Over The Line (Colorado Storm #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

She wants to shave my dick

Reid

“You’re not shaving me. I’ll bleed out on principle.”

Dr. Carina Park doesn’t look up from the chart in her hands. “That’s an alarming stance to take, considering you’re about to be in an operating room.”

“You touch me with a razor, and I swear to God—”

“You’ll what? Limp away?”

I glare, but she doesn’t flinch as she slowly turns the page. She’s got all the time in the world and none of it is for my bullshit.

It’s been over twenty-four hours of this. Her, strolling in with all her cool doctor logic and zero bedside charm, rattling off stats and options like I’m not sitting here trying to hold my season together with tape and denial.

She’s young for a surgeon. Sharp-jawed with dark eyes that don’t soften for anyone, least of all me. And she’s stunning—not that it matters. Not when she’s also just told me they’ll need to remove my piercings before surgery, too. And shave my groin.

I shift on the bed with irritation. “It’s unnecessary.”

“It’s not.”

“It’s my knee, not my dick.”

There it is—a line I shouldn’t have said, but did anyway. One I’m hoping will garner some sort of reaction from her.

It doesn’t.

“If I were confused about what we were operating on, Mr. Hutchison,” she says evenly, “we’d have much bigger problems.”

For fuck's sake.

She just walked in here and told me they’re about to remove metal from my dick and razor me below the waist while I’m unconscious, and she did it with the straightest face I’ve ever seen.

“I don’t think you’re grasping how non-negotiable this is,” she adds, flipping another page.

“And I don’t think you’re grasping how attached I am to my… these particular pieces of jewelry.”

That finally earns me a reaction. Not a smile, but the tiniest hitch of her mouth. Maybe amusement, but I’m sensing pity.

“We’ll keep them in a sterile bag for you.”

“How thoughtful.”

She lifts her gaze to mine, and her expression is just as unreadable as usual, which annoys the shit out of me.

“Look,” she says in a maddeningly calm tone, “you can either let us prep the area and reduce your infection risk… or, you can make this difficult and we do it anyway, only you wake up later with slightly more emotional damage.”

My mouth opens to argue, but then I close it again as I realize, with absolute certainty, that I’m fucked either way.

She nods like she knows it too, then turns back to her chart.

I bite down on the inside of my cheek and shift my glare to the window, pretending to ignore her.

And when she leaves a moment later, she doesn’t say goodbye—doesn’t even glance back. Just slots my file back on the end of the bed and shuts the door behind her, like I’m a piece of paperwork. Not a guy about to have a camera jammed into his knee, and his dignity stripped along with it.

Not a guy with an Olympic year hanging in the balance. Or a career that might not recover from this.

I’d take a hundred drills to the boards before I admit it out loud, but there’s something about her that gets under my skin. She’s too calm and collected. And she thinks she has me all figured me out, probably filed away somewhere under testosterone and tantrums.

She definitely thinks I’m a walking cliché.

And fuck it, maybe I am. I’m a pissed-off goalie, older than most of the guys on my line, holding onto the last few years of my career with both fists.

I lie on the narrow bed in a thin gown that barely qualifies as clothing, my right knee propped and marked in thick black ink, mocking me as though I might forget which one’s fucked.

The ceiling tiles blur together when I stare too long. Square after square of nothing I can control. There’s a specific kind of quiet that only exists in hospitals. It’s not the peaceful or calm kind, because there’s too much waiting. For an answer, for hope. For one more goddamn chance.

A meniscus tear.

Clean, according to the scans. Or as clean as anything gets when you’re thirty-nine, and your body’s finally decided to remind you it’s not indestructible.

Best case, I’m skating again in about six weeks. Game-ready in eight to twelve. The worst case is something no one has said out loud, but I know what it looks like.

Longer rehab. Lingering instability. The kind of decline you don’t notice until it’s already happening.

I flex my fingers, then stop when the cannula in my arm tugs, which pisses me off even more.

I’ve played through broken ribs, torn shoulders. Concussions I probably shouldn’t remember as clearly as I do. Pain I can handle. Pain is familiar. Uncertainty is not.

There’s a knock at the door, and it creaks open without waiting for permission. A flash of chatter follows, then four familiar idiots file in.

“Look at our little hospital bitch!” Chase Walton grins from ear to ear at the sight of me.

His voice is way too loud for a place with thin walls and pain meds. All energy and smugness, as usual—our cocky defenseman who somehow got Zoe Carlson, the Colorado Storm’s PR exec and girl of his dreams, to fake date him until it turned real. Still don’t know how he pulled that one off.

Jake Brooks is next, carrying a strong coffee and probably the only shred of respect for hospital protocol amongst the four of them.

He’s our star right winger—future Hall of Famer, family guy, annoyingly humble.

Fiancé to Charlie. Dad to nine-year-old Noah and six-year-old Meadow from Charlie’s previous marriage, and their son together, one-year-old Theo.

Little guy apparently cried when I went down on the ice, howling from the stands in Charlie’s arms. Fucking kid. Gonna break me worse than this knee if he keeps that up.

“Jesus Christ, Hutchy, they put you in a dress?” Logan Miller is already laughing as he trails behind. His arms are full of contraband snacks and what looks like a store-bought protein shake. “We brought supplies.”

“I’m nil by mouth.”

Chase’s eyes widen. “You can’t eat?”

“No.”

“Just a little sneaky bite, then?” Logan waggles a muffin at me.

“Do you want me to choke on my own vomit and die?”

They pause and grin at each other, as though they’re genuinely considering it.

“Fuck all of you.”

The chorus of giggles and hysterics begins.

“Never!”

“We love you too much, Hutchy!”

“I mean, it’d be a cool story to—”

“Just save the muffin for later!”

Eli Parnell steps up last, quieter than the other three. Our composed, unshakeable alternate captain—until two days ago, when he found out Logan’s been sneaking around with his little sister, Lulu. They’re sickeningly in love, but I can’t blame him for losing it.

“How’s the knee?” He crosses his arms and glances at Logan as though he’s still deciding whether he gets to live.

“It’s attached,” I mutter. “For now.”

Jake whistles. “And the mood is, too. Love to see it.”

Logan dumps the rest of the snacks on the side table, then turns around. “Was that the Dr. Doom we passed in the hallway? Looks like she’d murder you with a scalpel if you asked dumb questions?”

“Sounds about right.”

“Sounds like your type,” says Jake, grabbing a bag of chips and ripping it open.

“She’s the one holding the scalpel.”

Eli eyes me. “You being difficult?”

“She wants to shave my dick.”

All four of them freeze, then Chase barks out a laugh so loud it probably echoes down the hallway. “No fucking way!”

“Said the piercings have to go, too.”

“Oh my god.” Logan looks like Christmas came early. “Your ladder?”

Eli groans. “Why are we talking about this?”

“Because I’m in hell,” I say flatly. “And if I have to suffer at the hands of Dr. Doom, so do you.”

Chase wipes away a tear. “Reid, buddy, you are never living this down.”

“Just wait until I tell the girls about this,” Logan adds, already pulling out his phone.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

Jake steps in, grabbing the phone and tossing it on the chair. “Let the man keep what’s left of his pride.”

“Thank you,” I mutter.

He shrugs around a mouthful of chips. “You won’t have any left once you’re in those compression socks, anyway.”

Logan settles back in one of the chairs, even though I know they can’t stay long. “Want us to check in on Harry while you’re in here?”

It takes me a second to process.

“Grandpa?”

Eli lifts a brow. “You know another Harry?”

“He’s fine.”

“Yeah, but he’ll want updates,” Jake says, then nods toward my phone on the tray. “And unless you’re planning to text mid-surgery, he’s not gonna get them.”

“I’ll call him after.”

“You’ll be high as a kite after,” Chase points out. “Actually, wait. Wanna FaceTime all of us right after you wake up? I’ll screen record it.”

“No,” I mutter, my eyes flicking to Jake’s, who’s still watching me.

“We’ll stop by,” he says, in that low and steady tone of his. “Make sure he knows you’re good. I’ll bring him a new plant for his garden.”

I swallow and give a nod.

They don’t say it, but they all know Grandpa’s it for me. Only family I’ve got. He and my grandma Adele raised me, watched every game. She’s gone now, but he still calls every Sunday without fail, whether we’re on the road or not. If he knew how much this injury could mean…

“Thanks,” I say roughly.

There’s a pause amongst the guys, the kind of silence that creeps in when there’s too much they’re not saying. Logan fills it.

“You want someone to check on Gremlin, too?”

I glance over. “She’s got an automatic cat feeder.”

“For like a day, maybe. She’ll start rioting by day two.”

Chase makes a face. “I’m not going in there alone. She’s doesn’t wanna be my friend.”

“She’s territorial,” I correct.

“She attacked my foot.”

“You walked into her domain wearing neon Crocs.”

“They were Zoe’s.”

“I can’t begin to describe how much worse that makes it.”

Chase scoffs, spreading his arms wide. “Crocs are waterproof! I had to start wearing them after that one time I came over, and she pissed in my shoe!”

“That was a gift,” I say. “She was claiming you.”

“She was threatening me.”