Chapter 3
Theo
“I’m pretty sure we can report this to the PA,” Hunter muttered.
It only took him an hour and our fourth water break to say what I’d been feeling since we’d finished the first set of drills.
“I doubt the Players’ Association cares.” Coach’s whistle cut through my bones. We sighed and tossed our water bottles before skating onto the ice.
My legs burned with every push. My shoulder was a fucking bonfire.
“I don’t know, man,” Hunter said, waffling through stretches on his line. “An extended practice straight out of a five-hour flight? That’s torture.”
I shrugged. “That’s McAvoy.”
“Odd-man breaks, let’s go!” Coach skated out and started pulling attacking groups. “We’re doing 2 v 1. Bouchard, you’ve been dragging your ass all session. You know what that means.”
I flanked Hunter on the right, to get a better read on the attack. Of course, this was done against a backdrop of ‘Quit dragging that ass, Bouchard’, ‘Typical Frenchie’, and a slew of other burns from the guys.
But I had bigger things on my mind, like the sudden spotlight on me and my performance. Also, van der Berg and Hopper with their eagle eyes. It was easier to slack off in the middle of a group, especially when Landon made sure he hogged all the attention.
Mason and Grayson were up first. The whistle blew, and they pushed off with clean attacking lanes. I expected the deke from Mason on the right and crossed left to get an early block on Grayson, who’d then take the shot.
My timing was perfect. But my reach wasn’t. The puck slid about two inches out of my safe mobility zone, so the poke check turned out to be nothing more than a harmless graze. Grayson snapped it up in a mohawk and planted it straight between Hunter’s legs.
Whistle.
“What the fuck was that? Huh?”
“Sorry, Coach.”
He was already calling the next two attackers. “Don’t give me sorry, and don’t give me a repeat of last season. Do your job.”
I would’ve done fine hacking through the rest of this session without thinking about the finals. Or the way I totally bombed out to lose our last chance at lifting the cup.
Adding insult to injury was Landon pulling up next to Shawn. He took off before the whistle, not bothering to pass to Shawn at all. The guys recognized the stand-off and drew in for a closer look.
I crowded the rookie fast, because the less room he had for any of that fancy flair he liked, the better.
But the fucker faked me out, passed the puck forward between his legs, and picked it up behind me.
I spun round, relieved to see Hunter had the left side covered.
The relief didn’t last, though. Landon scooped the puck over his head in an arc we all followed, like spectators at a volleyball game.
Then he brought up his stick and slapped it mid-air, top corner, before Hunter had a chance to pivot.
“I got goals for days, baby.” Landon sailed across the ice in a victory lap. “Montreal better check it.”
He got a clap on the back from Coach, and all I got was a death stare. “You look like you’re auditioning for the bench. Is that what you’re doing?”
“No, Coach.” I grit my teeth and mustered up the will to get through the session without any blowouts. “Guess I’m still shaking off the flight.”
We were all thinking it, but the guys slowly increased their distance from me in the bleakest show of non-solidarity I’d seen. Except Hunter. He’d tensed, but stuck to his line.
“Cool it, man,” he muttered under his breath.
“I am cool.” Then I skated for the bench. “I’m just fucking tired, and don’t need this shit.”
“Bouchard!” Probably the only time my name would ever ring out in Bell Centre.
But I didn’t stop. I didn’t care about Coach being mad at me.
“Who the hell do you think you are? You don’t walk out on a session.”
Reese caught my eye as I passed her. “Take a breath. You can’t—”
Whatever she said got lost in the red haze closing in. When I reached the lockers, it had taken me over completely. Rage. Humiliation. That gnawing guilt that I’d been living with for months…
The next time I became aware of myself, I was staring out over the pond behind my old elementary school. I’d changed out of my gear, left the arena, and somehow made it all the way uptown without a conscious thought. I sank onto the grass with a sigh. Defeated. That’s how I felt.
At first, my plan seemed perfect. Push through the shoulder thing to stay in the game and make up for what I cost the team last season. All I had to do was keep from upsetting the damn thing, and I’d be a hundred percent by the time playoffs rolled around.
I dug a stone out of the damp soil and skipped it across the smooth surface of the water in front of me. Shoulder thing. I didn’t even know what the hell was wrong with me.
“You came an awful long way to warm a bench, Bouchard.” Reese didn’t wait for an invitation to sit down next to me.
Elbows on my knees, I kept my eyes on the water. “You stalking me now?”
“Would you rather I had left McAvoy to come get you himself?”
I scoffed, shaking my head. “I can handle my coach, thanks. Don’t need any favors.”
That shut her up, but after about thirty seconds, I realized the quiet was way worse.
“I learned to skate on this pond.”
She followed my gaze out there, looking like she was trying to picture it.
My shoulder ached against the static angle, and I dropped my arms to my side. “Seven years old, but I knew that hockey was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”
When the silence that followed started feeling suspicious, I took my eyes off the pond to look at her. The person who usually couldn’t shut the hell up around me. Her expression was soft, thoughtful. As if she’d gotten lost in her head while I was talking.
“You okay?”
That broke the spell, and she dropped her eyes. “Yeah, I just… I know what you mean, that’s all.”
“You always knew you wanted to be surrounded by sweat, cold spray, and hockey gear that smelled like wet dog?”
“Something like that.” She laughed, but sadness played along the edges of it.
I didn’t know why that stuck out to me, but I wasn’t about to go poking around things that didn’t concern me at all. “Is he really benching me?”
“Are you hoping he does?” she shot back, eyes on mine in a kind of dare.
I was first to flinch and look away.
“Look, if you let me, I can help you stay on the ice,” she said. “Or you can keep doing whatever this is, and work yourself out of the team. Your choice.”
“I keep telling you, there’s noth—”
“And I’m telling you…” She placed a hand on my shoulder, and I instantly caved under it, pulling away. The look she gave drove straight through me. “Your choice isn’t that hard. One way puts you out of the game, the other has you doing what you’ve wanted since you were seven.”
Then she got up, dusted specks of dirt and grass from her ass, and left me alone. She didn’t wait for an answer, because she already knew what it would be.
*
“This place always freaked me out.” I inhaled deeply, the distinct smell of menthol and stuffy boxes of first aid supplies creeping up on me.
Reese finished washing her hands in the tiny sink on the back wall and patted them dry on a paper towel. She wore her usual team polo, but today had it paired with black leggings, which, in my opinion, were totally unnecessary. Especially when she was bending over the supply drawers to grab stuff.
She turned back to me with a smirk. “Would it freak you out more if I ask you to remove your shirt? Because I’m about to ask you to remove your shirt.”
“You’re shameless,” I said, playing shy.
“You’re stalling,” she deadpanned.
I rolled my eyes and got to it. A few months ago, I would’ve ripped off my shirt with one hand in under a second flat.
I sat in front of her now, the exam bed creaking beneath my weight as I shifted through a series of careful moves that didn’t rely on my right shoulder’s full rotation.
My shirt slipped over my head, and I caught her looking at me with eyebrows raised.
“Are you kidding me?”
I winked at her. “I get that a lot. Would you believe me if I told you I never work out?”
But my winning brand of humor wasn’t gonna derail this one. Her mouth set in a stern line, and she stuck her arm out in front of me.
“Give me your hand.”
I reached over with my left and interlaced my fingers through hers, deliberately ‘misunderstanding’ the instruction. She glared at me, but only once I batted my lashes like a bashful virgin did she swat my hand away.
“Stop messing around.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I promise I’ll be good.”
She stuck out her arm again, full stretch. I lifted my right to do the same, our hands meeting, palm to palm. Then I waited.
“Is this… some weird physio version of that scene in Ghost, only less sexy?”
She didn’t answer, but I soon came to realize what was happening, and it was decidedly unsexy. Reese leaned forward in slow, timed increments, all the weight going to her outstretched arm.
“Hold.”
I clenched my jaw, feeling the twinge in my shoulder become a pronounced twitch. “It’s recent.” I lied. “From the game against the Flames.”
Her eyes were glued to the spot under strain, and she leaned some more. “Hold.”
Blinding white heat popped in the joint, calling that dreaded stab to shoot through.
I dropped my arm abruptly, and she stumbled forward after it, almost landing right in my lap.
She stared at me, her hands set on either side of my thighs, and although I braced for it, no lecture came.
She simply straightened and moved to the side to have a closer look.
Her hands were warm, soft, as she gently palpated the joint. I thought about the faces Hunter used to make—before he and Holly were a thing—when Reese would work out his post-match kinks with a quick massage.
“Does this hurt?” She ran her fingers over the surrounding muscle, each press sending waves of pain to pulse through it.
“No.”
“This?”
I winced, but managed to avoid pulling out from under her touch. I’d been putting myself through torture for months, so making it through a measly exam was nothing.
“No. I told you it was just a bad knock. It’ll be all healed up in a couple of days.”
She gave me an unimpressed look, then moved on, her hand sliding to my right elbow. “Bend your arm and lift it out to the side.” I did as I was told. No joking around. “Now lift your hand like you’re gonna wave, but keep your upper arm static. Okay, now drop your hand below your elbow…”
I bit back the groan that wanted out. Way before I got to half rotation, let alone below my elbow.
Reese turned from me without another word and went to grab stuff from her desk. She came back over with a fresh roll of tape and anti-inflam gel.
“Did I win, Doc?”
“You’re an idiot. Stand up.”
I slid off the bed and stood to attention, smiling through the lingering irritation in my arm. She’d woken up what I’d spent the day icing back into submission, and I could only imagine how much louder it was gonna be on the ice in a few minutes.
She worked fast, applying the gel, then measuring and cutting the tape to strap my joint into a supportive set. “This’ll get you through the game, but I’m gonna need a scan to know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
“Nope.” I pulled my shirt back on, already feeling the added quiet in my movements.
“I’m not kidding,” she said, hands on her hips. “I can’t treat you if I don’t know what I’m treating. It could be nothing, or it could be surgery waiting to happen.”
“Or it could be nothing,” I said, halfway to the door. “I feel better already. See?” I flapped my arms at my sides. She didn’t crack a smile. “You can just keep taping me up like this until after we lift the Stanley Cup. Deal?”
There was no answer, and I didn’t hang around for one, either. I had a game to get to.