Page 127 of Melting the Ice

Brody knew Dean was right, but that didn’t make it easy. Oreasier.He didn’t say anything else, just sighed, the sound muffled by Dean’s T-shirt-covered chest.

“Besides,” Dean said, “if she’d been worried, she’d have done the CT scan.”

“Maybe you should be the one going to medical school,” Brody teased, because it was easier to make the joke than it was to think about if the doctorshouldhave done the CT scan, checking for deeper and more pervasive brain damage.

“Nope. Think the best one of us is.”

Brody considered what he’d said. How he’d taken it as a fact. And how there’d been a complete lack of judgment in Dean’s voice. How he’d just taken it for granted.

“How’d you know?” He hadn’t told a soul yet. Was still adjusting to the idea that he’d made his choice.

“I know you,” Dean rumbled.

Brody relaxed against him. In more ways than one. “Yeah,” he agreed. He knew he should say more. But before he could, Dean settled a hand, heavy and warm, on his hip, stroking him there. It was arousing but also strangely soothing.

“Go to sleep,” Dean said gruffly. “I set the alarm for two hours from now. You can go check on him, then.”

It was the second time Brody checked on Ramsey that he said it, sleepily as he gazed up at him.

“You’ve made your mind up, haven’t you?” Ramsey asked.

Brody, settling down on one of the couch’s arms and trying to force his tired brain to conceive of a question to ask Ramsey, froze.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’ve decided. You’re going to medical school.”

Brody opened his mouth and then snapped it shut again.

“It’s alright, you know?” Ramsey continued. He wasn’t looking at Brody. Instead he was gazing down at his bare feet. “You’re gonna be a fucking amazing doctor. Maybe not as amazing as you’d have been as a hockey player, but you want it more.”

“I do,” Brody admitted. He considered asking Ramsey how he’d known, but probably he’d get the same answer Dean had given him. They knew him.

He hadn’t imagined that anyone would ever know him as well as Ramsey or his teammates, but then Dean had come along, and he’d not only changed Brody’s perspective, he’d altered his whole fucking world.

Now there’d be no world without him in it.

“I figured,” Ramsey said with a sigh. He glanced up, met Brody’s eyes. “Can’t imagine anyone deserves you to chase after them, but he gets close.”

“I’m not—”

“I know,” Ramsey interrupted. He yawned. “That came out wrong. I know you’re not doing itforhim, but it’s part of it, it has to be.”

“I tried to not let him be part of the choice,” Brody argued. But he knew the truth. Of course Dean had been part of it. “It wasn’tjust about following him, Ramsey. It was about me wanting alife.”

“Yeah,” Ramsey said. “You gonna ask me your question now?”

Brody patted him on the arm. “You’re good,” he said. “I don’t think you’d have been able to have a conversation of such emotional complexity and depth if your brain was irrevocably broken.”

Ramsey grinned, teeth flashing in the dark. “You fucker.”

“You love me.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ramsey said, and Brody stood up, ready to go back to bed.

“You’re gonna be okay,” Brody said, pausing in the doorway.

“Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?” Ramsey asked.

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