Lake grumbled again, louder, but still indiscernible thoughts. She turned to the side, gesturing for Thad to come inside. “Thaddeus Westbrook, meet Cage Monaghan. Cage, this is Thad, my nosy boss.”
“Hi.” I smiled, making my best effort to give him the benefit of every doubt I held in my head.
“I’m a huge fan.” He smiled, but at the same time I saw the protective look in his eyes—the one only another guy would notice. Thad thought I was infringing on his territory, and Lake was oblivious to it.
“Really?” Lake narrowed her eyes at him.
Thad gave her a quick look before returning his attention to me. “Yes. I actually have several patents on knee braces that will put injured players back on the field in half the time with limited risk of further injury.” He shrugged. “I watch a lot ofsports. It’s research.”
“I’ve been pretty lucky so far, no major injuries.”
“It’s not if, it’swhen, but I’m sure you know that.”
I nodded. Of course I knew that, but I didn’t like to dwell on the unknown.
“You coming to watch Lake in action tomorrow? Jerry Chu is fitting her for a kick-ass fin and a climbing limb too. She’s a natural at everything she attempts to do. That’s one of the reasons I hired her. She’s fearless.” He rested his hand on her lower back.
I didn’t like that either.
“I’d love to, but I don’t want to be in the way or be a distraction.”
Her eyes shifted to me, but she didn’t say anything. One of the things I noticed right away when we first met was how her emotions revealed in her eyes or her smile before she ever said a word. She literally looked honest. However, at that moment she revealed nothing.
“Anything else, Thad?”
His tight-browed expression mirrored my own confusion. After a few moments of unspoken words between them, Thad turned toward the door. “Huge pleasure to have met you, Cage.” Thad continued to eye Lake.
“You too.”
“Be good.” He tapped the tip of one of his robotic fingers on Lake’s nose twice before disappearing out the door.
She closed it and rested her back against it.
“Sorry, he’s …him.”
I shrugged. “He seems fine. You don’t like him?”
Her brows rose. “No, of course I like him. I would never work for someone I didn’t like. Life’s too short for that misery.He’s just…” She grazed her teeth along her bottom lip over and over. It was a new side to her, a truly nervous gesture.
“Tell me.”
She looked up and blew out a slow breath that made her hair shift away from her forehead. “Thaddeus has seen a very vulnerable side of me. He’s watched me stumble and fall more times than I can count. Last year he saved me from drowning in a pool when a fin-type prosthetic fell off during my first lap. Of course I could swim just fine without it, but it freaked me out in that moment. It was not a ‘fearless’ moment for me.”
“He sings your praises quite well.”
She nodded slowly.
“I don’t have to go tomorrow. This is your job. We can meet up later when you’re done.”
“Wanna watch TV?”
I took that as a ‘yes, we’ll meet up later and stop talking about it now.’
“Sure.”
LAKE
My mom gaveme six months after the accident to grieve, to regret, to feel sorry for myself. I took every single day. Nothing I did during those six months brought Ben back, or my leg, or the dreams I believed to be the purpose of my life. She could have given me ten years and on the first day of the eleventh year the outcome would have been the same: no Ben, no leg, shattered dreams.
