Chapter Nine
Beau
The walk to the PT room isn’t long, but that doesn’t stop it from feeling that way.
My boots echo down the hallway, the low hum of the vending machine by the water fountain the only other sound. This part of the Icebox always feels quieter, since the noise from the rink never quite makes it this far.
It’s like the building has a spine, and this is the nerve ending nobody touches unless they have to.
The light is on in the room, and a shadow moves across the frosted glass panel. Her soft scent lingers out in the hall, a contrast from the usual wall of alpha and disinfectant, and my stomach tightens.
It’s ridiculous to get worked up over a PT session. I’ve had hundreds of these over the years, and I know the drill.
But it’s not the work that makes me hesitate.
I push the door open just a fraction, spotting where she stands with her back to me, rearranging something on a shelf. Her hair has been pulled back into a high ponytail; nothing like the sleep-tangled mess from last night on the couch.
She doesn’t turn around at first, and I look for longer than I mean to: at the way her navy sweater is fitted just enough to show off her slim waist, while her black leggings flare at the bottom, but hug tight everywhere else.
It’s stupid, and I shake my head to snap myself out of it.
I push the door until it groans in protest and she turns at the sound. Her hazel eyes land on me, and for a second, neither of us speaks.
Then:
“Hello.”
It isn’t cold, but it isn’t exactly warm, either.
“Hey,” I say, stepping in and letting the door fall shut behind me. “Coach sent me. For an assessment.”
“Oh. Of course. Yeah.” She blinks once, like she’s slotting this into a mental checklist. “Right. You’re, um—well.”
“Beau,” I offer flatly, brow lifting.
She squeezes her eyes to a brief close as she inhales deeply through her nose, pausing for a moment before she shakes her head from side to side.
“Yeah, no; sorry, I know who you are. Kind of hard to forget.” Her gaze flicks to the table. “Why don't you go ahead and sit. Let’s get this assessment over with before one of us starts brooding in stereo.”
She turns away to set down her clipboard next to a tray of tape rolls, giving me a second of space. I cross the room and sit on the table, and the vinyl squeaks under my weight. My training jersey tugs across my shoulder when I move, and the joint complains in a hot, familiar burn.
“Coach says you’ve been out a few weeks,” she says as she leans back against the shelf, her arms folded loosely.
“Coming up on four,” I answer with a nod.
“Dislocation?”
“Yeah.”
“Which side?”
I raise my right arm a fraction as she steps forward. She doesn’t touch me: instead, she angles her head and studies the shoulder, the tight line of my posture, the way the jersey sits wrong now.
It feels like she’s tracking more than anatomy, as though she’s also clocking every way I’m compensating, every way I’m guarding, every way I’m refusing to lean.
“Did you have any scans?”
“Yeah. Waiting on the full report, but they said partial tear’s a maybe.”
Her expression doesn’t shift.
“And you’ve been skating through it?”
“Not contact. Not full-speed.” I pause. “But... well. Yeah.”
“That smart?” she asks.
“Probably not.”
She hums. “At least you’re honest.”
The change is subtle, but I swear I feel the moment she decides to stop just looking and start working. Her scent sharpens a little as she focuses, and my own instinct flares in answer; not aggressive, just aware.
“What’s your pain level right now?” she asks, her eyes tracing the line of my shoulder through the jersey.
“Three or four,” I say. “If I don’t move it.”
“And if you do?”
“…Seven. Maybe eight.”
Her gaze lifts to mine. She doesn't believe me: I can tell.
“Noted,” she says anyway.
She moves closer again, and I sit still on the edge of the table, hands braced. Her presence isn’t loud, but it’s concentrated, and the room seems smaller, almost as if the walls have moved in a few inches.
No one’s saying it out loud, but both our bodies know it.
Omega in alpha territory.
Alpha in her space.
Her eyes drop back to my shoulder, to where the jersey can’t disguise the way everything around it is doing extra work. She tilts her chin toward it, her lips rolling together.
“You’re going to have to take that off.”
I don’t move, and her brows lift slightly. She opens her mouth—no doubt gearing up to repeat herself—but I exhale and cut her off.
“Yeah. I got it.”
I grab the hem with my good hand and start to work the jersey up. The second the fabric drags across my bad shoulder, fire lances down my arm, but I grit my teeth and keep going.
I’m fine again until the jersey catches at the sleeve, and my vision flashes white at the edges for a second.
Maybe it’s out of respect, or maybe because she knows alphas like me bite first when they feel cornered, but she lets me handle it without offering to intervene or help. At least I'm not wearing the sling: that would have been really fucking embarrassing.
I manage to push through and force the jersey over my head. I drop it beside me on the table harder than I need to, and the room goes quiet.
She reaches for a pair of gloves, pauses, and then seems to change her mind, letting them fall back into the box. Her hand hovers just over my upper arm, close enough that my skin heats under the proximity as her eyes meet mine.
“Okay?” she asks.
I give a short nod, and finally, she touches me.
Her fingers land light on the muscle and start moving across the joint, pressing into all the places that have felt wrong for weeks. Her hands are small, but there’s strength in them. She’s testing tension and hunting the edges of pain, reading my body in the way good PTs do.
I don’t flinch, but I feel every second of it. Not just the pain—though that’s there, deep and rotten—but the focus, the attention.
The way the air between us thickens with shared silence and unspoken boundaries.
“Range of motion?” she asks, breaking into my thoughts.
“Limited,” I say through my teeth as she lifts my arm gently.
“Yeah, I can see that. Any numbness? Tingling?”
“No. Just pressure. And the occasional stabbing.”
She snorts under her breath.
“I love an occasional stabbing.”
The corner of my mouth twitches. She doesn’t look at me, but something in her voice is just a fraction lighter when she continues.
“Alright: I’m going to move your arm through a few positions, see where the restrictions are. Tell me the second anything feels sharp, wrong, or like it’s about to make you punch me on reflex.”
“I don’t hit people who are helping me,” I mutter.
“Let’s keep that streak going, then.”
She starts moving my arm. Her touch is clinical, her focus all business, but the tension doesn’t go anywhere; it just shifts shape.
Her hand slides from my shoulder to the top of my bicep, fingers pressing into the muscle as she rotates the joint. Pain flares, and I grind my molars, keeping my breath steady.
“Okay?” she asks without looking up.
“Fine,” I grind out.
It’s not, and we both know it.
Her palm skims across the front of my shoulder, thumb brushing the head of the humerus.
She knows exactly how deep to press, how far to lift, which angles to test and which to avoid.
It’s irritating how good she is at feeling what I’d rather hide.
Almost as irritating as the way I feel every inch of it.
The heat of her skin. The grounded weight of her hand. The fact that she doesn’t back off when I tense.
Her fingers slide to the back of the joint, finding the ridge of my scapula. She pauses, her thumb hovering over a knot that feels like a live wire.
“Here?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I rasp.
She doesn’t apologize. Instead, she presses deeper.
“Breathe through it,” she instructs.
Her other hand braces my elbow as she rotates the arm outward. Pain spikes, sharp enough to blur my vision, but I hold still.
And I focus on her face instead.
Her brow is furrowed, her lips parted just slightly as she watches the movement of my shoulder as opposed to my reaction. Freckles dust her cheeks, and her lashes throw shadows when she glances down.
I look away before I stare too long, and before my instincts start misreading her focused attention as something else.
She steps closer to get a better angle, and her knee bumps mine.
Neither of us moves.
“You’re guarding,” she says quietly.
“No shit.”
Her mouth twitches into the ghost of a smirk.
“Try to relax.”
I speak through gritted teeth as I respond.
“You’re literally digging into the worst part of my body right now.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to clamp down on everything like a vice.”
“You saying I’m tense?”
“I’m saying your shoulder is locked up tighter than a vault,” she huffs. “And probably for the same reason.”
That pulls a short, rough laugh out of me before I can catch it. She looks up, clearly surprised, and for a second, we’re just…stuck there.
Her eyes are darker in this lighting, and there’s awareness in her gaze. Of me. Of what I am, and of what she is.
Of how close we are and how thin the line is between professional and something else if either of us looks away at the wrong time.
The room hums around us, but she blinks, then breathes. Her attention shifts back to my shoulder as the moment passes, but the static stays.
Eventually, her hands still.
“Alright,” she says, stepping back a half-step. “That’s enough for today.”
I exhale slowly. My arm hangs a little looser now—less like a locked door and more like a stuck one she’s just started to pry open. I turn my head in time to see her scribbling notes on her clipboard, jaw tight in concentration.
“Mobility’s limited,” she says, eyes on the paper. “Inflammation’s high. You’re compensating through your pec and upper trap, which is why everything feels like it’s on fire when you move past ninety degrees.”
“Good to know,” I mutter, flexing my fingers.
“So: you’ve been skating.”
“Not hard,” I remind her. “Just light drills.”
“And you’ve been rehabbing it how, exactly?”
“Rest. Ice. A few stretches I remembered from the last trainer.”
She looks up from her notes, but a few beats pass between us as she just… stares.
“What?”
“You’re treating a major shoulder injury like it’s a twisted ankle,” she frowns. “That’s not rehab, Wolfe. That’s denial with a heat pack.”
I huff out a breath through my nose, irritated.
“You’re not subtle, are you?”
“Would subtlety get you back on the ice?” she counters.
I hold her gaze, and something shifts in her expression.
It’s not softer, exactly, but less combative.
“Look,” she sighs, setting the clipboard down. “I’m not here to play games with this. I’m here to get you better. But that only works if you actually want to do the work.”
“I do,” I say immediately.
“Then you need to show up. Regularly.”
“For how long?”
She hesitates for half a second.
“I need your imaging to confirm everything, but based on what I just felt, you’re looking at six weeks minimum. Best case. Maybe longer if there’s a tear.”
My jaw clenches.
“That puts us deep into playoffs.”
“I know.”
“I need to be out there.”
Her eyes don’t shift.
“Not like this, you don’t.”
The room goes still again. Outside, I can hear faint laughter from the guys. A stick clacks against the floor.
Pack noise.
They’re out there carrying the weight I signed up for, and I’m in here trying to convince my body not to fall apart.
“Alright,” I say quietly. “What now?”
She pulls a printed sheet from a folder on the counter and hands it to me.
“Home program. Stretches, basic mobility. Twice a day, minimum. We’re starting with reducing guarding and getting your scapular rhythm back under control.”
“Scapular rhythm,” I repeat, my tone dry as hell.
She smirks. “It’s real. Look it up. Or just trust the omega who spent four years learning how not to let alphas ruin their joints permanently.”
I glance down. Her handwriting is neat.
“When do you want me back?”
“Tomorrow morning,” she says. “Before you so much as look at the ice.”
“You’re not easing me in, huh?”
“You want to play again?” she asks, one brow lifting.
I hold her stare.
“Yeah,” I tell her, and I mean it. “I’ll be here.”
“Good.” Her arms cross, the line of her shoulders relaxing by a fraction. “Just try not to be late. Alphas are notoriously bad at clocks.”
“I’m never late,” I say as I stand, my shoulder flaring in protest as I reach for my shirt.
“You were born late,” she says. “I can feel it.”
I almost smile at that.
She turns away to put something back on the shelf, her ponytail swaying with the movement and her scent trailing after her.
“See you tomorrow, Wolfe,” she says.
I don’t answer as I step out of her room, but the whole way down the hall, I can feel the ghost of her eyes on my back.