Page 59 of The Goalie in Room 1

The bottle I was pulling out of the cooler dropped back into the water, making it splash over the sides, wetting the rug. I cleared my throat. “A few hours.”

“How many?”

“Cash—”

“I remember Michael being there at one point. And Davina. At least I think it was them. I didn’t see them, but I think it was their voices I remember hearing. I remember you talking to whoever it was.” His brow furrowed in confusion. “Then I woke up again, and you were still there.”

“You took longer than expected to become consistently alert. Your oxygen saturation kept dropping. Your heart rate was slow, and you were nauseated.”

“But I was in recovery.”

“Yes.”

“With nurses.”

“The best ones.”

“And Michael.”

I sighed, scratching the back of my head. “Yes. Off and on. Michael doesn’t work for me. He works for the surgical center and had other surgeries yesterday.”

A surgical center I owned, but didn’t manage. I left that up to the hospital.

His gaze never wavered. “So why were you still there?”

I busied myself checking the cold-therapy unit, although it didn’t need anything yet. “I wanted to make sure you were stable.”

“Do you stay beside every patient until they’re stable?”

“Every patient is stable before they leave recovery.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

No, it wasn’t. Cash had spent most of our time together searching for the transaction hidden beneath every offer. The cost. The debt. The point at which kindness became something he would have to repay. A half-answer or partial truth would only give him another reason to keep searching.

“No, I don’t stay with all my patients. But then again, you knew that. You know why I stayed. You’re just still looking for other explanations and hidden meanings. I stayed because it was you. And not because of Halo House or because you’re my patient. I stayed because something is brewing between us that intrigues me. You intrigue me. You also turn me on and frustrate the fucking hell out of me,” I said, my gaze locked on his face.

The air changed between us, becoming charged with something I couldn’t name but could see Cash felt too.

He looked away first. “I need coffee.”

“You need breakfast,” I groused, helping him to his feet before handing him his crutches.

Braced leg held out in front of him, he took off out of the guest room toward the kitchen, calling out, “I need coffee before I can survive breakfast.”

“That sounds like a dependency.”

“Says the man who has multiple coffeemakers in his kitchen. Don’t think I didn’t clock the old-fashioned pot, the French press, the fancy single-use pod maker, and the expensive as fuck espresso maker that probably costs more than one of my AHL paychecks.”

“Mine is a carefully managed medical necessity.”

“So, mine’s a character flaw?” he asked, turning to face me.

“Obviously,” I stated, drowning in the electric-blue of his gaze. His quiet laugh loosened something in my chest. I stood before I did something foolish, like touching his face simply because I wanted to.

“I’ll make coffee.”

“Thad?”