Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Kendall
First class looked at us like we were the reason their bubbles were going flat when we entered the flight but at least now that we’re in the air, people have moved on.
We weren’t late. We were exactly on time for a gate that had been threatening to close for twenty minutes.
Still, I felt the collective snarl as Aleksi shouldered our bags into the overheads with that big easy body of his as I slid into the window seat like I owed every stranger here an apology.
The man across the aisle exhaled “finally” into his napkin.
A woman in a camel coat performed an Olympic-level eye roll.
Just before we hit altitude, the flight attendant appears with politeness honed to a weapon. “Can I get you anything to drink?” she asks Aleksi, smiling like she wants to be mad at him but can’t quite resist the cheekbones.
“Get in line,” I’m tempted to tell her.
Aleksi’s fan club of women in his jersey coming to every home game and many away, is large enough to fill this aircraft.
And I pass no judgement. He’s equal parts sweet and funny, with the boyish good looks but sexy in all the right ways.
Not to mention that seeing him play out on the ice is its own aphrodisiac.
“Champagne,” he says, then glances at me. “Two.”
My head whips toward him. “No, he can’t,” I tell her. Remembering I’m a doctor, first and foremost. “He had a concussion tonight. No alcohol.”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “They’re not for me, Doc.” He taps one thick finger against my shoulder. “They’re for you. To take the edge off. Your shoulders are up to your ears.”
“They are not.” I attempt to lower them and feel them climb higher.
He tips his head, all smug. “We raced a small marathon to get here. You hate flying. Sit back, take a deep breath, and drink a couple glasses of champagne. You earned it.”
The attendant—Team Aleksi—vanishes and reappears with two gold glasses that fizz, and that admittedly look like the type of liquid relief I could use.
The second one she parks on his tray with a wink.
He doesn’t touch it but keeps it for me so I can keep one hand on my glass and one hand still in his as a lifeline I’m not ready to relinquish just yet.
At least not until this champagne kicks in.
The stem is cold against my fingers, the bubbles slipping up my nose with a hiss that somehow feels like a kiss from the fruity alcohol. One sip and I feel my jaw unclench half a centimeter. I hate how fast it helps…. and I love how fast it helps.
“Thank you,” I say, because decency demands it. “For all of this.”
I feel his hand squeeze mine… just a little, but it’s there.
I sip again. He shifts, a silent offer, and I let my shoulder lean half an inch toward his. My body knows before my brain catches up that the space is safer with him in it.
“Don’t look at the door,” he says, like he knows what I’m thinking before I say it. “Look at me.”
That’s… ill-advised. But I do. The bruise has bloomed up under his eye, a purpling crescent that makes him look worse and somehow more like himself. The pupils are equal, reactive, normal. The grin however…? That is a real problem. Mostly a problem just for me.
“I’m sorry about the hit,” I say.
He shrugs it off like he’s shaking rain from his shoulders. “I’m not. If I had known that a concussion in an away game would mean you’d have to stay by my side the whole way home, I would have taken a hit sooner.”
I don’t answer, but I don’t pull away either.
We hit a small bit of turbulence, the liquid in my glass sloshing slightly.
I shut my eyes for a second and breathe like the podcast woman taught me.
Four in, four hold, six out. The champagne does its quiet work.
So does the hand wrapped around my knuckles.
The city falls away. My shoulders find their proper latitude.
For one blessed minute, there is nothing to do but exist.
“See?” he murmurs. “Already better.”
“I hate that you’re right,” I say, and take another sip to keep from smiling.
“Theo told me to keep you talking. So tell me a secret.”
“A secret? Like what?”
“Anything,” he says, grin tilted, voice low enough that it feels private even over the hum of the engines. “Okay. I’ll go first. Ask me anything you want.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Anything? That could be dangerous.”
“Good,” he says, leaning back. “Danger keeps the flight interesting.”
The seatbelt light dings off. Somewhere ahead of us, someone laughs too loud. The moment feels suspended, fragile, and strangely safe.
“Fine,” I say, giving in. “Tell me about your heart surgery. I’ve read your medical history but I don’t know much about it. You were young, right?”
He looks surprised, then thoughtful. “The scars are hard to miss huh? I forget it’s there most of the time.”
“It’s my job to know your history.”
“Fair.” He glances at our joined hands, thumb tracing idle circles against my skin.
“I was born with a congenital defect. My twin sister was perfectly healthy–I wasn’t.
My dad found a specialist in Germany. He said it was my best shot.
He flew us there when I was two. Surgery lasted eleven hours.
He said afterward I looked like someone stitched together with sheer willpower. ”
Hearing about his childhood and his surgery at such a young age makes me feel closer to him in an unexplainable way. “So you’re a medical miracle.”
He shakes his head lightly. “No. My dad never let me think that way. He said I wasn’t fragile, just built differently.
He put me in hockey when I was five to toughen me up.
Told me that if I could survive the ice, I could survive anything.
People would underestimate me, and that would be my superpower. ”
I’ve never met his dad and I already like him. “You believed him,” I say softly.
“I had to. He believed it enough for both of us.” A smile flickers. A fond yet heavy memory. “I was small when I was born. Sickly. Even as a kid, I couldn’t even lift a hockey stick without falling over at first. But hockey made me strong.”
“And look at you now,” I say.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Look at me now.”
The air between us shifts. A quiet admiration, something warmer creeping in.
“He passed away?” I ask gently. I know a little about this too, but only that he passed away before Aleksi came to the states.
“Yeah.” He exhales. “Right before I made the international team. We never got to celebrate together. He spent half his life getting me there, and then he was gone before the payoff.”
“I’m sure he sees it,” I whisper. “He’s watching. And I bet he’s proud of you.”
He swallows hard and I can tell he’s trying to keep his emotions in check. “I hope so. He was my best friend.”
Our hands are still linked. His thumb brushes once more across my knuckles, slower this time, as if he’s memorizing the texture of comfort. I don’t move away.
Then he clears his throat, the smile tugging back into place—his escape hatch. Happy go-lucky Aleksi is back. “Okay, my turn. Why the NHL? And what’s with the no-player rule?”
I blink. “Wow, going straight for the jugular on this one, aren't you? It’s almost as if you planned it.” I tease.
“You had full license to ask anything you wanted. Now I get the same question.”
He’s still smiling, but there’s curiosity beneath it–genuine interest.
I swirl what’s left of my champagne, watching bubbles break against the rim.
“I left the NFL after it became too toxic following my divorce. And my no-player rule has a lot to do with my ex-husband, and the fact that I’ve seen what happens when doctors get too close to the people they treat.
Lines blur, then ethics blur. I told myself I’d never let it happen again. ”
“Again?” he echoes quietly.
Before I can dive into the hell of the medical board audit, the investigation into my love life, and the ugly divorce that wrecked my finances worse than anything since I escaped my mother’s home after high school, a loud commotion erupts in the back of the plane.
We’ve been in the air for maybe forty minutes when we hear a stewardess call over the intercom. Not the scripted safety voice. This one is hurried yet trying to keep calm. “If there is a medical professional on board, please press your call button.”
My body is up before my brain finishes the sentence. Muscle memory. I unclip, press the button, and Aleksi is already shifting to let me into the aisle. The attendant hustles up, face pale under the perfect makeup.
“Row twenty-three,” she says. “He just… collapsed.”
Behind me, a different call button pings. A white-haired man in a comfortable sport coat is already standing. He’s got ER written all over his posture. A calm triage wrapped in retirement if I’ve ever seen it. “I’m a physician,” he says simply. “Emergency medicine, twenty-five years.”
I could hug him. “Kendall, sports med,” I offer as we move. “I’ll follow your lead.” I tell him and let him stride quickly in front of me.
“John,” he says simply back to me. “Tell me what happened, everything…” he tells the stewardess as we follow behind her.
She gives a quick recap but before she can get much detail out, we see the man laid out in the aisle.
We reach the back third of the cabin, where the usual economy rustle has turned to a circle of alarm. The man is in his mid-fifties, pale in that waxy way I hate. His wife is kneeling, clutching his hand. “Steve? Steve, honey?” Her voice is controlled panic.
“Okay,” the ER doctor says, dropping to his knees with more grace than his age suggests.
“I’m John and this is Kendall. We’re doctors.
We’re going to help him. His name is Steve?
” He asks his wife. She nods and then he looks at me, and the baton passes in a glance.
“Airway, breathing,” he says. “You take vitals.”