Page 106 of The Goalie in Room 1

“But I’ll be here Wednesday.”

“Oh.” He adjusted his grip on his crutches. “Yeah, I will too.”

“Good. As much as it sucks, you can’t rehab that hip on your own any more than you can protect the crease without your defense.”

He gave me a look that said I could go fuck myself, then followed his therapist into the hallway.

Matteo waited until the door shut. “Interesting.”

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your face did.”

He wrapped the ice pack around my knee. “Oh! You mean my shitty face?”

“The very one.”

By the time Matteo released me, the swelling had gone down enough to make the second crutch feel like an overreaction. But I kept using it anyway. Three surgeries had finally taught me that embarrassment hurt less than starting over.

I had the rideshare drop me off at Halo, instead of going home.

Home.

The word came too easily now. Way too easily. What should’ve felt good, instead lodged beneath my ribs like a knife. Sharp. Painful. Devastating.

All because I let myself hope.

Thad’s house had been mine for months. Every morning. Every night. Every miserable fucking step between the bed and the bathroom when I couldn’t even make it there on my own because my damn knee wouldn’t hold me. Thad had been there for it all.

I’d known it wouldn’t last. I’d understood. He was chief of surgery. People needed him. And Thad’s life swallowed him whole again the minute I was getting around well enough that he could step away.

Understanding was different from accepting, though, and neither kept it from hurting when the person you trusted and wanted with you no longer was. I’d learned that early in life. Too early.

It made me question so many things too. Not my feelings for him. Those had roared into my life like a biker gang—loud, persistent, and confident. No. It made me question if I’d only been a project for him to complete. A broken man to heal and nothing more.

The car pulled into Halo House’s driveway and slowed to a stop. Phoenix looked up when I came through the door. His gaze dropped to the second crutch, then returned to my face.

“Before you ask, I didn’t fuck up my knee.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.”

“You were thinking it.”

“I was thinking you look like you’re trying very hard not to be upset about something.”

“That’s just my face,” I snarked, stealing Matteo’s line.

He didn’t smile, but then neither did I.

Phoenix stepped aside, giving me room to get past him. “Want coffee?”

“I’d rather have fall-on-my-face drunk instead.”

He stared at me, then said, “Coffee it is.”

I followed him into the kitchen, lifting my leg onto the seat next to me after I lowered myself into a chair. He filled a mug, set it in front of me, then took the seat across from mine.