Chapter 11
CASH
“Doc?” I asked, cotton-mouthed and fuzzy-headed, vision swimming and stomach churning.
“I’m right here.” His voice, rough as if he’d been asleep, came to me through the fog.
My head followed his voice, but all I found was a fuzzy blob, my eyes not able to bring him into focus. Closing them, I swallowed, but the lump in my throat didn’t move.
“Cash? You still with me?” he asked, a hand gripping my shoulder.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding softly to keep the headache I felt brewing at bay. “I’m here. Just tired.”
“Open your eyes.”
“No.”
He chuckled. That under-the-breath laugh. The one he reserved for when he didn’t seem to want others to know he found something funny. The one I loved.
“How’d it go?”
A scoff. “Yeah, you don’t get any info until you open your eyes.”
“Doc. Please.”
He sighed. “Perfect.”
That opened my eyes. They were still fuzzy, but clearing as I pressed myself up. My arm shook with weakness. “Perfect perfect?” I asked.
He settled me against the pillows and replied, “Lie back before you start puking again.”
“Doc, c’mon,” I complained as he tucked the blankets around me again. “Stop being a nursemaid. Tell me.”
“Yes, Cash. Perfect perfect. The repair went beautifully,” he said, sitting on a stool next to the bed I lay on.
Relief left on a loud exhale. “So it worked?”
“Cash…” He paused. “You know I can’t guarantee a return to play.”
“Please, Doc,” I begged. I needed him to tell me the possibility was there.
“If everything goes as well as the repair went, you have a shot. A small one. That’s all I’ll say.”
I groaned, nodding. “I’ll take it, Doc. I’ll take it.”
I took a couple of deep breaths and settled into the shitty mattress and flat-ass pillow under me while the effects of the anesthesia and whatever else they’d doped me up with cleared my system.
The fogginess in my brain and the heaviness of my limbs eased.
Somewhat. If somewhat was a tiny fraction of nothing.
Even with it buried under bracing, a cold-therapy wrap, and bandages, the sight of my knee made me want to hurl. Apparently I’d done that already today if Thad told the truth. And based on the bad taste in my mouth, he had.
“Can I get some water?” I asked.
He got up, patted my foot, and said, “Be right back,” before walking out to the nurse’s station. He returned moments later with a large cup of ice and a spoon, along with a bottle of water and a ginger ale.
“Ice first,” he said, giving me a look when I opened my mouth to protest.
Running my fingers over my lips, I zipped my mouth shut.
“Brat,” he said with a growl, holding out the cup of ice until I took it from him. After a bite, I lowered the cup and looked at the water.
He shook his head. “When, and I don’t mean after one bite of ice, you’ve managed to hold down the ice and not puke all over yourself, me, Michael, and whatever nurse came in to help clean you up, then and only then will we progress to something more.”
He looked dead serious, so I nodded, waiting until he gave the go-ahead to take another bite of ice. “So…I’m assuming the sleepy-time meds and I didn’t get along well if I came out of surgery puking.”
“And that was after you took an extremely long nap.”
Glancing around for a clock, I asked, “What time is it?”
“Almost five. Keep that ice down and show the recovery room staff you’re not going to croak if they discharge you, and I’ll help you blow this joint.”
“Blow this joint?” I asked, then lowered my voice and said, “I’d prefer it if you blew something else, Doc. Or let me do the blowing.”
He shook his head with a soft smile. He could act as unaffected as he wanted, but I knew better.
The flush that climbed from under his scrub top to his neck gave away how much I affected him.
As did his subtle shift of weight from one leg to the other.
If he thought it hid the effect my words had on his cock, he was sorely mistaken.
His rising excitement was on prominent display.
Unfortunately, even if he agreed to my suggestions, I couldn’t. My dick stayed soft as a pillow. But a decent pillow, not like the one under my head that did a fucking amazing job of imitating a damn rock.
Ice chips turned to ginger ale, and the weirdness in my stomach lessened as the minutes ticked by. Thad stayed by my side through it all.
“Do you play nursemaid to all your patients?”
He cocked a brow. “What do you think?”
My lips rolled into my mouth, but that didn’t keep the smile from tugging on the corners. I bit down on them. Hard.
“We do have an issue,” he said.
“Nope. Not listening to issues and shit. Not after I just got made to feel as special as a four-game shutout to clinch a playoff spot.”
He laughed. “That’s oddly specific, and it’s not too much of an issue, since I have a solution already, but you’re a grown man, and I don’t make your decisions for you…”
The “yet” echoed in the room as loudly as a home team crowed after beating their division rivals, but I let it fall flat between us and said, “What’s up, Doc?”
“Like every doctor on the face of the planet hasn’t heard that joke.”
“What joke?”
His head jerked back as he stared at me. His mouth turned into a gaping hole that beckoned flies, and I lost it. “Oh my God, the look on your face!”
“You little shit! I thought—”
“Oh, I know what you thought. But seriously, Doc, I’m not that young or that concussed. Everyone knows Bugs.”
He mumbled and dragged his hand over his face and head before swearing under his breath. “You’re a troublemaker.”
A smirk pulled one side of my face in, and I said, “Yep,” popping the P. “Now, what’s the issue?”
“You’re-gonna-stay-with-me.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re going to stay with me,” he repeated, his voice too low for me to comprehend what he said.
His face gave nothing away. He stared straight at me as if he’d said something he expected me to understand. “One more time.”
“Fuck,” he growled. “You’re staying with me.”
“Um…why?”
“Because when they were moving your things, they found water damage in the downstairs room they were turning into a bedroom for you. The water heater has been leaking, and it’s caused a lot of damage, and there’s no way you—”
“Doc! Damn, take a breath.” I interrupted him so I could wrap my head around his breathless monologue. “So the downstairs room being unavailable sucks, but…”
His face did some weird incredulous shit, and he said, “If you’re about to say you’ll just sleep upstairs, my response before you even utter those words is: are you fucking insane? You cannot risk that knee by navigating those damn stairs multiple times a day.”
I scrubbed my hands over my face while I tried to figure out what the fuck options I had. Because he was fucking right. I couldn’t take the chance. “I’ll just get a hotel room…”
“Cash, this is what patrons do. They step in—”
“How’s this supposed to work, Thad? The lines are blurred so much.”
“I know they are, but you need a place to stay, and I have plenty of room. Besides, it will work out better for you. The house is open concept. You’ll have your own bathroom…”
My head bounced off the hard-ass pillow a couple of times as I growled. I had no options. I either chanced hurting myself or I dug the hole of what I owed this man even deeper. He swore I didn’t owe him, but—
“Dammit! When the hell is life going to find someone else to fuck with?” I asked, eyes cast to the ceiling to keep the tears making my nose burn at bay.
Thad’s hand grabbed mine. “Cash, look at me,” he demanded.
Before either of us could say anything, the anesthesiologist came into the room. “How’s our patient doing?”
“Fine,” I said, lying through my teeth. “Since Dr. Vale hasn’t discharged me, are you the one I’ve gotta beg to let me out on good behavior?”
“That I am, considering the issues you had after surgery.”
Half an hour later, I was fully discharged. I sat waiting for Thad to return from wherever he disappeared— “No. Fuck no. Absolutely not,” I swore as a wheel chair rolled into the room with Thad behind it.
“What was it you said during surgery?” Thad paused, looking sharply at me before snapping his fingers. “Oh yeah! You said you’ve had three surgeries in eleven months. Which means you know there’s no way you’re walking out of a hospital.”
“This isn’t a hospital,” I grumbled.
Thad scoffed, “Maybe not the hospital proper, but we are a surgical center for the hospital. We have to abide by procedures, and even if we didn’t, I’m governed by common sense. And there’s no damn way you’re getting on crutches today.”
I huffed in frustration as the dominant tone simultaneously enraged me and turned me on, though I couldn’t decide which it did more.
I’d known it would be difficult to separate the three Thads—Dr. Vale, Thad, and silver fox Daddy—but what I hadn’t realized was just how hard making that separation would be in real time.
“Yeah.” I nodded with a sigh. “Okay.”
Getting me out of bed, into the chair, and then into the car left me a sweaty, trembling mess.
Cranky was my default since the accident and the subsequent shitstorm of my life, but that had nothing on how pissy I became when sick and in pain.
Teeth gritted, I locked my jaw to keep from biting Thad’s head off for being too helpful.
He handed me a bottle of water before pulling us out of the parking spot in the garage. “The drive’s about an hour at this time of day, if you want to sleep.”
I nodded, taking a sip of water, still worried about puking again. I fucking hated puking. I figured most people did.
“Is there anything other than clothes you need brought over from Halo House?” Thad asked as the city traffic gave way to coastal highway.
I cracked the window, the salty air filling my senses as I set my gaze on the Pacific and shook my head no. “No. Not today. Depends on how long you’re holding me hostage.”
“Hostage, huh?” Thad scoffed, rolling down his window as well.