Looking to my right, Kappy and Colt were dropping their hockey bags next to mine and rushing over.
“Lil Al Pal’s hurt again?” Kappy asked. “I think your bones are made of toothpicks, girlie,” he said gently.
I shot him a dark look.
“It’s okay. He’s right.” Ali patted my chest and sat up a little straighter. She moved the ice pack to the table.
As soon as Kappy and Colt’s eyes landed on her arm, their faces morphed into looks of pure horror.
“What?” Ali cried at them.
I gave them a negative head shake, warning them not to scare her.
“Nothing!” Kappy squeaked out, lifting his hands in innocence.
Colt’s face went serious. “You waiting on Coach?” he asked, meaning her dad, who was one of the head athletic trainers at the rink. “I’ll go get him.”
That was for the best. Her dad was a hardass, and Colt was one of the only players he actually liked. Whenever he ran a workout session for our team, he always seemed to single me out, pushing me harder than everyone else, which wasn’t fair, but I kept my head down and tried to impress him anyway.
Kappy sat on the picnic table in front of us and started spewing a nonsense story to distract her, but I couldn't focus on a word he was saying. I was too worried about her. Were they going to have to re-set the bones? Would she be awake or asleep? Would she need surgery? Glancing at her arm again, my jaw flexed. Yeah, she was probably going to need surgery.
Across the lobby, Mark Rossi barreled down the workout room stairs.
“What the fuck, Ali?” he burst out, sounding angry as he made his way toward us. “What did you do now?”
Ali’s face broke with more tears that she attempted to hide with her good hand.
“Thanks for that, we just got her to stop crying,” Kappy mumbled, eyeing Mark darkly.
I glared at Mark, feeling about two seconds away from decking him.
Mark scowled at us before turning back to Ali. “This is the third time this year. What the fuck happened?”
This was, in fact, the third time. Right after placing second at Nationals in January, she strained her hip flexor, which took her off the ice for about six weeks. When she finally started training again around her birthday in March, she broke her collarbone. Both times she didn’t give her body sufficient rest because she was itching to get back on the ice. And now this…
Mark’s knees cracked as he knelt down in front of her. She cried harder as he whispered things to her. He shot me a dark look as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. Turning back to Ali, he demanded, “Okay, let me see.”
Ali slowly removed the bag of ice with a shaky left hand. “Don’t touch it,” she warned.
I had to look away because my body was trembling with rage. I couldn’t handle the way he talked to her. He seemed angry at her for getting hurt, like it washerfault, like she wanted to be sitting here in pain.
A scream ripped from her throat.
Of fucking course he touched it.
I automatically shot to my feet and shoved him away from her, harder than I intended, and he went stumbling back. I shifted in front of Ali, blocking her from his view.
His dark eyes locked on me and his face reddened. His anger found a new target: Me, and I was glad for it.
“Why the fuck are you even here?” Mark spat. “Get out of here.”
“She said don’t touch it.”
Kappy cautiously stood in between us. “All right guys, let’s take it down a notch.” He gave me a warning look.
Mark started laughing, his eyes never leaving my face. “Fuck off, McQuaid. I’ll touchmygirlfriend if I fucking want to.”
Kappy swore under his breath.
