Worth the Fall by Mara Jacobs Read Free Book Online Page B

well. Lizzie, of course, came through for him like she always did. “It’s fine. Not even worth mentioning. He just liked the pain pills a little too much after his last surgery, so it’s probably better if he could just suck it up and live with the pain this go round.”
    “ What? Why didn’t—”
    “ Seriously,” Lizzie said to his mother, placing a hand on her arm. She then looked at his father before she went on. “If it had been a problem—a real problem—you know I would have called you.”
    They all looked at her, then each other and then at him. “No big deal. Just don’t want to rely on them. Especially now that I don’t have…won’t have…anything.” Christ, was that his voice catching?
    Thank God his surgeon spoke up. “I’d like to keep you in here for at least a couple of days. I’m back on Wednesday, and if it looks good, you can go home then.”
    “ My other surgeries were all outpatient,” Petey said.
    “ They weren’t this severe,” the doctor continued. “We really need to keep it immobilized for forty-eight hours. After that, you should be able to move about fairly well. I wouldn’t suggest trying to travel back to Detroit any time soon, though. A flight would be detrimental given the lack of legroom, and driving would be way too long of a trip, even with frequent stops.”
    Petey sighed and ran his hand through his hair. It felt stiff and matted. When was the last time he ’d showered? Yesterday morning in Detroit before his flight? God, it felt like a thousand years ago. “I guess there’s no rush to get back to the D now.”
    “ I’ll call your cleaning lady and let her know you’ll be up here for a while. She can take care of things down there.” She looked away, and Petey knew she was already four steps ahead of the rest of them. “I’ll have someone at the firm write up a press release. No. I’ll write it myself, it’s too important.” She stepped away from his bed to where she’d set her purse. She rummaged through the huge bag and pulled out—he knew without even seeing it—a note pad, onto which she immediately began jotting down notes.
    Lizzie owned Hampton and Associates, a pubic relations firm, and Petey ’d been her first client years ago when she’d branched out on her own. Now she had many clients with bigger names than him, but he always got her special attention.
    “ You won’t need a cast, but we will definitely want a brace on it for at least a week. Limited movement….” The doctor was rattling off instructions and he was trying to grasp them, but his brain was still a bit fuzzy from the anesthesia. He glanced at Lizzie, who caught his meaning, flipped to a new page in her tablet and looked to the doctor, pen poised like she was a member of the steno pool. He went on about when to have it propped up, how to shower, all that kind of crap. “And try to stay away from icy steps,” the doctor concluded with a smile on his face, a feeble attempt at humor. When it fell flat, he cleared his throat and added, “Actually, stay away from steps of any kind for at least a week.”
    “ Oh no,” his mother said, her mind obviously going where his went—to their Victorian home with its many stairs.
    The home he ’d built for himself that he lived in during the summers had a main-floor master bedroom, but a family was living there during the winter, keeping an eye on it for him. The husband was doing a year as a prof at Tech. They only needed a place for nine months, and didn’t want to move their furniture and everything. He wasn’t sure about the details because Lizzie had set it up, saying it would be nice for him to have someone in the house to take care of it. Of all the years that he’d been away during the hockey season, he’d done it maybe four or five times—have somebody in house during the season.
    Just his luck that it ’d be this year.
    Of course, if he was able to stay at his house, his mom would most likely move in to take care