Page 30 of The Goalie in Room 1

“A small one.”

“Well…I’ve played against worse odds and won.”

“This isn’t a game.

“No. It’s just my motherfucking life.”

Resignation washed over me. I worried he still didn’t comprehend the warnings I’d voiced. “I know,” I said.

“Then fix it.”

I refused to agree to that. “I can operate. And I’ll give you the best knee I reasonably can, but what happens after that… Well, that’s up to your body and how well it responds.”

“Let me try. Just give me a shot.”

I stared at him. Finally, I said, “If we do this, you follow the rehabilitation protocol to a T. No trying to push because you think you’re healing. You don’t rush things. You don’t argue. You never mask the pain or the swelling. You don’t decide you’re ready on your own. And if your knee tells us it’s had enough, or it can’t tolerate a progression, we listen.”

“We?” he asked with a smirk. That flirty look from the club heated his face and the air between us, and I realized what I said.

I swallowed, reminded my dick that doing this meant he was off-limits, and said, “Your medical team.” I cleared my throat.

His gaze stayed locked on mine, making me fight the urge to squirm. The smirk grew. “And if I get through it all? I can play again?”

I hesitated. His eyes caught it. “We’ll reassess.”

“And if I can skate…”

A groan grew in my throat. “This is what I’m talking about. The pushing⁠—”

“Doc, I get it. I’m just asking.”

“We will reassess at every step.”

“And if I pass them?”

I hesitated, and his eyes narrowed. “I won’t stop you simply because you’re disproving the predictions I made. If you meet and bypass each hurdle the team puts in front of you, then you’ll progress.”

Cash went silent, his eyes bouncing between mine as if searching⁠—

“You mean that. You promise you won’t move the fucking goalposts?”

“That I can promise.”

“You won’t change your mind?”

“No, Cash. If you demonstrate your knee can safely tolerate the demands of goal-tending on an increasingly elite level, then the evaluation will be based on the progress, not on proving I was right.”

Determination the likes of which I had never seen overtook his face. And that was saying something considering my patient list. It turned me on and scared me all at once.

“Let’s do the surgery.” Before I could fall back to the warnings, he held up his hand. “I got it, Doc. You want me to understand, and I do.”

I wasn’t completely convinced, but I held my tongue. Cash smirked, a cocky confidence joining the determination. He leaned toward me. “You think the odds are against me, and they are. But they’re not zero.”

“No. They’re not.”

The smirk bloomed into a face-changing smile, but instead of being fueled by happiness, the emotion that bled through was pure stubbornness. The kind the doctors and treatment teams had documented in his medical records. “Good. I prefer it that way.”

“What?” I asked, confused as to what he meant.