Page 116 of The Goalie in Room 1

I glanced at him. “Yes.”

I locked the phone and shoved it into my pocket.

Everything was fucking perfect.

Cash had been asleep when I left that morning and was gone when I returned home after ten. The brace wasn’t in his bedroom. It wasn’t beside the sectional or near the front door.

I found it in the back of his closet. Not thrown there. Put away. Finished.

I stood staring at it until a car door closed outside. Laughter carried faintly through the front of the house before the door opened.

“Doc?”

I left Cash’s room and met him in the hallway. He walked toward me without the brace, without a crutch — care in every step, a slight stiffness he’d probably carry until his strength came all the way back. But no brace. No crutch. Just Cash.

Knowing didn’t prepare me for seeing him.

He stopped a few feet away. “You okay?”

“The brace is off.”

His mouth tipped upward. “Very observant.”

“Permanently.”

“That’s usually what discontinued means.”

“I know what it means.”

“I figured, what with the medical degree and all.”

I should have laughed. Instead, I kept staring at him.

His smile faded.

“Thad.”

He stood in front of me on his own.

“You did it,” I said.

His throat moved. “Not all of it.”

“No. But this part.”

His eyes went bright before he looked down at his leg. “Yeah.”

I closed the space between us and pulled him against me.

Cash came without hesitation.

His arms circled my waist. Mine locked around his shoulders, holding him close enough that I felt the full weight of him against me.

No crutch keeping space between us.

No brace pressing against my leg.

Cash.