Page 7 of The Goalie in Room 1

I laughed. “Yeah, even those of us who only lace up their skates a couple of times a month.”

She laughed, her head thrown back. “Oh, you mean the old fuckers! I didn’t know you were so self-aware, Thad. I love that for you.”

I growled at her.

“Gotta scoot. Tootles,” she said, twiddling her fingers in a wave while still laughing as she disappeared around the corner.

Thirty-nine wasn’t old, dammit. It was experienced. Distinguished.

Besides, I was still perfectly capable of doing everything I’d done at twenty-five, with the added benefit of knowing what the hell I was doing. And why I shouldn’t do the things I shouldn’t do.

My back occasionally disagreed with my opinion, giving me a second opinion while reminding me what a moron I was, but my back was an asshole. As were my hips, knees, and ankles, thanks to the years I spent pretending I was invincible like Levi and every hockey player I’d ever met.

I stripped off my cap and headed toward the locker room.

The surgery had taken longer than planned, but the reconstruction was solid. Barring complications—and the patient doing stupid shit because he felt better and decided six weeks of restrictions was merely a suggestion—he should have a good outcome.

Not a miracle.

I didn’t do miracles.

I fixed what I could.

Sometimes that meant getting an athlete back on the field.

Sometimes it meant telling one they weren’t going back.

Both were part of the job.

One was considerably more fun.

The other fucking broke my damn heart.

I retrieved my phone from my locker.

Sixty-three notifications.

Jesus Christ. Did the world blow up while I was in surgery?

I knew that wasn’t the case. This shit was the norm. Especially for surgeries during the workday. But, fuck me, sometimes it felt like five hours without Dr. Thaddeus Vale available to solve the world’s problems made up a national emergency.

Okay, maybe not the world, but with that many notifications, it certainly felt like it.

I dropped onto the bench in front of my locker while swiping the screen and scrolling through notification after notification.

I skipped responding to the emails. The intake team and my executive assistant would get through those, tagging my interns and residents. Anything they couldn’t handle, the fellows would.

Ignored the hospital notifications as well. Nothing but a bunch of bureaucracy that could wait. Being chief of surgery sucked.

The three messages from my office were ignored after a brief skim. Nothing pressing there either, just alerts that they had the fellows handle my appointments between their surgeries because I was still operating when the appointment times rolled around.

Phoenix.

That one made me pause and scroll back up to open it.

Phoenix

Maxie’s not feeling so hot. Scratchy, sore throat, headache, tired. Temp 99.4. Nothing major. Knew you’d want to know.