Taz:Probably for the best. Patel can handle it.
Probably for the best.
I stared at those four words until the screen blurred. Then I set the phone face-down on the counter and went back to labeling kits I wouldn't be carrying.
The afternoon passed in the particular slow agony of busywork designed to make you feel useful while confirming you weren'tneeded. I ran Mercer through his concussion protocol—light sensitivity test, balance assessment, cognitive screening—and documented everything with the meticulous care of someone who no longer trusted their own data storage but couldn't stop being thorough. It was pathological. I knew that. The same compulsion that had gotten me into this mess was the only thing keeping me upright inside it.
Declan came in for his shoulder reassessment at three. I palpated, tested range of motion, noted the improvement since his last session. He chatted about the road trip—excited, nervous, the particular energy of a young player who'd never been in a playoff race and couldn't believe his luck.
"Sucks you're not coming," he said as I wrapped his shoulder.
"Someone's got to hold down the fort."
"Yeah, but—" He shrugged with his good shoulder. "It's not the same without you. Taz is weird when you're not around."
My hands stilled on the compression wrap. "Weird how?"
Declan seemed to realize he'd said something loaded and backpedaled with the grace of a twenty-three-year-old who'd never successfully navigated a conversation about emotions. "I dunno. Quieter? Like, more quiet than normal quiet. Which is saying something because the guy already communicates primarily through eyebrow movements."
I finished the wrap. Patted his shoulder. "He's focused. Playoffs."
"Sure," Declan said, sounding unconvinced. "That's probably it."
After he left, I stood in the empty medical room and listened to the building breathe—the distant hum of the HVAC system, the faint clatter of equipment being loaded into travel cases down the hall, the muffled voices of players and staff preparing for departure.
Preparing to leave without me.
My phone buzzed again. Not Taz this time.
Nancy:Heard about the road trip. I'm sorry, Cinder. This wasn't my call.
I believed her. Nancy had fought for me from day one—had seen something in my application that made her override whatever reservations the front office had about hiring a nurse with a gap in his employment history and a restraining order in his recent past. She'd given me a chance when no one else would, and the thought that my presence was now creating problems for her made the guilt in my stomach curdle into something darker.
Me:I understand. I'll make sure Patel has everything he needs.The text from Nancy sat on my screen for a long time before I locked the phone and slid it into my pocket.
The building was emptying. I could hear it—the gradual draining of energy that happened before every road trip, the particular rhythm of departure. Bags zipped. Doors closed. Voices fading down hallways toward the loading bay where the bus would be waiting for the equipment, engine idling, ready to carry it to the airport and then to five cities in nine days without me.
I finished the last of the baseline testing for the development squad—three kids who barely needed to shave, all of them healthy enough to make my job feel ceremonial—and locked the medical room. The hallway was nearly empty. A custodian pushed a mop in slow arcs near the equipment bay. Someone's phone rang distantly and went to voicemail.
I should go home.
Not to Taz's apartment. To mine.
The thought formed with a precision that surprised me—clean-edged, decisive, the kind of clinical determination I usually reserved for treatment plans. I would go to my apartment. I would sleep in my own bed. I would give Taz the space he was clearly trying to create without making either of ussay the words out loud. I knew the locks had been changed. Taz wouldn’t know about Gavin appearing this morning. Security guards only passed information up their chain. Taz wouldn’t know. Nancy wouldn’t know. For a brief moment I wondered if I should call Ignatius, but I’d caused him enough trouble already.
I pulled out my phone and texted Taz before I could lose my nerve.
Me:Hey. I'm going to head to my place tonight. You've got an early morning and you need real sleep before the flight.
The dots appeared almost immediately. Then nothing. Then appeared again.
Taz:You sure?
Two words. Notcome over anyway.NotI want you here.NotI sleep better with you.Just—you sure?—delivered with the careful neutrality of a man confirming a schedule change. And not the fear that someone had been in my apartment and was the original reason I’d been at Taz’s.
Me:Yeah. You need rest. I'd just keep you up.
I meant it as a joke. The kind of thing that, a week ago, would have earned me a response that made my ears burn—something dry and understated that carried the weight of everything he couldn't say directly, some quiet acknowledgment that keeping each other up was exactly the point.
