Page 42 of Tough Call

I raised my eyebrows. “More than a torn MCL?”

With a scowl, he nodded again. “I didn’t say anything before, but…” He gave a near soundless laugh. “I was afraid to jinx it, I guess.”

I managed soft chuckle and squeezed his hand. Hockey players were nothing if not superstitious. “What didn’t you want to jinx?”

Madars swallowed, and he stared down at our hands as he whispered, “I was approached by a scout the other day. From an NAL team.”

I straightened. “That’s great! I… I mean…” I tilted my head. “Isn’t it?”

“It was great.” He met my gaze, brown eyes full of fatigue, sadness, and dejection. “But after…” He gestured at his injured leg.

The pieces connected. “You don’t think they’ll want you now? Because of an injury?”

“Not any time soon.”

“But they’ve been sniffing around for you,” I insisted. “The fact that they’re coming up and talking to you—they must be seriously considering you, you know?”

“They were, yeah. But now…” He closed his eyes and pressed back against the headboard. “This is exactly what happened when I played in the NAL before. My agent told me like half a dozen teams were interested in me as a free agent.” He opened his eyes again and stared up at the ceiling. “Then I hurt my knee, and…”

Fuck, I’d never seen him this miserable. Not even after his major junior team was knocked out of the playoffs in the semifinals.

I squeezed his hand. “You recovered from that one, though. You’ve been killing it in Switzerland, so they know you can bounce back from an injury.”

“They know I recovered from the last one. But this time… I mean, nobody will know until I play again, right? And until I’ve played long enough to show that I’m not just gritting my teeth through the pain? So no one’s going to be interested in me until at least next season, assuming Genève re-signs me.”

“You don’t think they will?”

“They wanted to. But they’ve got plenty of young forwards. They don’t need a liability whose knee may or may not fall apart.” He wiped a hand over his face. “And the more time goes on, the less interested they’ll be in taking a chance on me. I’m in my prime. I’m… I’m about to be a free agent.” He stared up at the ceiling again and seemed to deflate even more. “They’re not going to want me until they’ve seen for themselves that I’ve recovered without losing a step, and by then I won’t be a free agent anymore.”

I winced. I wanted to tell him that wasn’t true—that they knew what a talent he was and wouldn’t let an injury scare them away from him. One of my dad’s teammates had signed in free agency while he was still recovering from double hip surgery. I knew a goalie who’d signed a multi-year extension while he was still on LTIR from a head injury. It wasn’t unusual at all for a player who’d had a rough year post-injury to sign with another team and then kick ass and take names. It was just how the sport worked sometimes.

But teams could also be extremely cautious. One of the top defensemen on my brother’s team had fully expected to sign an extension with a year remaining on his contract, but his club had held out while he recovered from shoulder surgery. In the end, he did sign the extension, but it was almost literally minutes before he went into free agency. The guy was part of the team’s veteran core, and they’d still hesitated to extend him until they were absolutely sure he’d recovered completely.

If the team sniffing around for Madars waited until he’d recovered to make an offer, it was likely to come after he’d already re-signed with Genève instead of while he was a free agent. Poaching a player from a European team was hardly unheard of, but there were extra steps and expenses.

For a generational talent, they’d do it without hesitation.

For a solid player like Madars…

Well…

I exhaled and ran my hand up and down his arm. “There’s still time.”

He just sighed again and said nothing.

“If they were watching you at the Games,” I insisted, “then they’ve seen something in you. Especially if someone actually approached you. Don’t give up on yourself.”

“I’m not,” he whispered. “But it’s hard to imagine they won’t, you know? Like even if I recover, they’re not going to keep tabs on me. They send scouts to international competitions, but it’s not like NAL scouts pack the stands at regular season games in Switzerland, you know?” Closing his eyes again, he pushed out a long breath. “This really feels like the ship is sailing.”

Fuck. What was I even supposed to say to that? I knew the League too well to even be cautiously optimistic about things like this; I just really, really wanted to keep his spirits up. I didn’t want to lie to him, though.

After a moment, Madars opened his eyes, and when he looked at me this time, his focus had sharpened. Though the fatigue, pain, and sadness were still there, so was determination and even… was that a plea in his gaze?

Squeezing my hand, he whispered, “I want to see you again. I want to go to Spain like we planned.” He swallowed. “And I don’t mean I want to see you as just friends. I mean like… Like we were going to see each other before I fucked up my knee.”

My breath hitched. Fucking hell. Even with all the emotions and pain clouding his expression, the heat and hunger were definitely still there beneath the surface. The trip to Spain had absolutely been a not-just-friends situation—the way he’d looked at me when he’d brought it up, I was sure he’d already been imagining everything we’d do once we were there. But now he seemed even more earnest about it. As if he thought I’d suddenly back away because… because he’d injured his knee?

Not a chance of that.