“This is how I know you’re not a gold digger.”
“How?” I ask, draping my arms over his shoulders.
“Because you’re not trying to get me down the aisle before the draft. Lock it in.” Wolfe smiles teasingly.
“I still have to see your blow job game before I commit.”
“I’m never giving you a blow job now.”
After breakfast,Wolfe and I head to the arena to get him checked out by the team doctor where he’s set up in their training facility, figuring I might as well get some treatments in too.
Wolfe is called back to the exam room and makes me go with him. It must be bad today. He doesn’t like anyone to witness this part of his trauma.
Inside the room, I sit in one of the chairs while he gets up on the exam table. When I look up, he gives me a sad lip.
“What?”
“Come here,” he says so I get up and stand next to him.
“I’m going to be in the way,” I mutter.
“I need my emotional support person,” Wolfe says, and I’m ruined. The vulnerability and openness make me fall even harder.
I can’t believe he can still surprise me with the trust he’s giving me. “I’m here.”
“Thank you,” he says.
Hawke and the doctor come in a few minutes later.
“Is it cool if I’m in here?” Hawke asks.
“It’s fine,” Wolfe says in a monotone voice.
The doctor goes about his thing, checking out what he needs to, while Hawke keeps to the corner waiting for the determination.
“How’s your pain level?”
“It’s a bruise. Hurts like a bruise,” Wolfe says, knowing no one will believe him if he says it doesn’t hurt.
Hockey players all treat bruises the same way: an annoyance and part of the game. It’s impossible to play or practice and not add more to our collection.
“I’m going to touch it. This may hurt.”
Wolfe grunts for him to go ahead. He’s stone faced the entire time, which is pretty typical for him.
“You don’t just have to sit there,” Hawke says after a minute. “It’s okay to show that it hurts.”
I cringe.
“When I say I’m used to it, I mean my mom’s boyfriend made a habit of putting out his cigarettes on my skin.” Wolfe hates medical stuff after years of his mom’s guilt trips that if he told anyone about his injuries, they would tear him away from his family, and school, and hockey. Even seeing the team doctor was hard for him for a while.
In Hawke’s defense, he is trying to combat the toxic masculinity in the sport, but he is totally reading the room wrong.
He just has no idea that the mask is the way Wolfe copes. He usually doesn’t drop his own lore like this, but occasionally, when he’s pushed too far, he does just enough to put people in their place. “I had no idea. I’m sorry?—”
Wolfe cuts him off. “I’m not looking for sympathy. Just telling you I’m dealing, and I’m fine.”
“Understood,” Hawke says.
