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“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded. I searched the room until my eyes landed on Aravind. He was there in his obnoxiously sexy, tight jeans and one of his infamous sweaters that never stayed up on both shoulders. This one was chunky, like it had been hand knitted out of pure wool or something.

The brown really brought out his eyes, and uhg, that was so fucking annoying that he was pretty. That full mouth begging to be kissed, those hands begging to touch…

He smirked. “Tell me how you really feel?”

Marde! Was I speaking out loud? I wanted the earth to swallow me whole now, please and thank you.

“Uh…why are you here?” I repeated.

He sighed and set his hand on the bed next to my leg. “For the scoop, obviously. And, ah…to make sure you were okay. We were at the game, and my dad and I were worried.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. My tongue still felt weird. “But you’re…here.”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “Which is a good thing, right? You just said you couldn’t see the scans⁠—”

“Look, if you’re going to give me shit about my eyes right now⁠—”

“No. God, I’m not that much of a dick.” I would beg to differ, but he sounded actually offended, so maybe he did have some kind of moral line.

“Mr. Na-doh,” the doctor said.

“It’s Nadeau,” Aravind corrected, pronouncing it like he’d been speaking Quebecois his entire life.

The doctor cleared his throat. “Would you like me to ask your guest to leave? We have a policy about reporters in the hospital, especially when it comes to our more public figures.”

The idea of Aravind leaving me alone sent panic racing up my spine, and my whole face started to go numb. “No. Please stay.”

He must have heard the panic in my voice because he shifted up closer to the head of the bed, and his hand rested over mine. God, his skin was soft. I doubt he’d done a single second of manual labor his entire life.

His thumb stroked over mine, and the motion was soothing enough that my body began to relax.

“Alright,” the doctor said after a beat. “I’m going to put your scans up on this screen. You, ah—you can’t see it?”

I squinted, but computer images were the worst for me. It was fine if it was white on black and magnified so big that there were only a few words visible at a time, but this was a mess.

“No, not really.”

“That’s alright. The image is showing your knee. It looks like you have a pretty significant tear to both menisci. You can wait to see if they’ll heal on their own, but I highly recommend surgery if you want a shot at getting back on the ice.”

If I wanted a shot? Like…like it wasn’t a guarantee?

My stomach twisted almost violently, and I fought the urge to throw up all over my legs. “Um…”

“How long until he’ll know if he can play again?” Aravind asked.

The doctor was quiet for so long I wanted to shake the answer out of him. Then he cleared his throat. “I would say with the level of tear, your age, and the fact that you play a contact sport and are already hard on your body, minimum six months for full healing, and then probably some rehab after that to see what your knee will tolerate.”

“Oh,” I whispered. It felt like a heavy weight was crushing my chest.

“But that doesn’t mean you won’t recover faster. I’ve seen athletes bounce back from a lot worse,” the doctor said. “Which is why I recommend starting treatment immediately.”

Licking my lips, I realized my whole mouth was dry, but I had no idea if I had water. I clenched my hands in the sheets and let myself feel the weight of Aravind’s fingers on the back of my wrist. “Do you think I’ll actually recover⁠—”

“I’m not going to answer that,” the doctor interrupted. “I’m going to refer you to the ortho surgeon, who will perform the surgery and continue to see you afterward. He’ll have a much better idea than I ever could.”

The answer made me furious, even if it was fair. He didn’t want to give me false hope, and he didn’t want to scare me into thinking that my entire career was over.

“I’m going to give you a few minutes. I’ll send in the nurse with your next dose for the pain.”