I study the imaging and initial diagnosis. Season-long management, at a minimum. The case that proves whether Gary was right to vouch for me.
“I’ll have a treatment plan drafted by Thursday.”
“That’s what I told the coaching staff.” He squeezes my shoulder on the way out. Gary put his name next to mine when he brought me in. That means his judgment is on the line alongside my performance, and I will not make him regret it.
Tyler is across the hall, arranging his station. Same polo. Same title on the badge clipped to his belt. He nods at me. I nod back.
I pull up Marchetti’s intake and start mapping the protocol.
Berger comes through for his calf at eight fifteen. He’s on the table before I finish pulling up his chart.
“You’re still tight through here. Are you rolling this out after practice?”
“I am rolling it out with the dedication and precision you asked of me.” He doesn’t pause. “But it is being undermined by whatever they’re putting in that coffee machine. Brooks, I need you to know that I’ve submitted a formal complaint.”
“To who?”
“To the group chat. Which is the governing body of this team as far as I’m concerned.”
I laugh at that. His calf releases under my thumb and I work the length of the muscle, feeling the fibers soften under steady pressure. He keeps talking. I keep working. It’s easy and natural, the way a treatment room is supposed to feel when the patient trusts you and you know their body.
“You’re good, Berger. Ice after practice, ten minutes, and actually roll it this time.”
“I always roll it.” He gives me a look but we both know he doesn’t.
“You roll it for two minutes, open your phone, and call it a session.”
“Reviews, Brooks. I’m composing reviews. That is a public service for the team.”
He hops off the table still talking and rounds the corner toward the locker room. I pull up the next chart. Review the notes. The morning has a rhythm to it and the day is going the way a first week should go.
My nine o’clock is early. The shoulder. Attached to a player I haven’t met with yet.
I hear him in the hallway first. A few bars of a song, hummed off-key. Then he comes through the door with his hand already extended and a grin that reaches every corner of his face.
“Brooks, right? Teo Marchetti. I’m your nine o’clock. Your shoulder problem.”
Wide open smile. Zero hesitation. Like we already know each other and he’s just been waiting for me to catch up.
And I do one second later. O one second where his hand is in mine and my body places him before my brain does. The grip. The warmth of his palm. Then the rest, all at once: dark hair pushed back from his forehead, blue eyes catching the fluorescents the way they caught the club lights four nights ago, the build I had pressed against a wall in a bathroom while bass came through the floor. The hand I’m shaking is the hand that fisted my shirt and pulled me in. The voice that just said my name is the voice that said Zee against my neck while I worked him over and he forgot how to speak.
Teo is standing in my treatment room with his name on a chart in my other hand.
“Have a seat on the table. I’m going to walk you through the imaging.”
“Absolutely.” He hops up. Studies me while I pull the MRI onto the screen, and the studying is not subtle. His eyes move over my face like he’s checking which person I’m going to be. Zee from the club, or Brooks his AT.
“Let me walk you through the imaging.”
I point to the screen. “Posterior capsule tightening here. Inferior impingement reducing your overhead range.” I name every structure I can see because naming things is the easiest way for me to get through this.
“I’m going to assess your passive and active range, and establish a baseline for treatment.”
“You’re the boss. I’m in your hands.” His grin gets wider. He pulls his shirt over his head and settles on the table, and that makes this worse. The other night we were clothed, mostly, so I didn’t know what his shoulders looked like, the lines of his torso. Here it is under fluorescent lights at nine in the morning, and I am about to put my hands on those muscles in the name of treatment.
“You can call me Teo. Most people do. Or just Tee.”
The room gets very small as the grin on his face gets bigger.
