2. Chapter 2
Cade
I'm still turning my baseball over in my hand in the parking garage when I realize Quinn McKenzie is the first PT who has ever made me feel like a patient instead of a franchise asset.
The leather is worn smooth under my thumb. I've carried this ball for three years, ever since the first game back after the shoulder. Some guys have lucky socks. I have eighty-one stitches and a reminder that I've beaten worse odds than this.
Except right now, the odds feel different.
I pull out my phone and call Graham before I've even started the truck.
He picks up on the second ring. "That was fast. She kick you out already?"
"Your sister runs her clinic like a military operation."
Graham's laugh comes through the speaker, warm and familiar. "Yeah, that tracks."
I lean my head back against the seat. The parking garage smells like exhaust and old concrete, nothing like the antiseptic precision of Quinn's office. Nothing like whatever that scent was when she leaned in to check my elbow. Something clean. Practical. Her, I guess.
"Why didn't you tell me she was the one assigned to my case?"
"Figured you'd find out soon enough." I can hear him moving around, probably at the fire station. "Besides, I'm not actually supposed to know. And if I'd warned you, you would've tried to charm your way to a different PT."
"I don't charm."
"Cade. Buddy. You charm everything that moves."
I press my thumb into the baseball's seam. "Didn't work on her."
"Good." Graham's voice shifts, loses some of its teasing edge. "She's the best, man. If anyone can get you back behind the plate by playoffs, it's Quinn. Just don't be an idiot about it."
"Define idiot."
"Don't push when she says rest. Don't negotiate timelines. And for the love of God, don't try to make her laugh. She'll see right through it."
I think about her face when I tried the grin. Like she was cataloging how many times that expression had gotten me out of trouble, and filing it under "ineffective."
"She already does."
Graham is quiet for a beat. "Then you might actually have a shot at this."
After we hang up, I sit in the truck for another ten minutes. The engine idles. Boston traffic hums somewhere above me, muffled by concrete. I pull up the team schedule on my phone and start counting weeks.
Twelve weeks minimum.
The numbers don't lie. They never do. That puts me at early October, right when playoffs start. A window so narrow I could thread a needle through it, assuming everything goes perfectly. Assuming zero setbacks. Assuming my elbow cooperates.
I text Marcus, my agent: "Got assigned to Quinn McKenzie. Twelve weeks."
His response comes in under thirty seconds: "Do not negotiate."
I type out three different replies. And delete all of them. Marcus is right. He's always right about the business side, which is exactly why I pay him. But being right doesn't make the timeline any easier to swallow.
The rookie backup catcher is twenty-three. He's got legs that don't ache in the morning and an elbow that's never heard the word tear. Management loves a story about the young guy stepping up. They love it even more when the old guy makes it easy by getting hurt.
I'm thirty. In catcher years, that's basically retirement adjacent.
My phone buzzes again. This time it's Diaz, the rookie himself: "Heard you're out for a while. Need anything?"
The kid's got manners. I'll give him that.
"Stay sharp behind the plate," I type back. "Don't let Martinez talk you into calling that slider in the third inning. His slider is trash this season."
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again. "Thanks man. Get healthy."
I pocket the phone and finally start the truck.
The trainer's room is empty when I get to Fenway. Everyone's at batting practice, which means I have the ice bath to myself. Small mercies.
The water hits my elbow like a punishment. I breathe through it the way I always do. Count to sixty. Reset. Count again.
Twenty-six.
That's how old I was when they told me fifty percent. Fifty percent chance I'd ever crouch behind a plate again. Fifty percent chance the shoulder would hold. Fifty percent chance my career wasn't already over.
I spent six months in a room just like this one, alone with ice and resistance bands and the kind of silence that makes you hear your own thoughts too clearly. I came back because I refused to be a story about potential. Refused to be the guy who almost made it.
But here's the thing about injuries: each one takes something you don't get back. Not just tissue. Not just time. The part that lives in the space between what your body used to do automatically and what it has to think about now.
I think about that now, sitting in the ice.
I rotate my wrist. Test the flex. Pain answers, dull and familiar, somewhere between warning and threat.
In the mirror above the sink, I look like exactly what I am.
Thirty years old. Eight seasons behind the plate.
Scars from blocking home plate, from catching wild pitches, from the thousand small violences the position requires.
The face of a guy who knows what losing feels like and hasn't figured out how to stop fighting it.
Quinn McKenzie looked at me today like she could see all of it. Not the stats or the comeback story or the teammate everyone counts on to keep things light. The actual math. Age versus healing time. Fear versus skeptical confidence.
She called me scared. She was right.
I hate that she was right.
The ice melts. I towel off, tape my wrists, and head down to the dugout.
It's empty. The lights are off. Everyone's on the field, and I can hear the distant crack of the bats. The shouts of coaches running drills I should be part of. The bench feels different when you're not allowed to suit up. Longer, somehow. More permanent.
I sit anyway.
The scoreboard is dark. The stands are hollow. Fenway in the off-hours is a cathedral without a congregation, all that history and heartbreak just waiting for someone to show up and add to it.
I pull out my phone and send Diaz another message. This one's longer. Pitching chart tips for tomorrow's starter, the kind of specific nonsense that only matters if you've spent years learning how to read a hitter's weight shift in a tight at bat.
It's something useful I can do from the outside. That's the best I've got right now.
The dugout light flickers once. Maintenance running checks, probably. I watch it pulse and think about Quinn's band she had on her wrist. She snapped it before I even sat down, like she was bracing herself. Like she knew I'd be a challenge.
Twelve weeks.
Roughly eighty-four sessions, give or take. Eighty-four mornings in a room with a woman who sees straight through me, who doesn't care about my charm or my stats or the fact that I've made three All-Star games. Who cares only about whether my elbow does what it's supposed to do.
I don't know what to do with that.
The screen lights up.
Calendar notification. Quinn's clinic. Day one of active protocol, 7 AM sharp, attendance mandatory.
I stare at it for a long moment.
Quinn McKenzie, who saw straight through me in forty minutes and didn't blink. Who has my career in her hands and my file on her desk and absolutely no interest in making this easy for me.
Seven AM.
I'm already dreading it. I'm already counting the hours.