No one spoke for a moment.
Booth looked at Mac. “So what do we tell him?”
“I tell him,” Mac said, standing up. He placed a fist on the table, closed his eyes for a second, and hit it. “I’m in charge of the health of these guys. I share the bad news and the good with the team.”
I tried to keep my face neutral, but my gut ached. I wanted to run to Oliver, reassure him, hold him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t until later.
“I’ll deliver the news,” Mac continued, tapping the report. “But I want Sloane in the room. He’ll need someone to absorb the emotional blow, and it shouldn’t be me.”
Booth cut in. “We still have a compliance issue to discuss.”
My heart sank. What did that mean? Did he mean us? Me and Oliver? Fuck. My pulse beat so fast it physically hurt in my chest. Like someone was squeezing my heart over and over.
Mac didn’t look at me when he said it. “Not now.”
Booth sat back in his chair, arms crossed, jaw tight.
Ivy didn’t move from her spot by the wall, but her jaw was set in a hard line, eyes strained downward. I could practically feel the worry coming off her, as she too cared about Oliver as more than an athlete. God, how would he take this?
I opened Oliver’s chart again on my tablet, needing something to do with my hands. The nervous energy caused my fingers to tremble.
William glanced at Mac. “He’s stable now, but the nature of SVT is unpredictable without intervention. He could go weeks without another episode or have one mid-play under high stress. It’s a liability.”
Mac nodded slowly. “How many players in the league have this on record?”
“Two, that we know of,” William said. “One underwent ablation and returned after eight weeks. The other optedfor medication and played one more season under constant monitoring. Both were non-skill positions.”
“Not RBs,” Mac clarified.
“No,” William confirmed. “The workload, contact exposure, and HR variability make it significantly harder to manage in someone with Oliver’s profile.”
“He’s a grenade waiting to detonate," Booth said. “And the League monitors flagged data weekly now. If this leaks, he’s off the protected list.”
“No one outside this room knows,” I said, meeting his eyes.
Mac paced once behind his chair, then stopped. “If he wants to play next Sunday, can we clear him?”
“He meets basic vitals,” William said. “But ethically, it’s a risk. If he spikes again, we can’t predict how quickly he’ll stabilize. He needs another full day of cardiac imaging, and he hasn’t committed to treatment.”
“He’s not cleared,” I said. “Not by our standards.”
Mac looked at me. “If he refuses the ablation?”
“Then he’s a limited-use athlete. No back-to-back games. No high-altitude matchups. No long-field reps. He’d need a customized training program, real-time HR monitoring, and pre-game cardio clearance before every snap.”
“And if he agrees?”
“Six to eight weeks off. Two days of inpatient monitoring post-procedure. No physical exertion for fourteen days. Cardiac clearance before conditioning return. Full-contact simulation four weeks after that.”
“February at the earliest,” Booth muttered.
Ivy finally spoke. “That’s assuming no complications. Even then, his explosiveness might dip. Reaction time too, depending on medication and if the procedure works.”
Silence settled again.
The words sat there. No one wanted to speak them out loud. He was our starting RB. A top-five performer. The team’s core playmaker. And now he was, statistically, high-risk.
Mac rubbed the back of his neck. “We have to be honest with him.”
