Page 22 of The Offside Rule
I looked at him through the mirror. “That’s the best compliment you could give me.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
I picked up the weights again, mostly because if I stood there letting him look at me like that, I was going to forget why this was a bad idea.
“I like the puzzle of medicine,” I said. “The way the body tells a story even when the patient doesn’t have the words for it. But with athletes, there’s another layer. Injuries don’t just hurt. They threaten everything. Their routine, their role, their confidence, their future. One bad hit can make a player wonder who he is without the game.”
Hunter’s expression shifted. “I’ve had my share of injuries over the years. I’m lucky to still be able to play. I’m thankful for the therapists and doctors who keep me on the ice.”
“I want to be the kind of doctor who remembers that. Not just the scan, the rehab plan, the protocol. The person. The fear. The identity crisis under the injury. Because I remember Dad. I remember watching games where he got hurt and my heart dropped. I remember how hard he had to work to get back on the ice.”
“You’re going to be good at it. Not many people have seen those things from the player’s perspective,” he said. “I got injured last year. A concussion. It took me off the ice for a few weeks, but it messes with your head. I never know if there will be a career-ending injury.”
“It’s not easy. I remember when my dad decided to retire. It took a huge weight off my mom,” I admitted.
“Now he’s busy whipping my ass,” Hunter joked, reaching for his towel. “But in all honesty, CC, I’m sure you’re going to be great.”
I lowered the weights and looked at him through the mirror. “Catherine.”
His hand stilled on the towel. “What?”
“Call me Catherine.” I tried to keep my voice light, but it came out steadier than I expected. “The only people who really call me CC anymore are my parents, siblings, and Max.”
Hunter’s gaze held mine in the mirror. “You don’t like CC?”
“I do,” I said, because I did. “CC is what people call me when they remember me as a kid.”
Something shifted in his expression. I turned to face him, the weights hanging at my sides. “But I’m not only that girl anymore.”
Hunter didn’t say anything right away. The gym was quiet around us, the kind of quiet that made every breath feel too loud. He was still flushed from running, his hair damp, his shirt clinging to his chest in a way I was trying very hard not to notice. But his eyes were on my face, not my body, and somehow that felt more intimate.
“Catherine,” he said at last.
My breath caught. I hated that he noticed and hated even more that I wanted him to.
“Better?” he asked.
I managed a small smile. “Much.”
For a second, neither of us said anything. The gym was quiet around us, but the silence between us wasn’t empty. It was full of everything we had both avoided saying since the pool house. The shower, steam, me getting off to thoughts of him. That part he didn’t need to know. What I still didn’t understand was the fact that neither of us had moved right away. We weren’t horrified, which was the problem.
I shifted my towel from one hand to the other. “We should probably talk about what happened.”
Hunter went very still. His eyes stayed on mine, but the rest of him locked up like I had just dropped a puck at center ice and asked him to fight for his life.
“What happened?” he asked, swallowing hard.
I arched a brow. “You know exactly what happened.”
He dragged a hand over the back of his neck. “Right. Yeah. The… thing.”
“The thing?” I held back the urge to laugh. This was not the reaction I was expecting.
“The pool house thing.” He winced immediately. “Not thing. That sounds worse. The shower. The accident. The accidental shower thing.”
I pressed my lips together to stop myself from laughing because this burly grown man was behaving like an embarrassed teenager, and I didn’t get it. Hunter looked toward the ceiling like he was asking the universe to intervene. “That was not my best sentence.”
