Chapter 18 #2
Some nights I’d come home to find light under his door and the sounds of whatever game he was playing. I never knocked. We hadn’t seen each other all day, and knocking felt like admitting how much that bothered me.
I wasn’t that pathetic.
Yet.
I craved the days when we’d spent most of our time together, laughing, cooking, flirting. But working fourteen-hour days meant I missed all the best parts of his day.
I glanced at the clock on the dash as I pulled up in front of the garage. Not even eleven. I’d made it home before the late shows came on for once.
I left the car in the driveway and went inside through the front door.
“Cash?” I called as I stepped into the kitchen.
No answer.
I dropped my keys, wallet, and phone on the island, then shrugged out of my jacket and hung it over the back of a barstool. The house was quiet, but not sleeping quiet.
Empty quiet.
My gaze went to the hallway where we’d been sleeping since his surgery. I already knew he wasn’t there, but I checked his room anyway.
Empty.
“Fuck.”
He’d had an appointment today. I knew because it had been on the office schedule, and my fellow had updated me while I scrubbed between surgeries.
My stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten since before lunch, and the last thing I wanted to do was cook. I opened the refrigerator and stopped. A container sat on the middle shelf, front and center and eye level. A piece of tape stuck on the top had OLD MAN scrawled across it.
The little shit.
I smiled despite myself. The smile turned to an eye roll when I saw underneath the OLD MAN he’d written in tiny block letters identical to the others, only smaller.
YOU’RE WELCOME.
“Damn brat,” I laughed.
I didn’t even look to see what he’d left me. Instead, I popped the top, stuck it in the microwave, and hit the quick cook.
I hated this.
For weeks, I’d known every medication and when he took it. I’d known when and how much he slept. What he ate. Whether his knee swelled or changed after an exercise. I knew how many times he swore during a set of leg raises.
Now I knew he’d had an appointment in my own office only because it showed up on my schedule, scrawled on the same paper where my travel mug lived.
This was what we were working toward. I loved it. For him. For me…I fucking hated it. It sucked. I was not a fan.
Headlights swept across the kitchen windows before a vehicle pulled away from the house. “Doc?” Cash called out over the ding of the microwave.
My head snapped up to find Cash shutting the front door, wearing a hoodie—mine. The ratty old Notre Dame hoodie he replaced at Christmas hung loosely over athletic pants, his brace visible under the fabric. A single crutch propped him up as he leaned into it.
One crutch.
I stared at it, then at him, and back at it.
His mouth curled. “What? No hello?”
I took a deep breath. Tired and frustrated and worried. All the emotions that made me irritable. “Hello. What happened to the other crutch?”
Cash looked over his shoulder, searching the area as if he expected to find it following him all on its own. Then he pivoted on the sole crutch in a wobbly but decent circle. I would’ve said something, but he kept the right leg off the ground as he did so, not that it negated the risk he took.
“Shit,” he said. “Did I lose one?”
I clenched my teeth. “Cash,” I warned.
His grin widened. The boy confused the fuck out of me. No matter my mood, he stayed smiley.
“They dropped me to one.”
A protest threatened to erupt, but then my brain caught up.
I knew this. I’d read his chart. I lived with him.
His progression had been going well—better than expected, according to every update from the rehab team.
None of that stopped the throat punch of seeing him walk into my house with one crutch instead of two.
He crossed the room toward me.
Slowly.
Carefully.
My eyes tracked his gait anyway.
“You can stop analyzing my gait anytime, Daddy.”
Fuck me. Every time he said that word, I wanted to smother him in care and affection. And I just as badly wanted to fuck him until he was a crying, snot-faced mess begging to come.
“No,” I said once I felt more in control of my reaction to him. His brows climbed, and I smiled. “I’m enjoying this.”
“It’s creepy as fuck, Doc,” he said, popping open the microwave when the reminder ding sounded.
I turned to face him, my hip resting against the island. “You’ve spent months trying to get me to stare at your ass.”
“Ass. Not gait, Doc.”
“I can appreciate both.”
Cash barked out a laugh.
There.
Fuck, I’d missed that.
“How long did you put this in for?” he asked, holding up the food he pulled out of the microwave.
I shrugged.
“It’s dry. Like so dry it looks like you tried to make jerky.” He tossed it out and said, “You’re not eating that. You cooked it so long you’d need to soak it for a month to be able to chew it.”
He leaned the crutch against the island and pulled out his phone, tapping some buttons, then said, “Food’s ordered.”
I nodded, then noticed how he was standing. Looking down again, I stated, “Brace got unlocked too.”
He nodded, bending his knee slightly. Not much, but enough. Warmth spread through my chest.
“That’s good.”
“Good?” His face screwed up. “That’s it? Where’s my cautiously encouraged speech? The lecture about how this doesn’t mean I’m ready to strap on skates tomorrow? Maybe a PowerPoint?”
“I can prepare one.”
“Of course you can.”
“I’ll add graphics.”
“Fuck you.”
“I wish,” I muttered. The words slipped out before I could stop them.
I went still, and so did Cash. His eyes locked with mine, and Christmas Eve flashed through my head.
My bedroom.
His face when he caught me.
Then his bedroom.
His hand.
His cock.
Seven fucking weeks after surgery and somehow the two of us had managed to turn mutual masturbation—separately, thank Christ—into some sort of fucked-up holiday tradition.
Cash’s tongue slid over his bottom lip.
“Someday, Doc,” he said, cupping my face with a soft, sad smile before grabbing his crutch. “I’m showering.”
My attention snapped back to him. I hated the immediate memory his words dragged up.
Wet blond hair.
Water running over his chest.
His head tipped back beneath my hands.
I choked on a groan that got stuck in my throat.
I watched him walk all the way out of the kitchen, my eyes following his ass in the athletic pants he wore. The way they hugged the globes that bounced under the fabric wiped my mind of everything but the sight of him wet, hard, and moaning…
“Fuck,” I growled, scrubbing my hands over my face.
“Yeah, Doc. I’m doing that too,” he yelled from the hallway.