Chapter 17 #2
A pause. Tiny enough most people wouldn’t have noticed, but I’d spent most of my life watching a puck come at me at ninety miles an hour. Goalies noticed everything.
“I’m sure,” he said dryly, but the corner of his mouth twitched before he took another drink.
His attention shifted toward the tree, and he stopped with the mug halfway back to his mouth. His gaze moved over the presents underneath it before returning to me. “What’re those?”
“Presents.” The man could be completely adorable when flustered. And the way he stared at the presents I’d ordered and wrapped for him put him firmly in the gasted-his-flabber realm.
“Who for?” he asked, the shock and disbelief lightening his mood to something close to the ceiling.
“You, unless somebody else named Thad lives here.”
“Cash.” My name came out quieter than I expected, and something about his face made my stomach tighten.
Fuck. No. We weren’t doing that.
“They’re mostly little shit.” I waved my mug toward the tree. “Don’t make it weird.”
His eyebrows went up. “I’m not making it weird.”
“You’re doing the face.”
“What face?”
“The one that’s about to make me regret buying you shit. Open a fucking present.”
That got me a smile. “Which one?”
“Small one first.”
“You have an order?”
“Of course I have an order.”
Thad shook his head as he crossed to the tree. “God forbid I disrupt the system.”
“Now you’re learning. If I have to adhere to your system, you can open presents in order.”
He smirked as he came back with the small package and sat beside me. I lifted my leg without thinking. Thad caught my ankle just as automatically, settling my leg across his lap before he started on the paper.
My eyes dropped to his hands. The same warm fingers that wrapped around his dick last night wound around my ankle this morning. The same thumb resting near the edge of my brace, tracing my leg, had gathered precum from his tip. No hesitation. No awkwardness. Nothing different because of last night.
Thank God. I’d worried so much that things would get weird.
He opened the first present and laughed. “Seriously?”
“Your old one is disgusting.”
“There is nothing wrong with it.”
“There are approximately eight million things wrong with it. Starting with the fact that I’ve seen you scrape burned shit off it with a knife.”
Thad turned the new grill scraper over in his hand. “It’s a grill scraper.”
“It’s a good grill scraper.”
“You researched grill scrapers, didn’t you?”
“I had time. And you’re a loaded doctor. Quit using nasty shit when you can afford to replace things.”
His laugh followed me as I pointed him toward the next present.
The case of hot sauce got a raised eyebrow.
“You keep putting that shit on your eggs,” I said.
“I do.”
“And then bitching when you run out.”
“I don’t bitch.”
“You stood in front of the refrigerator last week and said, ‘Goddammit,’ like somebody had stolen your kidney.”
“I was making breakfast.”
“You were grieving.”
Thad laughed again, and fuck, I liked that sound too much.
The third package was coffee. Not the shit we drank every morning. The good stuff he’d brought home once and then complained was impossible to find locally.
He read the label, then looked at me. “Where did you find this?”
“The internet, Grandpa.”
“I know how the internet works, you little prick.”
“Congratulations.”
His thumb rubbed over the label before his gaze lifted to mine again. There was that fucking look.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was going to say thank you.”
“Oh.” I shifted against the sectional. “Well. Don’t get emotional about it.”
His smile softened. “Thank you, Cash.”
“Yeah, yeah. Bigger one.”
By then, he’d figured me out. His gaze went to the box beneath the tree before he carefully moved my leg off his lap and went to retrieve it. When he came back, I held my foot up until he caught it again.
That earned me a look.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He rolled his eyes with a smile and settled my leg back across him before tearing into the package. The second he lifted the lid, he laughed.
There it was.
That sound made the hours I’d spent looking for the damn thing worth it.
“A Notre Dame hoodie,” he said.
“And a couple of T-shirts. You wear the same two fucking Notre Dame shirts all the time.”
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do. Turn it around.”
Still smiling, he pulled it free and flipped it over.
VALE stretched across the shoulders. His old number beneath it.
The smile changed.
His fingers moved over the lettering, slower this time, and something warm settled behind my ribs.
“I had to look that shit up,” I said.
Thad glanced at me. “Did you?”
“You weren’t exactly famous.”
“Fuck you, asshole.”
“You made up for it. You’re a lot more famous now.”
“I found my calling,” he said, his voice barely a croak as he looked back at the hoodie, his thumb tracing his old number. The expression on his face made the stupid warm thing behind my ribs spread.
“You shouldn’t’ve.”
“It wasn’t expensive,” I said.
His eyes immediately came up.
Shit.
I pointed at the last package. “Open that one.”
“Cash.”
“Don’t.”
Something passed over his face before he nodded. He didn’t push. He just moved my leg again and went for the thin package beneath the tree.
The nerves hit as soon as I saw it in his hands.
The other stuff had been easy. Things I’d noticed. Things he’d use. Things that would make him laugh.
This one felt different.
Maybe because I’d gone looking for it.
Thad sat down and started peeling back the paper. I watched his hands instead of his face until they stopped moving.
Shit.
The framed photograph rested in his palms.
Notre Dame. His team at the Frozen Four.
There were plenty of pictures of him online. Dr. Thaddeus Vale standing at podiums. Thad in scrubs. Thad at medical conferences. Thad looking serious as fuck beside people who looked equally serious as fuck.
Then I’d found that one.
Years younger. Helmet off. Arm around a teammate. Grinning like an idiot.
I leaned over and tapped the glass. “There.”
Thad’s eyes followed my finger.
“You look happy there.”
His throat moved before he answered. “I was.”
“I figured you should have one in the house.”
He looked at me, and suddenly, the room felt too fucking warm.
“It wasn’t—”
“Don’t,” he said softly.
I shut my mouth.
Thad looked at the picture again. His thumb moved over the edge of the frame before he carefully set it on the table. Then his hand found my ankle again.
“Thank you.”
There wasn’t a joke anywhere in his voice. Nothing for me to grab onto and throw back at him.
“Yeah.” I picked up my coffee and looked toward the tree because looking at him seemed like a terrible fucking idea. “So, where are you putting it?”
“My office.”
My head whipped around so fast he laughed.
“Asshole.”
“I’m kidding.”
“Dick.”
“Living room.”
“Better.”
He was still smiling when he moved my leg off his lap and stood.
“Where are you going?”
“To get your presents.”
I frowned. “What presents?”
“Yours.”
“Where the fuck are they?”
“In the car.”