I’m smiling now. Actually smiling, at a player, in my treatment room, and I can feel the ice I’ve carefully built around myself starting to crack at the edges.
“You want real food? Come to Montreal. I’ll take you to Schwartz’s for smoked meat. Then we’ll talk.”
“Let me guess… everything in Canada is better, according to you?”
“Not everything.” He pauses, a smile tugging at his mouth. “Just most things.”
Something about that smile—slow, a little smug, entirely too charming—makes me need to end this conversation immediately.
I clear my throat and straighten my posture. “I think we’re done here, Mr. Bishop.”
“Zayden.”
“Mr. Bishop.” I nod toward the door. “Ice, rest, and I’ll see you tomorrow. Try not to do anything stupid before then.”
He grins—just a flash, there and gone—and it transforms his whole face. Makes him look younger. Less guarded. Almost human.
“No promises,” he says.
And then he’s gone, the door swinging shut behind him, and I’m standing alone in the exam room wondering what the hell just happened.
I give myself sixty seconds to spiral. Zayden Bishop has a reputation. Cold. Difficult. The guy who doesn’t waste words on anyone who isn’t directly useful to him.
The man has a reputation for being a brick wall, and he just argued with me about tacos.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. A glance down confirms it’s Dana.
He’s yours. Full oversight. Don’t let him self-destruct.
I type back:Understood.
I gather my things and head back to my office, but I can’t shake the weird, unsettled feeling in my chest. He was supposed to be easy to dismiss. Another arrogant athlete who thinks rules don’t apply to him. Another entitled jerk who’d flirt and push and give me every reason to keep my walls exactly where they are.
Instead, he was quiet. Observant. Self-deprecating—which caught me completely off guard.
And he made me laugh.
I stop in the hallway, press my back against the wall, and take a breath of cold, recycled air.
Get it together, Tori. He’s a patient. He’s a player. He’s literally everything you swore off.
The rules exist for a reason. I watched what happened to Carla when her relationship with a player went public—how fast she went from “rising star in sports medicine” to “the woman who slept with number forty-two.” She was brilliant. Better than brilliant. None of it mattered once the story became about who she was sleeping with instead of what she could do.
I won’t be that story.
I won’t be anyone’s story except my own.
My phone buzzes again. Winnie, my best friend, who has a sixth sense for when I’m having a moment.
Dinner tonight? That new Thai place?
I type back:Yes. Need it.
Uh oh. Bad day?
I think about Zayden Bishop and his stupid taco opinions and the way his whole face changed when he smiled, and I hatethat I noticed, hate that I’m still thinking about it, hate that some small, reckless part of me is already looking forward to tomorrow’s session.
Complicated,I reply.Tell you later.
