“Nope.” He shoved the phone in his front shorts pocket. “There is vital information on this phone, and I don’t want you snooping around, or worse, reconfiguring the damn thing.”
“That was one time in high school. Your laptop was a mess and only running at fifty percent capacity. I simply cleaned it up—”
“I lost half my chemistry notes.”
“No you didn’t. I put them in a file called ‘chemistry notes’ on your desktop. The reason you almost failed chem was that you didn’t take notes or study or read the notes I lent you. No matter what you think, charm and football won’t actually get you everything in life.”
He smiled his crooked smile. “Maybe not, but it got us in here, and Nurse Jeannie is bringing us dinner too. Admit it—I’m good.”
She raised a brow at him. “Do you want me to leave so you and your ego can be alone?”
“No, just try not to make too much noise and you won’t bother us.” He grinned.
“As long as it doesn’t smother my father, I’ll keep my voice down.” She glanced at his phone. “Cut the crap, Heath. We both know the reason you don’t want me to see your phone. I promise I won’t be offended by the overabundance of sexting and porn sites.” No one knew better than she how much Heath loved women … lots and lots of women. And she was totally fine with it. After all, she’d gotten over her crush on him a long time ago, and it wasn’t like she expected the most famous quarterback in the NFL to live like a monk.
So the only question was why was he being such a prude about it?
“That’s right, I’ve got an entire harem on speed dial.” Despite the flippant answer, he kept a tight grip on his phone.
She rolled her eyes. “Good for you. I swear, I won’t call any of them and try to seduce them away from you. I just want to look up some research on coma patients that I read a few months ago.”
He still looked reluctant, but seriously, what was he going to do? Deny her the chance to read about her father’s condition? Heath might be a man-whore, but his heart of gold had always been his best feature.
Sure enough, he handed her the phone. But she pretty much had to pry his fingers off the thing. And he kept a close eye on her as she brought up Google.
“Would you stop?” she demanded when she couldn’t handle being the object of his eagle-eyed stare for one second longer. “I’m staying clear of the contacts icon, and even I’m not gutsy enough to pull up your messages.” She shuddered. “All those misspelled words would drive me crazy.”
“What can I say? Sexting is a slippery slope. One minute you’re talking about touching your nipple, and the phone changes it to torching your Nippon. Or tickling your Newton. Or …”
“I get it,” she interrupted before he could get the ridiculous all ramped up again.
“I’m just saying. Sexting is for people with smaller fingers.” He spread his fingers out w
ide. “I’m cursed with clumsy hands that would really like to torch your Nippon.”
She shivered. “Trust me. I don’t want to know about your nipples or Nippons. And I promise not to pull up your pics either. I have the feeling I’d learn things about the birds and bees that would make seasoned sex workers blush.”
After all, knowing he had a sports hero’s sex life was one thing. Seeing it up close and personal was altogether another.
He tilted his head to the left like he was sifting through memories. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you blush.”
“Exactly.” Just as she pulled up Google, Heath got a text. He lunged at her like a hungry lion at a gazelle, all in an effort to get the phone before she could read message. She couldn’t help but catch a few words as they scrolled across the top of the screen. Words like unrecoverable injury, contract, regret—
That was about the time he ripped the phone from her hand … and her heart from her chest. Because while she’d made a number of jokes about his bionic knee since this trip began, especially in her own head, it had never occurred to her that he’d injured something modern medicine couldn’t fix. Had never occurred to her that Heath “Deuce” Montgomery might be going through a crisis of his own.
* * *
Chapter 10
* * *
Oh God, what had she seen? Heath glanced down. The message was from Fort Worth Radiology. The only words he saw before he closed the message were—never play football again. Right now, he couldn’t stand for her to see him as broken. Not her. The rest of the world be damned, but he couldn’t face Lyric knowing the truth. That he was washed-up before he hit thirty-five.
But as her huge blue eyes locked onto his, his heart shriveled up to the size of a raisin. It was written all over her face that she had seen plenty.
“Am I supposed to forget what I just saw?” Her tone suggested that there wasn’t a chance in hell of that happening.
“Actually, yeah, that’s exactly what you should do.” He grabbed her father’s hand, trying his damnedest to ignore the sweat rolling down his spine as he asked, “How about those prime numbers?”