Chapter 27 - Reese
Reese
Theo was on the exam table, bare chest slick with sweat, skin gone gray around the mouth. One arm pinned to his side because that was the only way he could exist without screaming. The other hand clawed at the edge of the vinyl as if it might give him leverage over his own body.
“Don’t touch it,” he said through his teeth when I reached for him.
I stopped. Not because he was right, but because McAvoy’s voice cracked the room in two.
“What the hell is this?”
He wasn’t asking. He was planting blame like a flag.
I pivoted toward the cabinet instead, fingers already opening drawers, pulling gauze, saline, the syringe kit. My hands knew the order even if my head didn’t. Pain relief. Assessment. Contain the damage.
“Answer me,” McAvoy said. “He was cleared. He was supposed to be fine.”
Theo sucked in a breath, steeling himself. Holly hovered near the door, phone in her hand, screen dark but ready. Her mouth had gone thin. She was already thinking past this room.
I pressed a hand to Theo’s ribs, light enough to register, firm enough to anchor. His eyes slid shut. A sound slipped out of him that punched straight through me.
“I need space.” My voice came out steadier than I felt.
“What you need,” McAvoy shot back, “is to tell me how my best defenseman blows his shoulder to hell in the biggest game of the season.”
Holly stepped forward then. “We have reporters already circling the tunnel. I need to know what we’re saying.”
Theo’s fingers dug harder into the table. Sweat beaded along his hairline. I could see the tremor start in his forearm. Shock flirting with him now.
“Hey,” I murmured, leaning close. “Stay with me. Look at me.”
His lashes fluttered. He nodded once. Barely.
McAvoy slammed a fist into the wall. Bottles rattled. “I want an explanation, Hopper, and I want it now.”
“That’s enough,” I snapped. The words surprised all of us. Including me. “There are more important things than a trophy. He’s hurt.”
McAvoy’s glare burned through me. “And you kept us in the dark about it.”
The room went quiet, as though the air itself leaned in to listen. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
Theo groaned. Low. Ragged. His good hand groped for mine and missed. I caught it and held on.
Holly’s voice slid in, tight but gentle. “Reese. If there’s something we don’t know, now would be the time.”
I pressed my thumb into Theo’s palm. Hard enough that he hissed and focused.
“Hopper,” McAvoy said again. “Talk.”
Theo’s eyes were shut. His jaw worked. Sweat slid from his temple into his hair. His breath came shallow, then stuttered, then steadied like he was wrestling it into submission.
“This was it,” McAvoy went on. “This was the game. We were right there. How the hell did this happen?”
I reached for saline. The bottle tipped against my trembling fingers. I righted it. Lined it up on the counter with the others. Gauze. Wrap. The syringe kit I hadn’t touched yet.
Theo’s pained moans vibrated through the table. Through me.
Holly’s voice layered over McAvoy’s. “All season we’ve pushed transparency. It’s why fans trust us. If this comes out wrong—”
“When,” McAvoy corrected.
“When,” she agreed, eyes still on me. “They will always find out.”
The room pressed inward. Fluorescent lights, the whine of a vent that had been there all season and chose now to matter. The table creaked under Theo’s shifting weight.
I stood there, split clean down the middle.
Every instinct screamed to lean in. To stabilize the joint. To get ahead of the swelling. To make the pain stop.
But McAvoy and Holly kept me pinned in place.
I looked at his shoulder. The way the skin pulled. The way his whole body guarded it without being told.
And something fractured inside me.
“I falsified the reports,” I said.
Holly gasped. McAvoy went still.
“All season. I’ve been lying about his condition to keep him on the ice. I also faked the MRI summary,” I continued, relief opening up the constant squeeze in my chest. “I shredded the real one, and created a fake.”
McAvoy cursed under his breath, shaking his head slowly.
Holly’s arms dropped to her sides. “You’re saying—”
“I’m saying I did what I could to keep him playing.”
“It’s not her fault.” Theo tried to sit up. Pain ripped a raw sound out of him. I pressed him back with my forearm, careful, careful.
“Stay,” I said. “Please.”
His gaze burned into mine. “Reese—”
“I know,” I said. My throat burned.
McAvoy paced. One step. Two. Stopped. “That alone is a firing offense. More than that. You’d be lucky to get a job in the amateur league.”
“I’m not done,” I said.
Silence fell again. Even Theo quieted, breath shuddering.
“He’s been getting nerve blockers,” I said. “Outside the team.”
Holly’s hand flew to her mouth. “Jesus.”
McAvoy spun. “You allowed that?”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t know until tonight.”
Theo shook his head, a small motion that cost him anyway. “You don’t—”
“Stop,” I said. My voice broke. “Just stop.”
He went still. Not calm, but contained.
“I tried,” I said, and now the words came faster, spilling over each other without stacking. “I taped him. I adjusted his load. I fought for rest. I thought if I stayed ahead of it, he wouldn’t need anything else.”
Holly’s voice was quiet now. “How long?”
I looked at Theo’s shoulder again. At the faint marks that had been there even before tonight. “Long enough.”
McAvoy dragged a hand through his hair. “You let this team believe he was fine, when he was held together by tape and blockers?”
Theo’s breathing hitched. His hand loosened in mine. Then tightened again.
“I was trying to keep him together,” I said. “Because he was breaking himself open to stay on the ice. I thought I could help him do it the right way. And then with van der Berg leaving, there was this whole other aspect of my job to consider. I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t risk it.”
McAvoy stopped pacing. His face was thunderous. “You were selfish, and it ended up costing the whole team.”
“I know,” I said.
Theo swallowed. Hard. “Reese.”
“I’m here,” I said, leaning in despite myself now, my shoulder brushing his forearm, my body finally choosing him over the room.
Holly let out a sound that wasn’t quite a breath. “This puts everything at risk.”
“I know,” I said again.
I pushed off the edge of the exam table, rubbing at my temples even though the motion did nothing for the throb behind my eyes. “Do you think I wanted this?” I asked, letting my voice cut through the tension. “We didn’t plan for a disaster this late in the game.”
McAvoy’s arms were folded, his jaw tight, but I didn’t flinch.
“I— I made choices I’m not proud of,” I said. “I was the first one to give Theo the nerve blockers. That’s on me. I knew what it could do, I knew it wasn’t ideal, but he needed it. And yes, it was a risk. I stopped, and I guess… I didn’t think he’d get it somewhere else.”
Holly’s hand hovered over the edge of the desk like she was bracing herself. “This is worse than I thought.”
“I mean he’s fighting for something he loves, Holly!
Have either of you never fought for something that mattered this much?
Something that made you ignore every little thing telling you to be careful?
” My words bounced off the sterile walls, sharp enough to sting.
I felt Theo’s groan from the table and the spasm twitch through his shoulder in response.
My stomach sank, but I couldn’t stop. “This isn’t just about a trophy.
It’s about the whole point of everything he’s worked for.
Everything he’s pushed through. And he did it because he had no other choice but to go all in.
And I— I was right there with him, trying to make it possible. ”
Holly’s eyebrows drew together. “You mean…”
I nodded, letting my gaze drop to Theo’s shoulder.
My hands itched to check him again, to see what I could do to ease it, even though the room was filled with judgment and heat.
My fingers twitched. “Yes. I tended to him. I made sure he had what he needed. And yes, it was secret, and yes, it was a gamble, but I did it because… because he trusted me. And because I couldn’t just let him destroy himself without at least trying to help. ”
McAvoy’s voice cut through, rough with disbelief. “So all of this… this mess is about what? Him? You?”
I turned, letting my hands fall to my sides.
“It’s about both of us,” I said quietly.
“I wasn’t protecting the team from information.
I was trying to protect him. I made a judgment call.
I knew the risk. And yes, it blew up in all of our faces.
” My voice hitched, not from shame but because the pressure behind my chest had been coiled too tight for too long.
“And maybe it looks reckless. Maybe it looks selfish. But it came from a place of knowing exactly what he needed to fight for what he wants.”
Holly’s fingers pressed to her lips, holding back the words she wanted to say.
McAvoy’s eyes narrowed, scanning me as if trying to parse the layers of explanation from the chaos I’d just unpacked.
My gaze flicked back to Theo, who shivered slightly under the blanket on the table, his face pale, his lips parted.
I couldn’t do anything but hover near him, wanting to soothe, hold, fix it all before it spun further out of control.
McAvoy finally let out a noise that wasn’t entirely a question. “What the hell’s really going on here?”
I gave him a look that didn’t answer anything, because some things—some truths—couldn’t be distilled into neat explanations, not in front of McAvoy, not with Holly watching, not while Theo’s shoulder was a battlefield beneath his bruised and battered skin.
I settled back a step, letting my body relax fractionally, letting the weight of what I’d just confessed hang in the air.
No one else mattered in this moment the way he did.
I bent low beside Theo, my hands providing useless comfort.
His breath caught in ragged waves, and every groan he made felt like it cut through my ribs.
I didn’t have to think about what to do; my body remembered before my mind could catch up.
I tilted his head toward me and kissed along his jaw, letting my lips linger at his temple.
“It’s okay,” I murmured. “You’re going to be okay.”
“I—Reese… I’m sorry. I—” His voice faltered with pain and guilt.
I shook my head, letting my fingers trace a careful line along his back, trying to anchor him without crushing him. “Shh. It’s fine,” I said. “I’ve got you. I won’t let go.”
A rustle behind me made me glance up. Holly’s eyes were sharp, almost studying me. “Is this why you were asking me about my relationship with Hunter?”
The spotlight hit me hotter than the med bay lights ever could. My chest burned, my throat ached with unsaid truths. I didn’t have to admit or say it loud; they could see it in the way my hands lingered, in the way I held him as if letting go would be catastrophic.
I straightened a little, forcing myself to meet their gazes, and took a deep breath that felt like fire scraping my lungs.
“This is my responsibility,” I said, letting my voice carry through the tension.
“I was in charge. I gave him the nerve blockers. I made the choices. It’s my fault.
” My eyes shifted to Theo, then back to McAvoy and Holly.
“I’ll resign with immediate effect if you just promise me you’ll help him.
That’s all I care about.” My hands tightened around his forearm. “I’m begging you. Please.”
McAvoy glared at me. He didn’t know what to say. The silence pressed against my ears like a physical weight.
Holly’s gaze softened slightly, though her arms stayed crossed. “I’ll have to release a statement,” she said.
I lunged toward her hands as if I could clutch her through the thought. “No. Please. Not for me. For him. The team. Keep this under wraps. They don’t have to know.”
McAvoy’s voice cut through the room, sharp as a snap of a hockey stick. “What’s the point? He doesn’t look like he has another game left in him.”
Theo groaned, twisting slightly on the table. “I’ll play,” he said through clenched teeth. “I can’t let the team down. I won’t.”
McAvoy’s jaw went rigid. Without another word, he stormed out, the door slamming behind him with a force that made the floor vibrate. Fuming. Disgusted.
I looked at Holly, searching for some sign that she understood. Her eyes softened. The tension between us eased, but only just.
“It’s not just about you two,” she said. “If the truth comes out, it affects the whole team. They don’t deserve to pay for what’s happened. I know it’s just a trophy, but it’s their trophy. Not just Theo’s.”
A spark of hope flared in my chest. I swallowed hard. “Then help us,” I said, urgency threading through every word. “I’ll do anything. I’ll help you spin the story. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep this contained. Please, Holly. I’ll do anything.”
Her gaze flicked between Theo and me, then back to me. It held me in place, assessing, then finally landing somewhere between judgment and understanding.
“You really care about him,” she said quietly.
Her words struck me harder than anything this night had offered up so far. I’d never owned that feeling, not to anyone, not even Theo.
My throat tightened around the lump that formed, and my eyes stung hot with tears. I nodded. “I do.”
Theo’s fingers laced weakly through mine, and I pressed my lips to the top of his head, letting the tension seep out through contact, letting the world fall into quiet focus for a moment. He leaned into me, letting me hold him, and I felt the tremor of his pain through the thin barrier of my arms.
Holly’s lips pressed together as she nodded once. “I’ll talk to McAvoy,” she said. Her voice had the same edge it always did, but beneath it was an acknowledgment, a concession that this could be managed.