Chapter 13
ANNE
Idrove back to St. Louis Sunday night.
Finn had cried when I left. Not the dramatic performance crying he sometimes deployed when he wanted something — real crying, the kind that came from somewhere deep, his face crumpling in that way it did when he was genuinely upset and trying not to show it.
"You'll see Daddy again soon," I'd told him, holding him on the porch while the evening went dark around us. "He promised he'd call tomorrow night."
"But I want him to stay."
"I know, baby."
"Can he come back next weekend?"
I'd looked at my mom over his head. She'd given me a small, helpless shrug.
"We're going to figure it all out," I said. "I promise."
He'd let me go eventually. Stood on the porch with my mom's hand on his shoulder, watching my taillights until I turned the corner. I knew because I'd looked in the rearview mirror.
I drove four and a half hours with the weight of the weekend pressing down on me — not badly, not the way the secret used to press.
This was different. Heavier in some ways, lighter in others.
Like the worst part was over and what was left was just the long, uncertain work of figuring out what came next.
Liam's words on the porch stayed with me the whole drive. The honest ones — the ones that hadn't been angry, just true. He didn't know yet. Couldn't promise anything yet. And I had no right to ask him to.
But he'd stayed. He'd read the hockey bear book twice. He'd fixed Finn's grip on the stick and watched him light up and called him buddy and tucked the blanket up over him when he fell asleep on the couch.
He'd shown up. Whatever came next, he'd shown up completely.
That had to count for something.
Monday morning I arrived at the training facility before anyone else.
I set up the training room methodically. Laid out the equipment. Checked the resistance bands. Reviewed Liam's progress notes from last week even though I had them memorized.
Anything to keep my hands busy.
He arrived exactly on time. Not early, not late. He pulled off his shirt without being asked and positioned himself on the table and looked at the wall.
"Morning," I said.
Nothing.
I got to work.
His range of motion was continuing to improve — measurably better than Friday, the shoulder responding well to the weekend rest. I noted it on my tablet and said so.
"That's good news," I said. "The inflammation is down significantly."
Silence.
"Pain level?"
"One."
"Stiffness?"
"Some. Posterior capsule."
"Same as always?"
"Yeah."
I moved him through the protocol. He did everything I asked, precisely and without complaint, and said nothing that wasn't a direct answer to a direct question. I kept my own comments purely clinical. Assessment findings. Protocol adjustments. Timeline toward clearance.
Professional. That was the only register available to us right now, and I understood it. I'd earned this version of him.
What I hadn't expected was how much harder it would be than the silence before the reveal. Before, his distance had been about something unspoken between us. Now it was about something that had been spoken — and couldn't be taken back.
We moved to the resistance work. I positioned myself in front of him — close, the way the exercise required, his arm raised, my hands guiding the movement against resistance. His jaw was set. His eyes were on the wall behind me.
I pressed into the muscle to check the response, my fingers working along the shoulder and down toward his chest, and felt him go very still.
Not a pain response. I knew those.
I glanced down.
Then I looked back up at the wall and kept my face completely neutral.
He cleared his throat.
"Continuing," I said, as if I hadn't noticed anything, and moved on to the next exercise.
A beat of silence.
"Thanks," he said quietly. Whether he was thanking me for the discretion or something else entirely, I didn't ask and he didn't explain.
We finished the session without another word about it.
But when he reached for his shirt afterward there was something fractionally different in the room — a hairline crack in the ice, barely perceptible. His body, at least, hadn't gotten the memo about being angry with me.
I made my notes and didn't look up until the door closed behind him.
Tuesday was the same. Mostly.
He arrived. He worked. He left.
The only additional difference was that at some point midway through the resistance exercise, when I was adjusting his elbow position and my hand was on his arm, he flinched.
Not from pain. I knew his pain responses by now — the slight jaw tightening, the breath held for half a second. This was different. This was him pulling back from the contact.
I removed my hand.
"Sorry," I said quietly. "I need to adjust your angle slightly. Can you?—"
"Just tell me what to do. I'll do it."
I talked him through the adjustment without touching him again. He corrected his form. We finished the exercise.
I made a note on my tablet that said *full range, no compensation, responding well* and did not write down the thing that was actually happening in this room.
Carter came by after the session, knocking on the open doorframe. He looked between me and the empty training table like he was trying to read a scene he'd arrived too late for.
"Hey," he said carefully. "How's he doing?"
"Progressing well. On track for Wednesday clearance."
Carter studied me. "You okay?"
"Fine. Just focused on the timeline."
He clearly didn't believe me. But he nodded and left, and I was grateful for it.
Wednesday morning.
Dr. Harrison arrived early for the formal assessment. Coach Briggs came too, which meant this was official — not just a routine PT check but the evaluation that would determine whether Liam was cleared for contact and back on the active roster in time for playoffs.
Liam was already in the room when I arrived. He'd come early. That told me everything about how much this mattered to him.
I gave them privacy for the first part of the evaluation — Dr. Harrison's territory, his call, his relationship with Liam that predated mine by years. I reviewed my notes in the hallway and waited.
When they called me in, I presented my findings methodically. Eight weeks of progress data. Range of motion measurements. Pain level tracking. Strength testing results. Functional movement assessments. Everything documented, everything trending in the right direction.
Dr. Harrison asked his questions. I answered them. Coach Briggs stood with his arms crossed and listened.
Liam sat on the table and looked at the wall.
When I finished, Dr. Harrison moved through his own physical examination — joint stability, impingement testing, overhead loading. Liam winced once, on the posterior compression test, but held the position without complaint.
Finally Dr. Harrison straightened and looked at Coach.
"He's ready," he said.
Something shifted in the room. Even the air felt different.
Coach unfolded his arms. Looked at Liam with something that might have been relief. "Full contact?"
"Full contact. I want him in practice Thursday, limited slap-shots through the weekend, full protocol by Monday. If nothing flares, he's yours for round one."
Liam exhaled — slow and controlled, like he'd been managing his breathing for the last hour and was only now allowing himself a full breath.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
Dr. Harrison clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't make me regret it. Play smart."
"Always do."
Coach stayed as Dr. Harrison packed up. He stood with his hands on his hips looking at Liam the way coaches looked at players they'd invested in — part professional assessment, part something closer to paternal.
"Thursday night," Coach said. "Storm. Home ice. You're in the lineup."
A beat of silence.
"I'll be ready," Liam said.
After they left, it was just us.
I made my notes. Logged the clearance in the system. Updated the protocol for the remaining sessions — we'd shift now from rehabilitation to maintenance and performance optimization, a different kind of work.
"Congratulations," I said without looking up. "You worked hard for this."
A long silence.
"So did you."
I looked up.
He was looking at me — not through me, not at the wall behind me, but at me. His expression was complicated in ways I couldn't fully read. Not warm. Not forgiving. But something other than the flat professional blankness of the last three days.
"The shoulder work was yours," he said. "Whatever else is — whatever we are right now — you did your job. I want you to know I see that."
My throat tightened. "Thank you."
He held my gaze for one more moment.
Then he picked up his bag and left for practice.
I sat in the empty training room for a while after he was gone, looking at his progress notes on my tablet. Eight weeks of numbers trending in the right direction. A shoulder that had come back stronger than projected.
Thursday night he was going to play.
And whatever was broken between us, whatever long road we still had ahead — for one night, at least, I got to watch him do the thing he was made for.
I could hold onto that.