2. Aubrey
CHAPTER 2
Aubrey
W hen I walk into the office, the receptionist tells me Doctor Joyner is waiting for me in her office. I nod and make my way to the locker room to drop my stuff off before I head to her office.
When I walk into Emily’s office, she quickly hands me a file as I sit down in front of her desk.
“What’s this, Em?” I ask.
Emily and I have been friends since middle school, both choosing the same career path when we entered college. When we graduated, Emily knew she wanted to open her own physical therapy practice with an emphasis on sports medicine, which is my specialty. When she asked me to be a partner with her, there was no way for me to say no.
Of course I agreed, and two years later, here we are, the most requested and respected practice in Ashwood and the surrounding state of Montana.
“Your new patient,” she says, pulling me from my thoughts..
“New patient?” I ask as I open the file and see Jaxon Wilde’s name. My heart flutters in my chest.
Jaxon is my brother's best friend and completely off limits, but I've had a crush on him since I was a teenager.
I heard about the game when he got injured, but I didn't think I would be the one working with him. I thought he would be staying with the team and close to the hospital there.
“Jaxon Wilde?” I whisper as I close the file and blow out a breath.
“Are you going to be okay with this?” she asks, knowing how I have always felt about Jaxon. She’s the only one I ever told.
“When is his appointment?” I ask her, not answering her question.
“Ten o’clock, so you better hurry,” she tells me.
“Ten o’clock?” I look at the clock and see it’s only nine fifteen. “Why do I need to hurry? He won’t be here for another forty-five minutes,” I say looking at Emily with confusion.
“Umm, Aubrey, you will need to go to his place, as he prefers not to come into the office.”
“What? I have to go to his place? Why wasn’t I given more notice? I don’t know what he needs right now,” I screech.
“Calm down. This is his first consultation. He hasn’t seen a physical therapist since his surgery. You need to check to see if the swelling in his knee has gone down and if he’s ready for physical therapy,” she tells me softly.
“Oh,” I whisper. “Okay. I can do that.”
“Are you sure you want to do this? I can get someone else to do his therapy?” she offers.
“No, I can do this. It’s just Jaxon. It’s not like I didn’t grow up with him. I mean, I’m not a teenager any more,” I say, though I don’t know who I’m trying to convince more, myself or Emily.
“If you’re sure, then you better go. He’s staying at the cabin in the mountains,” she tells me.
“His grandparents' cabin?” I question and she nods.
I stand up with the file in my hand and make my way out of Emily’s office and back to the locker room. I take deep breaths, knowing I need to get my feelings for Jaxon under control. He is a patient and I could be working with him for months.
I grab my stuff and head out to my car. I input the address into the GPS and drive. Ten minutes into my drive, the phone rings and I see my brother’s name pop up on the screen.
“Hey Wes, what’s going on?” I ask him as I accept the call.
“Are you on your way to see Jaxon?” he asks.
“How do you know that?” I question him.
“I may have asked the doctor here to contact Emily and ask that you be his physical therapist,” he says with guilt in his voice.
“Why?” I ask, confused.
Growing up, Wes hated for me to be around him and Jaxon, especially Jaxon.
“Jax is in a bad place, and I know if anyone can cheer him up, it’s you. You have a way about making everyone feel good about themselves and he needs that. He needs your sunshine, Brey,” Wes tells me.
I can’t help but sigh and chuckle a little bit. Is he that bad?” I have to ask.
“Worse. I don’t think he’s left that cabin since he was released from the hospital and I took him up there. He’s grumpy and I get it, he can’t do what he loves, but I’m worried about him.”
“Okay, I’ll see if I can not only fix his knee, but his attitude too,” I say with a little laugh, but worry gnaws at my gut.
“That’s all I ask, sis. Thanks,” Wes says before disconnecting the call.
“What have I gotten myself into?” I whisper aloud.
Once I get up the mountain and find the cabin, I realize very quickly how isolated he is. I grab the initial intake forms, pamphlets, and my stop watch.
I walk up to the cabin’s front door and knock. I hear what I think is a faint, “Come in,” so I open the door and call out, “Hello, Jaxon?”
“In here,” I hear a gruff voice say.
I find Jaxon sitting in a recliner in the living room with the tv on a hockey game. I take in his appearance and notice the man has a full grown beard. It doesn’t make him less attractive, if anything it makes him look rugged and sexy. He has no shirt on and I can see the definition of each of his muscled abs. He’s wearing gray sweatpants and the brace on his knee.
I walk further into his living room and plaster a bright smile on my face. The man looks like a God, but I can see he needs help.
“Hey Jax, how are you feeling?” I ask him with a bright smile on my face.
“What are you doing here, Aubrey? Did Wes send you over to check on me?”
“No. I’m your physical therapist,” I tell him as I open the curtains and allow the sun to shine in.
I watch him flinch from the light as he looks at me.
“Why?” he asks.
I look at him, confused. “Why what?”
“Why you? Why are you my therapist?”
“Because you were assigned to me as a patient and I’m here to do my job,” I tell him, not allowing his gruffness or questioning to deter me as I set my stuff down and look at his brace.
“First things first, let’s take off the brace and make sure all the swelling has gone down and the incision is healed well enough to start some therapy,” I tell him as I begin to take the brace off.
“I can do it,” he says gruffly, pushing my hands away.
I sit back on my feet, giving him a bright smile and allow him to take the brace off.
I take it from his hands and place it on the floor next to me. “Do you want to roll up your pants leg or would you prefer I did it?” I ask him sweetly.
“I will,” he responds.
I don’t allow the smile on my face to fall from his indifference and it’s probably best that he does it as I’m not sure I could handle touching him like that right now.
Get it together, Aubrey, you have a job to do, I chastise myself internally.
He pulls his sweatpants leg up over his knee and I look at the scar from his surgery.
“It seems to be healing nicely, and there doesn’t seem to be any swelling around the knee, which is good. I think you are ready to move to the next step.”
“Good,” he says roughly and I can’t help but laugh.
“You say that now, but we shall see what you say when I leave,” I tell him. “Now, we are going to do a series of exercises and I’m going to time you. I want you to lie down on the floor.”
He looks at me as if I have lost my mind.
“Come on, the faster we do this, the better I can see where you are at in your recovery,” I say with a smile.
He pushes himself out of the chair and keeping his knee straight, he slides onto the floor before turning and placing his back on the floor.
“Okay, now I need you to keep your leg straight and tighten your quadriceps by pushing the back of your knee down into the floor, holding it for ten seconds. I will tell you when to go, then when to relax.”
I hear him mumble something, but he doesn’t say it out loud.
I hold the stop watch and say, “Go.”
I watch the grimace on his face, but he does it.
“Relax.”
He blows out a breath.
“Again, go.”
We continued on for fifteen reps.
When we finish the last one, I can see a sheen of sweat on his face and chest, but I move to the next exercise.
“Next we are going to try straight leg raises. I need you to keep your injured knee straight, but bend your other one. I need you to tighten your quadriceps and slowly lift your injured leg about twelve inches off the floor for three seconds, then you are going to slowly lower it back to the floor. We are going to do this fifteen times. Got it?”
“Yeah,” he gruffs out, but says nothing else as he starts the exercise.
Once he gets to the last set, I allow him a few minutes to catch his breath before we move on to the next exercise.
“This next one is a heel slide exercise. I want you to keep both your legs on the floor and slowly slide the heel of your injured leg toward your butt as far as you can without pain then slide it back to the starting position. Understand?” I ask him.
He nods, but doesn’t say anything.
“We are going to do this fifteen times as well,” I tell him before saying, “go.”
I watch as he slides his heel toward his butt and can see the strain this is causing him, but I say nothing, allowing him to decide where he should stop. He gets to the point where the heel is only halfway to his butt before he slides it back to the starting position. He continues for fifteen and by the time he is done he is panting.
“We have one more exercise for the day and then you can rest. This one is easy enough. I want you to point your toes away from you, then pull them back towards you. I want you to do this twenty times.”
He does with minimal issues and I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face once he’s done.
“How do you feel?” I ask.
“Fine,” he says gruffly.
“Good. I want you to do these exercises three times a day, just like we did right now and in that order. I have written everything down to include the reps. You will do these for the next two weeks and if your doctor clears you for increased mobility, then we will add some more exercises. I will be back in two weeks to check on you.”
He looks up at me as he’s still lying on the floor, before he says, “Can you close the curtains?”
I look at him, then look at the curtains, back at him and with a huge smile on my face say, “No. Seems you need some extra sunshine in your life and what a perfect way to spend the time exercising.”
His jaw drops as he looks at me like he can’t believe I told him no.
Since he’s speechless, I pack up my things, and tell him, “I’ll see you in two weeks and I expect you to follow all the exercises exactly as I laid them out to you, otherwise you may never get back on the ice.” Knowing that is the only thing he cares about right now, so I’m going to use it as much as I can.
I wanted to ask if he wanted my help getting back in the chair, but I knew he would only tell me no. So instead I walk out the door, as he is still lying on the floor, and head back to the office.