Dr. Cross was already watching.
He was standing at the far end of the bench in his usual spot. Black hair, blue eyes, a face that had never once considered smiling. He just stood there, completely still, while the whole arena went absolutely feral around him.
It was all either very impressive or deeply concerning, and honestly I’d been going back and forth on that one for months.
Okay, so. Here’s the thing about Cross.
The rookies called him the Ice Doc behind his back. I thought that was generous. Ice was stillsomething. Dr. Cross was more like a broken thermostat that nobody had gotten around to fixing. Or like one of those deep-sea fish that live somewhere pressure would kill a normal creature. Or like—
Okay, you know what, it didn’t matter. The point was: extremely cold, possibly not human, medically required to be around the team all the time.
The Ice Doc clocked me. I clocked him clocking me. I looked away first because I had a game to finish and not for any other reason.
He didn't look away. I knew because I checked.
The next shift, I couldn’t deny that something was off.
Nothing the crowd would catch, that wasn't their business and I wasn't making it their business. But my edges felt wrong, my peripheral vision was pulling some weird nonsense on the right side, and when Jenkins hit the boards thirty feet away I flinched like he'd done it directly in my ear.
Adrenaline,I told myself.You took a hit. Your body's being dramatic about it. Let it have this one.
I pushed through the rest of the shift on muscle memory and the kind of stubbornness that had gotten me this far in life, and came off the ice feeling mostly fine, or a convincing enough version of mostly fine that I was prepared to stand behind it.
Cross was right there when I got to the bench.
“You’re slow,” he said, not looking up from his tablet.
“That’s not what my fans think.”
"You're slowto track.”
"Still scored," I said.
"Sit down."
I laughed, and it came out sharper than I wanted. "And if I don't?"
Cross looked up. And the thing about Cross's full attention was that it didn't feel like most people's full attention. Those ice-blue eyes staring at you landed differently, heavier.
Those same eyes made me want to take a step back. They made me want to absolutelynottake a step back. They made mewant to say something stupid, which was a problem because I was already opening my mouth—
The crowd noise felt like it was coming from farther away than it should have.
"Sit down, Wesley."
I sat. I told myself it was my choice.
Cross was already crouching in front of me, and, look, the proximity was fine, it wasmedical, it was literally his job. I was not going to make it weird. I grabbed the edge of the bench just to have something to do with my hand.
He reached for my chin to hold my head still, and I tracked the penlight and answered his questions. Score, date, name of the Sentinels’ starting center, and I got all of them right because I was not concussed, I was just—
"He's fine, Doc." Dylan had appeared at my shoulder, because my older brother had a supernatural ability to show up when I didn't want him to. "Watched the whole thing. This idiot went down hard, but he got up clean."
Cross didn't look at him. He was looking at me, only me.
The doc’s thumb shifted slightly along my jaw, adjusting the angle, something clinical like that, and his blue eyes tracked across mine, and the noise and the ice behind me went a little far away.
Then Cross sat back on his heels and stared at me for one beat too long.
