Page 22 of The Goalie in Room 1

His face interrupted that thought as one dark brow lifted, wrinkling his forehead.

Right.

World-renowned orthopedic surgeon.

Stupid question, Money. Stupid fucking question.

“So you really are that Dr. Vale,” I asked. Guess I was full of stupid fucking questions.

The man’s face did something I couldn’t read. It didn’t look bad, but it wasn’t great either. “Apparently there are multiple versions of me tonight.”

Heat climbed my neck all over again.

Fucker.

He knew exactly what he was doing if the smirk he wore meant what I thought it did. And as much as I wanted to keep flirting with the sexy silver fox standing before me that had made me feel more like myself…more like a man… than I had since my injury, there was no way I could pass up this opportunity.

“I’ve been trying to get an appointment with you.”

That wiped the amusement from his face.

“For months. I’ve seen so many doctors trying to get a referral.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “For your knee?”

“Yeah.” If he noticed the knee and the way I favored it, shouldn’t that have been obvious? But maybe not.

“Cash—”

I couldn’t let him finish that sentence. Whatever it may be. I interrupted. “Can you fix it?”

There. I asked. I got my chance. I put the request out there.

Three fucking words.

The same three words I’d wanted to ask this man for months. I just hadn’t imagined I’d ever be asking them after flirting with him and calling him Daddy. Or silver fox. Or both.

He stared at me. Just stared. I’d spoken in a rush. Maybe he hadn’t understood what I said.

“I have everything,” I blurted out. “My records are at Halo House. I even have all the imaging.”

“Cash—”

“Please…everyone keeps telling me—” I cut myself off because the emotions flooding my system, the ones I’d buried since Aaron showed up at my house with Mrs. P to do a welfare check, were too close to the surface. I gulped and swallowed and breathed deep to wrestle control back from the onslaught before I broke down in a fucking nightclub.

Dr. Vale held up his hand. “This isn’t the time or the place⁠—”

“But will you look?”

He rubbed a hand over his mouth, all the while staring at me, and with a sigh, he said, “Yes.”

Like air from a balloon, I deflated.

Yes.

He said yes.

That one fucking word…holy shit. All the stress and anxiety of trying to just get on this man’s radar drained from me. Months of doctor’s visits, tests, exams, imaging, rehab…of doubt, stress, fucking tears, and gut-wrenching agony that burned like hot knives slicing through flesh, combined with electricity pulsing through my nervous system…all the hell I’d gone through. Just over. With a single word.