Hunter shifted toward me. “Then don’t. Nobody’s asking you to play hero.”
I didn’t answer. My head filled with the same noise I’d been carrying since Reese pressed her thumb along my deltoid and muttered that I was testing her patience and my own shoulder.
Hunter wasn’t wrong. But I couldn’t give him the truth. Not all of it.
So I picked the smallest piece. The one that didn’t turn me into a guy he couldn’t trust anymore. “I don’t wanna let you guys down again. I just want to do right by the team.”
“You already do,” he said. “But you’re of more value to us in one piece, Bouchard. Not as some taped-together version barely making it through a game.”
The taped-together version. If only he knew how literal that was.
I forced a breath deep enough to fake some ease. “Physio wouldn’t clear me if I wasn’t fit. That’s got to count for something.”
He squinted. “You mean Hopper?”
That jab landed harder than my shoulder deserved. “She’s been doing my rehab. So, yeah.”
“Sure. Rehab.” He grinned into his beer.
“What the hell are you smiling about? You look like an idiot.”
He shrugged, emphasizing a spectacularly long sip of his beer. “Just saying… She gives you plenty of game time. Makes a man wonder.”
I barked a laugh I didn’t entirely feel. “Nothing to wonder about. She’s disappointingly professional every minute of the day.”
I took a drink and kept my eyes on the mirror behind the bar. If Hunter had any idea how close he was to the truth… That edge between us the other night, Reese in that towel, telling me to get out like she’d run out of ways to pretend I didn’t matter—
“I think she likes you,” he said with a smirk.
I scoffed. “I think you’re imagining things.”
“Yeah? Then why’re you grinning like that?”
I wiped the corner of my mouth with my thumb, trying to tame whatever expression had slipped free. “You make jokes, I laugh. That’s how it goes.”
He elbowed me, and the moment cracked open into something easier. Lighter. I let it pull me along. Because I’d rather go back to talking about nothing than thinking about how, over the past few weeks, Reese had become more than a physio to me. Anduntil she’d kicked me out of her apartment, I was almost sure she felt the same.
Remnants of this particular thought still clung to the edges of my mind when I walked into the med bay before Game 5. Reese was shuffling through her kit bag with a focus that made it too easy to sneak up on her.
“Ohjesusareyoutryingtokillme?” She crashed into the cabinet behind her, clutching her heart.
I stifled a laugh. “Sorry, I thought we had a date.”
There would be no smoothing things over with a lame joke today. The steely expression on her face made that clear.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said.
I took a seat on the exam table like I always did, but this time there was a canyon between us filled with her apartment, that towel, and the look on her face when she told me to get out.
“Listen, I—”
“I’m gonna do a quick mobility check before I tape you up.” She didn’t waste time, lifting my arm with one hand under my elbow. The other was braced at the top of my shoulder. “Don’t force it.”
Easier said than done. She guided my arm outward and the joint pushed back with that familiar pinch. I tried not to react, but my spine tightened anyway. Her gaze flicked up. She’d felt it.
“Okay, now bring it in,” she said, and moved my arm across my center line.
That one was way worse. A catch right at the start, then a deeper pull that made my jaw clamp down hard. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t getting any better. If anything, Coach’s innocent back slap at that presser seemed to have done more damage than I’d first thought.
