CHAPTER 14 — PAIN DOESNT LIE #2
“Saturday’s game decides our position for the conference final.”
“And your shoulder decides whether you play the entire season or become a cautionary tale about athletes who confused courage with stupidity.”
“You don’t understand.”
The phrase hit me somewhere old, more personal than professional.
I stepped back and grabbed the compress from the counter, needing movement before my response came out too hot.
Damon watched me—bare chest, inflamed shoulder, cold and tired eyes—and I hated the urge to touch his face at the same time I wanted to shake him.
“I understand more than you want to admit,” I said.
“I understand that if you play badly or don’t play, your brother shows up to talk about legacy.
I understand that sponsors measure your value in minutes on the ice.
I understand that you think pain is proof of strength because someone taught you to turn suffering into a résumé.
But I also understand inflamed tissue, compensation, risk of chronic injury, and the kind of athlete who destroys himself at twenty-three to prove something to men who don’t even bleed for him. ”
Damon went quiet. The last part landed where I wanted—and where maybe I shouldn’t have. Men who don’t even bleed for him. Julian. His father. All of Northaven, maybe. The silence that followed held no victory. Only exhaustion.
“You talk like I have a choice,” he said, quieter.
The anger in me lost its edges. I picked up the warm compress and moved back in front of him, positioning it over the tense muscles, not on the inflamed area.
Damon closed his eyes for a second, and I saw his body accept the relief before his mouth could try to deny it.
That small surrender disarmed me more than any request would have.
“You do,” I replied. “The problem is no one taught you to recognize a choice when it doesn’t come dressed as victory.”
He opened his eyes. I was too close—one hand holding the compress, the other resting lightly on his good shoulder to steady him.
His chest rose and fell with more control now, but there was something raw in his face, an exhaustion the Cruel Captain rarely let near the surface.
I shouldn’t have wanted to kiss him in that moment.
I shouldn’t have, because he was in pain, I was angry, and the medical room wasn’t the place to resolve anything that wouldn’t fit in a chart.
Still, my body remembered that care and desire, with Damon, had stopped obeying simple boundaries.
“You’re going to pull me from the game,” he said.
“I’m going to keep you whole enough to play plenty of games after this one.”
“Sounds the same when you’re not the one stuck watching from the bench.”
“Don’t use that on me,” I said, and my voice lost its softness. “I’m not trying to humiliate you. I’m trying to do what no one did four years ago for other athletes when your program decided a quick return was worth more than keeping them whole.”
The sentence came out before I could hold it back.
Damon went still. The compress between my hand and his skin felt too hot now.
His eyes met mine, and I saw the questions forming, sharper, closer.
I had said your program, not the program.
I had said other athletes. I had come too close to what Julian had authorized without opening the file.
“What other athletes?” he asked.
My phone vibrated in my pocket as if Julian had heard from across the city. I didn’t reach for it. Not now. I kept my hand on the compress, breathed slowly, and chose the only truth I could tell without giving up my father in a room with thin walls and a thick past.
“There were wrong decisions before the investigation,” I said. “Players who came back too soon. Injuries treated like inconveniences. Pressure from above.”
“From my father?”
The question came loaded with years. It wasn’t simple.
It never had been. Damon’s father bore guilt for many things; so did Julian; so did the administrators; my father, in his own way, had stayed silent when he should have spoken up.
The problem with big truths is they rarely fit in one sentence without crushing someone.
“From more people than you’d imagine,” I replied.
Damon grabbed my wrist. Not hard. Not to stop me. Just to keep me there. His hand was warm, his fingers firm, and the touch held more request than accusation. That scared me more than anger would have.
“You know names.”
“I know some.”
“Julian?”
My silence answered before my mouth could.
Damon released my wrist slowly, as if my skin had turned dangerous.
The room seemed to shift on its axis. I saw the conflict opening in his face: old loyalty, new suspicion, desire for me, anger at the past—everything colliding at once.
I wanted to offer something that wasn’t more weight, but maybe we’d already spent too long choosing silence in the name of protection.
“I still can’t give you everything,” I said. “Not without figuring out how to do it without destroying my father in the process.”
“He threatened you.”
It was a statement now. My heart kicked harder. Damon saw it.
“Noah.”
“Don’t ask if you’re only going to use the answer to attack without thinking,” I replied. “Because if you go after Julian like this is some locker room fight, he’ll burn everything before any evidence reaches the right place.”
Damon took a deep breath, and it caught because of his shoulder.
The conversation had ratcheted up the tension in his body; I saw his muscles react.
Before the pain could escalate, I placed both hands on him—one on his upper chest, the other near his shoulder blade—steadying him.
He closed his eyes, not from pleasure, not exactly, but from exhaustion.
His head dropped slightly forward, and I cupped the back of his neck before I thought too much about it.
“Sit up straight,” I said, quieter. “Don’t lock up. Breathe with me.”
“I hate when you do this.”
“I know.”
“I hate it more when it works.”
“I know that too.”
He let the air out slowly. His forehead almost touched my shoulder, but stopped just short.
I didn’t force it. I just kept my hands where they were, guiding his breathing, easing the tension, reminding his body that war didn’t have to be the only state it knew.
Gradually, Damon yielded. His head tilted, finally resting lightly against my chest—not as a dramatic surrender, but as a man too tired to hold up the weight of his own armor alone.
My entire body went still.
I could feel his hair near my chin, the warm breath against my shirt, the width of his shoulders under my hands, the pain still alive in his body and the fragile trust in that small surrender.
Damon Blackwood, who would rather break his shoulder than ask for help, was there on the exam table, letting me see his exhaustion without turning it into spectacle.
That touched me somewhere too dangerous to be just desire.
“You need to stop before you actually break,” I said, almost against his hair.