Page 35 of Offside

“The tissue is aware you meant to. It’s unimpressed.” I worked through it with slightly more intention than strictly necessary. “What happened instead?”

“Film review ran long.”

“You sat for two hours watching video with a shoulder you were supposed to be icing.” I pressed into the posterior capsule and felt him control the response. “You could have iced it during that same two hours.”

“When you say it like that⁠—”

“How would you like me to say it?”

“Less accurately.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “Ice it tonight. Twenty minutes. Set a timer.”

“I’m not setting a timer for icing.”

“Then I’m calling you.”

He turned his head and caught my eye. “You wouldn’t.” He raised a brow and I met him back with glare.

“Look. You’re the captain. The whole roster takes your lead. If you ignore my instructions, they ignore my instructions, and then I have a locker room full of untreated injuries and a job I can’t do.” I held his gaze. “So yes. I’d call you at nine o’clock on a Thursday and ask if you iced your shoulder. I’d do it cheerfully and without hesitation.”

He turned back to the ceiling and exhaled through his nose, as close to sheepish as he apparently got. “I mean, I’m not opposed to the top tier service and a phone call, but I get it. Fine. Timer.”

“Thank you.” I moved to work the upper trapezius, standing behind him, which was a position I’d been in before and was going to handle exactly the same way. Clinically, professionally, with my full attention on the tissue and not on the back of his neck or the breadth of his shoulders or the fact I knew precisely how he sounded when the tension released.

I pressed my thumbs in and he inhaled again.

There it was.

“How’s the sleep?” I asked, because talking was better than the alternative, which was silence and the two of us alone in a treatment room while I had my hands on him.

“Fine.”

“Better answer, please.” He couldn’t see me, but I was smiling.

“Five or six hours.”

“That’s not enough.” I worked deeper, tracing the restriction. “What’s keeping you up?”

He paused. The slight shift in his breathing told me he was deciding what to say. “Captain stuff.”

“General existential pressure about leading a franchise in its inaugural season.”

“Yeah.”

“Very manageable.” I found the knot and worked it, slow and deliberate, felt the muscle yield under my thumbs. “Have you considered talking to someone about it? We have a sports psych on staff.”

“I’m talking to you.”

I stilled for only a moment. “I mean professionally.”

“I know what you meant.”

I kept working. Outside I could hear the faint sound of skates on ice from the rink and the distant bass of whatever Cole was playing in the locker room, and in here it was this. My hands, his shoulder, and the quality of silence between two people who had things they weren’t saying. I’d stopped pretending I couldn’t feel it.

“You’re my second favorite patient,” I said, because I needed to say something and this was safe.

“Second?” He turned his head. I gave him a tight lipped smile and a shrug.