Chapter 3 #2
I send Jason to wash up and log his notes while the timer ticks down. When the door swings behind him, the room exhales. I don’t. I strip my gloves, drop them in the biohazard, and lean my hips against the counter long enough to feel the ache in my lower back remind me I’ve been standing for hours.
“Girl.”
Sophie slides through the door like she owns the hinges, curls sprung from a pencil pretending to be a hairpin. Two paper cups steam in the morgue-light. She thrusts one at me. “Tea. Your nervous system looks like it could use a hug and HR would frown if I provided one.”
I take it, wrap my fingers around the heat, try a joke. “Do they make OSHA-approved hugs now?”
“They make posters,” she says, then angles herself to see my face and the hallway at once. Tactical best friend stance. “Saw Coach come in swinging his whistle. Heard ‘epoxy.’ Please tell me he wasn’t talking about your spine.”
“My spine is fine,” I say. “It’s my calendar that just lost civil rights.” I explain in bullet points—travel, practice, off-day protocols—keeping my voice neat, my facts neater. When I finish, Sophie’s mouth is a flat line.
“That’s… a lot of proximity.” Her eyes flick to the door Jason used, then back. “You okay?”
“I’m employed.” The answer fits like a too-stiff shoe. I sip the tea. Lemon and resolve. “Manageable. I set a plan. He’ll follow it.”
“He’ll try,” she says. “He’s a border collie in a wolf suit. Brilliant, loyal, easily distracted by shiny objects and open gates.”
“Thank you for that clinical assessment.” I restock the tape drawer, because putting objects in order tricks my brain into believing everything else can be arranged, too. “I’m fine.”
Sophie crouches beside me, shoulders bumping. “You don’t have to be heroic. You can ask for a reassignment.”
“No, I can’t.” I close the drawer with my hip and meet her look. “It’s my call. It should be me. I know his tells. He listens to me.”
“Uh-huh.” Her head tilts, eyes softening with something that makes my chest want to cave. “And when you say ‘he listens,’ do you mean his wrist listens… or the rest of him?”
Heat pricks my cheeks. I busy my hands with sanitizer until my skin squeaks. “It’s not about him.” Not a lie. Not the whole truth. “It’s about the team. We need him healthy.”
“We also need you healthy.” She taps my cup. “And I’m not talking about carpal tunnel.”
I look at the wall clock. The second hand drags like it’s pushing through honey. “I know the lines,” I say. “I drew most of them.”
Sophie gentles. “Then keep them. Promise me. No after-hours. No closed doors. If you need a buffer, I’ll be your barnacle. I will third-wheel like it’s my religion.”
A laugh escapes, thin but real. “I don’t need a barnacle.”
“You always do,” she says, bumping my shoulder. “Look, I’m not the morality police. I like sparks. I burn things for fun. But the rules protect you, too. Remember who gets crushed when headlines roll downhill.”
The image lands hard—my badge turned in, my locker emptied, my name floating in a comment section like bait. I picture Jason’s face in the same storm and hate that I know exactly how he’d handle it: jaw set, eyes cold, taking the hit like it’s a bill he expected to pay.
“I won’t be a headline,” I say. It feels like a vow and a plea. “I’ll be careful.”
“Good.” Sophie nods, decisive. “And if being careful stops working, you find me and we unmake the problem before it makes you. Deal?”
“Deal.”
The door handle clicks. Jason’s shadow crosses the glass. Sophie straightens, wipes worry from her face with the speed of someone who’s seen too many locker rooms, and winks. “Barnacle on standby.” She squeezes my elbow and ghosts out the opposite door.
I square my shoulders, set the tea aside, pull on fresh gloves. Professionalism up. Armor on. The timer chimes.
Jason comes back smelling like cold water and mint soap. Damp hair curls at his nape, doing something to my concentration I refuse to name. I nudge the stool with my heel and gesture. “Sit. Mobility, then you’re cleared for light stickhandling.”
“Light,” he echoes, climbing onto the table with a hint of a grin. “My favorite intensity.”
“Lie to someone who believes you.” I cradle his forearm, guiding the wrist through slow arcs—flexion, extension, radial, ulnar. The joint glides warm from the contrast. “Any sharp pain?”
“Just dull. Manageable.”
“Good.” I switch to the tensor band and have him resist against my palm. Tendons jump, the wrap holds, and something inside me loosens a fraction. Small satisfaction is a safer high than the spark that leaps every time we make accidental eye contact.
We move through the plan: manual work, isometrics, grip strength with a soft ball, brief ice. I narrate without ornament—verbs, ranges, outcomes. He listens. He always did when the instructions had numbers attached. It’s everything without numbers that made us a mess.
“Travel starts Thursday,” I remind him, because saying it out loud makes it less a wave and more a tide chart. “Follow the protocol exactly. No heroics when the adrenaline spikes. If something feels off, you tell me immediately.”
“Copy,” he says, and I don’t miss the way his mouth softens around me. Not the trainer. Me. Unhelpful. I file it under not actionable and keep going.
I sanitize, log his vitals, send the update to Dr. Adams and Coach, and print a copy of the home exercises he’ll ignore unless I hand them to him personally. So I do. Our fingers don’t touch. The air still stings like a spark jumped.
“Questions?” I ask, because the script requires it.
He studies me like there’s one he wants to ask that isn’t allowed to exist. “No.” He slides off the table, shoulders setting into something I recognize—game-face, walls up. “Thanks, Lane.”
Professional. Clean. Exactly how I need it. So why does my chest pull tight as he reaches the door? Why do I picture hotel carpet and a keycard beep and the moment I chose myself and lost something I still miss in the dark?
I turn away and busy my hands with the trash, the sanitizer, the alignment of tape rolls into perfect little platoons.
Structure is a bridge over the places I could fall through.
He’s a body to keep upright, not a wound to poke.
I repeat the litany until it sounds like a song I can sing without my voice cracking.
Sophie texts a single anchor word: Barnacle. A shell emoji follows. I huff a laugh and type back: Girl, I hear you.
The compressor clicks off. I strip my gloves, toss them, and make a road checklist: ice sleeves, portable stim unit, extra padding, second set of braces, the only tape brand he tolerates without swearing. I add earplugs as a joke to myself. I don’t erase it.
My phone buzzes again. Different tone. Higher priority.
Nolan Blackwood: We need you in my office. Urgent.
For a second the lighting flickers, or maybe that’s my stomach dropping a floor. Urgent with the owner never means cupcakes. It means headlines, injuries, or decisions that knock people off rosters. Or off payrolls.
I swallow. My hands are steady when I pick up my clipboard. My heart is not. I text back: On my way.
One breath—then another—and I step toward a conversation that could redraw lines I just promised myself not to cross.