Felix was lying on the bed, the scrub nurses scurrying about with their usual grade-A level efficiency, setting up his surgical sheets, prepping the cameras, monitors and trays.
Brooke came in behind me. “He’s drawn quite the audience.”
“Yeah, it’s bizarre.”
“No, it’s not.” She squashed into me as someone moved behind her to walk into the gallery, squatting on the floor when they couldn’t find a seat. “So how long has this been going on?”
“With Felix?”
She nodded.
“It’s recent, sort of.”
Her eyes filled with questions, and I was about to admit, out loud, what I’d never told anyone. Except Felix. I hadn’t even spoken to my brother or the girls since I’d left them gawping at our exit from the club on New Year’s Eve. I’d been too pre-occupied with all of the sex. Last count, I had two hundred and seventeen messages on the group chat thread, currently unread.
“He’s one of my brother’s best friends, they’ve played together since their rookie days, but I’ve been in love with him since the first day I saw him and I ignored my feelings for twelve years. Then he kissed me when he had his accident.”
Her hands clapped together with unadulterated glee. “Oh my God, that is incredible. Tell me it’s good.”
I nodded, holding back the smile which would broadcast to everyone exactly how good it really was. “It’s good.”
Silence descended on the gallery as Hunter and Jameson had entered the OR. Felix nodded to Hunter’s questions before the anesthesiologist got to work and he slipped into unconsciousness. Hunter looked up at me as he held his hand out for the scalpel, staring at me unblinking, until his fingers wrapped around the blade handle and he looked away.
And suddenly, nerves sliced through my body as he made his first incision. Nerves I’d never felt, nerves I had no business feeling. And it had nothing to do with being in love with Felix, or maybe it had everything to do with it.
Two months ago that had been me down there, single-mindedly working to fix Felix with laser focus. That had been my only goal. But a lot had happened in two months. A lot had changed, including me.
I was not the same person I’d been before that day.
And all because of the man on the table, currently having a camera inserted into his knee.
The love of my life. The man of my dreams. My best friend.
Maybe, just maybe, Hunter had been right.
But instead of losing my focus, it had merely shifted. And the bigger problem wasn’t getting it back, it was whether I even wanted it back in the first place.
And if I did, how I would balance the two.
Chapter 34
Nora removed the final acupuncture needle from my knee and placed it in her sharps box.
“You can get up now.”
As had become routine over the last week, she took the pen from behind her ear and wrote in her notepad, making little humming noises as she did. She didn’t speak much and I hadn’t quite worked her out yet, but Coach had been spot on when he said she was the best. She’d pushed me through every session, and then followed up with acupuncture, which I’d never had before. I still wasn’t entirely sure what it did, but my knee felt good. And as long my knee felt good, she could do whatever the fuck she wanted to it.
“This is looking good, Felix. How are you feeling?” She wrapped the cryocuff back around my knee, the cold working to keep the swelling down.
I swung my leg over the side of the bed. “Not bad. I was expecting it to be more painful, but I think the tiny needles are doing the trick.”
She looked at me like I’d only just discovered the sky is blue and grass is green. “They are. They help the blood flow and reduce inflammation.”
Okay then. I nodded, like an idiot, and she went back to her notepad.
“Where did you learn?”
The pen went behind her ear again. “I studied Chinese medicine in Asia for a year, then at OCOM in Portland. Then I studied physical therapy at Duke, and I realized that I could combine the two.”
