovery, or if they weren’t able to do so, then that would fall back on my practice, but money isn’t always part of it.”
His brow furrowed. “Then what is?”
I rubbed my hand over my beard. “Think of a patron as someone in your corner. A cheerleader, a mentor, a confidant.”
“So…like a veteran player who takes on a rookie to help the new kid adjust.”
“Yes! Like that. Every resident at Halo House has the option of choosing someone who fits them, if and when they’re ready. The patron agrees to help that person get from where they are now to wherever they’re trying to go.”
“And they do that how?”
“However it makes sense. Sometimes that means money. Sometimes it means helping with school or finding a job. Making introductions. Transportation. Navigating paperwork. Medical care.” I motioned toward his knee.
“Sometimes it’s just having someone you can call when you don’t know what the hell you’re supposed to do next. ”
His fork scraped slowly through the food in his bowl. “And they get…what?”
Having been in the world of top-level, elite athletes, I finally realized what he’d been skirting around. Or what I thought he was getting at. Too many managers and agents took advantage of athletes who just wanted to make it but didn’t have the means.
“Nothing.”
His gaze snapped to mine.
“Bullshit.”
“No. Nothing. There’s no repayment. No percentage of your future income. No contract saying you owe somebody twenty grand because they spent twenty grand helping you. You don’t have to become successful enough to prove their money was well spent.”
His expression didn’t change.
“And before your brain comes up with anything else, no favors. No sex. No relationship. No gratitude. Nothing.”
Something flickered across his face when I said the word sex.
“A patron doesn’t own you, Cash. They don’t get to decide what you do with your life because they helped pay for it. They don’t decide where you live, what job you take, who you date, or what you do with your life or your body. You can tell your patron no.”
“Even when they’re paying for everything?”
“Especially then.”
He stared at me as if I’d started speaking another language.
“Halo House is supposed to give people enough stability to make their own choices. Patronage is part of that. The whole point is to give you more control over your life, not hand control over to someone else.”
Cash went quiet.
His gaze dropped to the papers I’d placed beneath the surgical binder.
“What’s that?”
I looked down at the report.
For the first time since stopping at the accountant’s office, I wondered if bringing it had been a mistake.
“Something I thought would convince you I wasn’t offering to pay for your surgery because I felt sorry for you.”
His jaw tightened.
“I’m thinking it was a stupid idea.”
“What is it?”
I slid the report across the table.