Page 36 of Offside

I knew the point where his shoulder would try to climb. My attention moved toward him before I stopped it.

Eriksson pressed his heel into the table. "You missed two."

"What?" I startled. "I did not."

"You stopped counting."

He was right. "Start the set again from one," I said.

"That seems like an unnecessarily punitive answer to two missed repetitions."

"Then count the whole set for yourself out loud this time."

"One," he said, with the patience of a man correcting a child. "Two."

Across the room, Zoe reduced the band resistance and changed Bishop's stance. She didn't ask my opinion, and I didn't offer it. Bishop looked toward me once, but I kept my attention on Eriksson's ankle.

This separation wasn't something I'd thought about upstairs. It meant hearing the familiar catch in Bishop's breath and letting Zoe decide what it meant. I knew the current program, but I refused to check whether she ran it the way I would have.

When the room cleared, Vicki stopped beside my desk. "The transfer review's completed."

"What did it find?" I asked curiously. Complete isn't the same as cleared.

"It's complete. Zoe's baseline matches the prior trend. Your notes remain in the chart; they're part of his record. We review them the same way we review any handoff."

I waited for reassurance. She didn't give it to me.

"Good. That's all I needed to hear." I let out a sigh of relief.

"Pryce." I looked up.

"Accurate work is accurate work. You don't need me to verify what you already know."

At eleven-thirty, Karin Halvorsen called again. This time I answered.

Karin offered me a department. The Denver role would put me in charge of rehabilitation across three sports-medicine clinics, with the authority to build protocols, hire two clinicians in the first year, and create the return-to-sport program I'd described at the conference in July.

There would be no team travel. The salary was good. The resources were better. There would be more administration.

And fewer hours at a table.

"I'm not asking you to decide on the phone," she said. "The formal offer will be in your inbox this afternoon. We need an answer by New Year's Day."

"Why are you working so hard to get me?" I asked.

"Because you spent half your panel disagreeing with the premise and the other half explaining how to fix it."

"That's not usually a hiring qualification," I said. "Most employers prefer agreement."

"It is when I agreed with you and wanted the same fix."

I smiled despite myself.

"Read the offer," she said. "Call me with any questions. And if the answer is no, I want it to be because Chicago is the work you choose, not because moving is inconvenient. We can help with that."

"I'll read the formal offer when it comes."

The document arrived at two-twelve and specified the start date, authority, salary, reporting line, and the New Year's deadline, with a generous relocation incentive. Nothing in it knew Anna had left or that Bishop's care had transferred. Karin had begun this process before either of those things. I read it once and saved it to my personal drive. Then I sent Bishop a message.