Page 77 of Pucking the Single Dad
Inside, our house settled into its new configuration. Three toothbrushes. Three sets of boots by the door. Three heartbeats under one roof, finally.
"Welcome home," Brad whispered into my hair.
But I'd been home since the night a storm threw a tree through my roof and into their lives. The rest was just paperwork.
Chapter 27: Brad
The x-ray hung on Dr. Rose's monitor like evidence at a murder trial. As Wrightwood's top knee specialist, she'd seen her share of career-ending injuries, but even her expression looked grim as she studied my joint—abstract art rendered in all wrong angles and spider web fractures where solid bone should be.
"See these lines?" She traced the fractures with her cursor, each one a lightning bolt through bone. "Two new stress fractures since last month. Your patella looks like a broken dinner plate held together with chewing gum and prayer."
"But it's holding."
"Brad." She spun her chair to face me, abandoning all pretense of professional distance. "Your knee isn't just damaged—it's disintegrating. You need surgery yesterday."
"Recovery time?" I kept my voice steady while my knee screamed its own diagnosis.
"Three months if we're lucky. Six before you could even think about skating. Maybe never for professional hockey."
The word 'never' hit like a crosscheck to the throat.
"Playoffs end in three weeks."
"Three more weeks could mean a wheelchair at forty. Could mean never teaching Finn to skate properly. Could mean—"
"Three. Weeks." I stood, swallowing the knife of pain that shot from ankle to hip. "I've played through worse."
"No, you haven't. This isn't a pain tolerance issue." She pulled up another image—my knee from three years ago versusnow. "See this deterioration? You're grinding bone on bone. The cartilage is gone. Gone, Brad. It doesn't grow back."
"I have a son with medical bills that look like phone numbers."
"You have a son who needs a father who can walk him down the aisle someday."
The words landed like a slap shot to the chest. But she didn't understand the math I did every night—Finn's specialist visits at $500 each, medications that insurance deemed "experimental," the emergency fund that evaporated with each hospital stay. TheAvalanche'splayoff bonuses would buy us years of breathing room. Each round we advanced meant another zero on the check.
"My contract's up after this season." The admission tasted like copper. "A player with a bad knee like this? Nobody's re-signing that. This playoff run is my last chance at real money."
"Brad—"
"Six hundred thousand if we make the finals." I gripped the exam table, knuckles white. "Do you know how many breathing treatments that buys? How many emergency room visits? How many chances for my kid to just be a kid without his dad checking bank balances?"
Dr. Rose pulled off her glasses, rubbed her eyes. "What does Serena say?"
"She doesn't know."
"You haven't told her about the new fractures?"
"She's got enough to worry about with Finn."
"That's bullshit and you know it."
I did know it. But I also knew the look in her eyes when Finn's prescriptions got denied, the way she'd started cutting coupons, the quiet math she did when his breathing got bad. We were a family built on managing crisis. I couldn't add another one.
"Three weeks," I said again, limping toward the door. "Tape it, inject it, whatever you need to do. Three weeks and then I'll let you rebuild me from scratch."
"Brad." Her voice stopped me at the door. "Your son doesn't need money. He needs you. Vertical. Mobile. Present."
"He needs both," I corrected, and left before she could see how much my hands were shaking.
