Chapter 20
THAD
February
The first Saturday I had off in over a month arrived, and I woke to silence. The kind that said you were alone in the house.
For a few seconds, I lay there staring at the ceiling to be sure. No television playing too loud. No cabinets opening and closing.
Nothing.
I grabbed my phone from the nightstand. No missed calls. No messages. It was almost nine, which meant I’d slept later than I had in years.
And Cash had let me.
I pulled on a pair of sweats and went looking for him. His bedroom door stood open. The bed badly made, as usual.
In the kitchen, I opened the cabinet over the coffee maker. The print out inside the cabinet said PT at eight. Halo House was scrawled sloppily next to it.
Staring at the page, I contemplated the meaning of the addition. Did he want me to meet him there ? Or was it just a note to remind himself ? The longer I thought about it, the more I realized how long it had been since I’d been to the Halo House for anything other than a quick house call.
Shit.
I should feel bad, but I didn’t. I’d been where I belonged. Where I wanted to be.
Sighing, I pulled the canister out of the cabinet and set the coffee to brew.
I poured coffee into my travel mug before remembering I had nowhere to be. After standing there like an idiot, I dumped it into a regular mug and carried it into the living room.
Cash’s hoodie lay across the back of the sectional. One of his game controllers sat on the coffee table beside an empty water bottle. His shoes were near the door.
Evidence of Cash without any actual Cash.
I picked up the controller, set it where it belonged, then sat down with my coffee.
Five minutes later, I stood again.
There were groceries in the refrigerator. Laundry I could do. A stack of journals in my office I hadn’t read. Phoenix had been harassing me about coming to Halo House to look at whatever Maxie had done to his wrist.
I could go there.
Cash was already there.
I took another drink and stayed exactly where I was.
Showing up because Phoenix wanted a free medical opinion was one thing. Showing up because I’d woken to an empty house and didn’t know what to do with myself was fucking pathetic.
My phone rang on the table.
Phoenix.
I stared at his name before answering. “What?”
“Good morning to you too.”
“What do you need?”
“Nothing. Cash said you were off, and that you’d probably work anyway.”
“He talks too much.”
“He’s not wrong.” He paused. “Come over. We’re ordering lunch. Aaron will be here too, if he gets off in time.”
I didn’t answer right away.
Cash was walking a little steadier after every therapy appointment. Spending more time at Halo House too. Soon, he wouldn’t need a crutch at all.
Or my house.
“Possibly you,” Phoenix said, “if you can drag your miserable ass over here.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“That’s a no.” A long, awkward pause stretched between us, and he said, “Fine. Call me back when you’re ready to admit you’re scared that he’s already halfway out the door.”
He hung up before I could answer that.
I was showered and dressed twenty minutes later.
It had nothing to do with Cash.
Nothing at all.
My phone rang again as I reached for my keys. The hospital this time.
I stopped with my hand over them.
A complication. Not one of my patients, but one of my surgeons was out of town, and the patient needed an orthopedic consult. I listened, asked three questions, and already knew how the rest of my day would go.
When the call ended, I sent Phoenix a message.
Me
Can’t make it. Hospital.
His answer came almost immediately.
Phoenix
I’ll tell Cash.
I stared at the words.
I could tell Cash myself.
Before I decided whether doing that would look as pathetic as it felt, another message appeared.
Phoenix
He said he figured.
The hospital swallowed eleven hours.
By the time I got home, Cash’s shoes were beside the door again. Laughter came from the living room, followed by the unmistakable sound of something exploding through the television speakers.
He was home.
Not there. Here.
I found him sprawled across the sectional, brace off and leg stretched in front of him. He looked away from the screen when I entered.
“Hey, Doc.”
“Hey.”
“How was the consult?”
I dropped onto the opposite end of the sectional. “Long.”
“Everything okay?”
“It will be.”
Cash paused the game. “You eat?”
I nodded.
His mouth curled. “Good, we saved you something, but Aaron ate it.”
“Of course he did.”
“You could’ve come after.”
“It was late.”
“You’re home now.”
“I live here.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
Cash set the controller on the table. He shifted toward me, and the movement brought his knee close enough that I could have rested my hand on it.
I didn’t.
“I know,” I said.
His expression held mine for a moment before he looked back at the television. “You missed a hell of a day.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing major. It was just…” He shrugged. “Good.”
Good told me nothing. I wanted to know who had been there. What they’d done. What had made him laugh. Whether his knee had bothered him. How long he’d stayed on his feet.
Months ago, I wouldn’t have needed to ask. I would’ve been there for most of it.
“What made it good?”
Cash smiled, but his attention stayed on the frozen game. “You should’ve come.”
“I was working.”
“I know.”
There was no accusation in it. That made it worse.
He reached for the controller and restarted the game.
I sat beside him and watched without understanding a single fucking thing happening on the screen.
In my house.
With the man I—
Fuck.
“Thad—”
“No.”
“But they just want—”
“I don’t care. I’m going home. There are two other surgeons on call tonight. I was briefed on the patient. It isn’t life-threatening. It can wait until tomorrow. Good night.”
“Good night?” she replied, but it sounded more like a question than anything else.
When I pulled into the driveway, my heart sped up. Tonight, I pulled up to the house at the edge of dusk. Lights, what looked like all the lights in the house, shone brightly through the glass entrance, lighting up the front of the house.
Cash was home. He had to be. He never left lights on when he left the house.
I rounded the corner, both giddy with excitement and shaking with fear. Excitement won out.
Cash stood at the island with one hand braced against the counter while he stirred whatever was in the skillet. His crutch leaned against the cabinet beside him, and his sweatshirt hung over the back of a stool as if both had always belonged there.
They did belong.
He glanced over his shoulder when the door closed. Surprise widened his eyes before the corner of his mouth lifted. “You’re home.”
“I am.”
Cash looked at the clock on the wall. “Did the hospital catch fire?”
“Nope. At least not that I’m aware.”
“Someone finally revoked your privileges?”
“I finished my work and came home.”
“Weird.” He turned back to the stove, but the smile stayed on his face.
For weeks, I’d been coming home to a dark kitchen and Cash already settled in front of the television or asleep behind his closed bedroom door.
If he was even home. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed walking through the door and finding him here.
Music playing quietly. Dinner on the stove.
Cash looking pleased to see me before he remembered he wasn’t supposed to make it obvious.
I crossed the kitchen, unbuttoning and rolling up my sleeves. Mushrooms and chicken simmered in the skillet, with pasta boiling on the back burner. “How long have you been standing?”
He huffed. “There he is.”
“I’m sorry. I’m worried.”
He paused, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Not long.”
I nodded, and though I tried, the words refused to be held in, and I muttered, “That isn’t a measurement.”
His blue gaze met mine as he said, “The same could be said for the amount of time you spend at work.”
His eyes grew round, then slammed shut, and his lips rolled into his mouth.
The words hit like a sledgehammer. The blow hit so hard Cash seemed to feel it too.
He looked back at the skillet while I took the spoon from his hand and told him to sit down.
For once, he didn’t argue beyond muttering something under his breath that I didn’t catch.
He reached for his crutch, moved to the nearest stool, and watched while I finished the sauce.
“What?” I asked when I caught him staring at me with his thinking groove cutting his brows in half.
“I’m a little shocked. You came home early. You took over dinner. I was just wondering why.”
I swallowed. “Because I wanted to come home,” I said, cutting the words “to you” off before I said too much.
March
I stood in the scrub room with water running over my hands, my phone propped up. I read the note twice.
Then a third time.
I missed Cash’s appointment.
I’d blocked the time on my schedule months ago, then lost it to an emergency surgery when another attending came down with the flu.
And my fellow handled Cash’s follow-up.
Again.
And again I received the update between cases through a notation in his chart. Imaging looked good. Strength and range of motion continued to improve. The brace had been discontinued.
Exactly what I wanted to hear.
“Everything okay, Dr. Vale?” the resident beside me asked.
I glanced at him. “Yes.”
I locked the phone and shoved it into my pocket.
Everything was fucking perfect.
Cash had been asleep when I left that morning and was gone when I returned home after ten. The brace wasn’t in his bedroom. It wasn’t beside the sectional or near the front door.
I found it in the back of his closet. Not thrown there. Put away. Finished.
I stood staring at it until a car door closed outside. Laughter carried faintly through the front of the house before the door opened.
“Doc?”
I left Cash’s room and met him in the hallway. He walked toward me without the brace, without a crutch — care in every step, a slight stiffness he’d probably carry until his strength came all the way back. But no brace. No crutch. Just Cash.
Knowing didn’t prepare me for seeing him.
He stopped a few feet away. “You okay?”
“The brace is off.”