Page 58 of The Goalie in Room 1

I looked at him incredulously. “You’ve got to be joking. Right? You’re not seriously suggesting you would have stayed in a water-damaged room that probably needs mold remediation?”

I swore under my breath at the razor-sharp edge in my voice, but I refused to take back what I said. Not even knowing that I was exhausted and Cash was in pain. A pain that racked his body until he shook with it, even though he pretended he wasn’t.

I took a deep breath. My hand snagged on the waves in my thick hair when I dragged it over my face and head.

“Get some sleep, if you can,” I said as gently as possible. “We can fight about your insanity around independence while wearing a locked hinged leg brace when you’re not sweating through the sheets and mattress in my guest room.”

“At least the mattress is good,” he said with a yawn. “But the sheets are ugly.”

“They’re just gray.”

Another yawn followed by, “Yes. Exactly. Ugly.”

Cash’s eyes drifted shut, and I sighed. The pain carved grooves between his brows. The medicine wouldn’t eliminate the pain. Not even the shot I offered would. Given his sensitivity to the anesthesia, nothing I could safely give him at home would.

That sensitivity kept me up, watching him like a hawk, fingers crossed and a prayer on my lips. Rescue meds stood ready—in the nightstand, the kitchen, my car, the SUV. But as the medication took hold, the deep crease between his eyes softened, and the still-too-rapid breaths I’d been listening to extra closely evened out. Not quite as much as I would’ve liked, but enough that I didn’t have to fight myself to stay put and not run for my stethoscope and the pulse ox I had in my medical bags. One in the house, one in each car. With Cash in the house and having had issues coming to yesterday, I seriously contemplated adding one to this room and every floor of the house.

The last sight I remembered from the night, before sunlight streaming through the windows woke me, was the soft muttering of my name as the last vestiges of pain left Cash’s face. I sat up, my back protesting the move, cracking and popping like rice cereal as my feet dropped softly to the floor between the bed and the chair that would be replaced with my Eames chair and ottoman from my room. I could order another, but the medieval torture device I spent the night in would be leaving this house today if I had any say in the matter.

“That sounded painful.”

My eyes flew to Cash’s face. He looked ten times better than he had last night. I glanced at the clock and back at his face. The telltale groove between his brows was back. Nowhere near where it had been, but enough that he needed more medication and to have his frozen water bottles replaced ASAP.

But first, I snarked back, “Excellent observation skills, kid.” I stretched, popping my back and neck further. “But the decorator failed to mention that this chair was designed only to be seen and not used.”

“I doubt you can lay your creaking and cracking at their feet. I’m sure they meant for the chair to be used for its designated purpose. I’m sure they filled a house this big with furniture meant for sleeping other than the one I’m lying in.”

God, he was a brat. A beautiful, sexy, troublemaking brat who made me smile and my dick throb painfully. Ignoring the issue he’d caused in my pants, I stood, handed him all the bottles for his morning meds, and then helped him sit up with his back cushioned against the pillows and headboard.

“Take those while I change out the ice⁠—”

“Can you help me up first?” he asked softly as I turned to the door with the water bottles from the cold-therapy unit.

I almost asked why, then nodded. “Of course,” I said, grabbing the crutches that leaned against the wall between the bed and nightstand.

“If I’d seen those, I wouldn’t be sitting here about to piss myself.”

“Sorry, I should’ve pointed them out,” I apologized, helping him to his feet. “Don’t⁠—”

He laughed mirthlessly. “I know, Doc. Old hat at this. Remember?”

An embarrassed laughed burst from me while heat painted my face, making me uncomfortably warm. “Right. Sorry.”

“No worries,” he said, moving slowly but surely through the bedroom to the bathroom.

He shut the bathroom door, and I picked up the water bottles, but I worried about leaving him in the bathroom while I went to the kitchen. Finally, I realized how ridiculous I was being and walked out of the room.

When I returned, Cash sat in the chair I’d slept in at the end of the bed, his right leg stretched out on the mattress, his left foot on the floor, while his bare torso drew my gaze.

“I can’t believe you slept in this chair. It’s uncomfortable to even sit in.”

“Maybe I’m a tiny bit of a masochist,” I muttered.

The chair was the least of the evidence to support that statement. I put the man I wanted to fuck but couldn’t in my house. A man who apparently didn’t like to wear a shirt and whose naked chest turned off the filter between my brain and mouth. I could’ve hired a nurse or sent him to a rehab facility, but no. I put him in my car, drove him the hour to my house, cooked him dinner, and slept in the most uncomfortable chair on this planet when I had a top-of-the-line bed upstairs.

His eyes twinkled and a smile tugged at his mouth. The little shit. Squatting, I opened the cooler to avoid being even more seen.

“How long did you stay yesterday? In recovery.”