Chapter 5 Sienna
SIENNA
Sienna's apartment was small and clean and exactly what she needed it to be.
She'd rented it fourteen months ago when she'd taken the Valkyries job, choosing it for its proximity to the stadium and the ocean view from the bedroom window.
It was a two-bedroom on the third floor of a quiet building with good light and not enough personality.
Her furniture was functional. Her kitchen was organised.
Her bookshelves held medical journals and a few novels she'd been meaning to read for years.
There was nothing on the walls except a framed print of a coastline that had come with the apartment and that she hadn't bothered to replace.
It looked like a place someone slept in, not a place someone lived.
She'd left Elise's apartment ten minutes ago.
The drive home had been short and dark and filled with the silence that followed a long, intense day.
She'd made scrambled eggs and tea for an injured woman and sat on her sofa and talked to her and then said goodnight and walked away, and all of it had felt simple and right and too close to a line she shouldn't be approaching.
Sienna set her keys on the kitchen counter and opened the fridge. She stood in the cool blue light and looked at the contents: a carton of oat milk, some leftover rice, half a bell pepper, and a takeaway container she'd been meaning to throw out. She closed the fridge without taking anything out.
She was standing in her kitchen, trying to remember what she normally did at this hour on a weeknight, when the knock came.
Helen. Right. She'd completely forgotten.
She opened the door to find Helen Ward leaning against the corridor wall with a bottle of sparkling water and an expression of patient amusement.
"You forgot," Helen said.
"I didn't forget. I was... preparing."
Helen glanced pointedly at Sienna's feet. "Your shoes are still on."
Sienna looked down. Her shoes were, in fact, still on. She'd been standing in her own kitchen in her coat and shoes without noticing. "Come in."
Helen came in like she owned the place. She set the sparkling water on the counter, hung her jacket on the hook by the door, kicked off her shoes, and settled onto the sofa with a comfortable grace that Sienna envied and could never replicate.
Helen belonged in spaces immediately. Sienna had lived in this apartment for fourteen months and still felt like she was visiting.
"Rough night for the team," Helen said, glancing around. "Well, rough for one player in particular. How are you doing?"
"I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be fine?"
"Because you drove a player to the hospital at ten o'clock at night, which is above your pay grade, and now you look like you've forgotten how to be in your own apartment." Helen crossed her legs and settled deeper into the cushions. "Your coat is still on."
Sienna looked down. Her coat was, in fact, still on. She pulled it off and draped it over the back of a chair with as much dignity as she could muster.
"Tea?" she called from the kitchen.
"Please. Herbal, if you have it."
Sienna put the kettle on. She pulled off her shoes and made two cups of peppermint tea while Helen scrolled through an article on her phone. The apartment was quiet except for the kettle's building hiss and the breeze through the cracked bedroom window.
She brought the cups to the living room and handed Helen hers before sitting in the armchair opposite the sofa. Helen took a sip and studied Sienna over the rim.
"Long day," Helen said. "How's the player? The one who went down."
"Elise Moreno. Partial labral tear. Six to eight weeks of rehab, minimum." Sienna cradled her mug in both hands and took a sip. Peppermint, sharp and clean. The heat felt good. Grounding. "I drove her to the hospital for the MRI and then took her home."
"That's above and beyond."
Sienna kept her eyes on the tea. "She's a team member who needed support."
Helen made a sound that was not quite agreement and not quite disagreement. She had a gift for non-committal noises that somehow conveyed more than entire sentences.
They talked about Phoenix Ridge. The PWHL season, now in its second year, was finding its rhythm, and the Valkyries were part of that.
Wins were coming more regularly. The crowds were growing.
The media coverage had shifted from curiosity to genuine investment, and the momentum was unlike anything Sienna had experienced before in her career.
"The younger players are doing well," Helen said, tucking her legs beneath her on the sofa. "I've been seeing a few of them for performance anxiety, but it's the normal stuff. First-season nerves. Adjustment to the travel schedule. One of them is homesick, which we're working through."
"Rowan?"
"I can't say. But she's fine." Helen's eyes crinkled. "How's the injury load?"
Sienna wrapped her hands around the mug.
"Lighter than I expected. The pre-season conditioning programme paid off.
I've had some minor soft tissue stuff, a couple of impact injuries, and now Elise.
" She paused over the name, then pushed past it.
"The nutrition protocol has been going well.
I've got them all on individualised plans and the compliance has been better than I hoped. "
"You sound surprised."
"I'm used to athletes who ignore their nutrition plans and eat takeaway at midnight."
Helen's mouth curved. "These athletes eat takeaway at midnight too. They're just more polite about lying to you."
A smile tugged at Sienna's mouth. Helen had a way of deflating her professional earnestness without making her feel stupid. It was a rare quality. Most people either indulged it or ignored it. Helen gently punctured it and then offered tea.
The conversation drifted to Mara's coaching style, which was intense but fair, and to Astoria's plans for a training facility upgrade that kept getting delayed by planning permissions.
Helen mentioned that she'd had dinner with Mara and Lex the previous week, and Sienna asked how they were doing, and the conversation was comfortable and exactly what Sienna usually enjoyed.
Her phone buzzed on the kitchen counter.
Sienna's eyes flicked to it. Helen was mid-sentence about a mindfulness programme she wanted to pilot with the squad, and Sienna nodded and said "that sounds great" and then excused herself to check the message.
It was from Elise.
Hey Doc. Just wanted to say thank you for everything. The hospital, the eggs, the ride home. You didn't have to do any of that. I really appreciate it.
Her chest flushed hot. She stared at the screen, reading the words twice, three times, and the heat spread upward into her cheeks. A text. A simple, polite thank-you text. There was no reason for it to make her pulse quicken.
"Everything okay?" Helen's voice floated from the living room.
Sienna locked the screen and walked back to her chair. "Fine. Just a player thanking me."
Helen tilted her head. "Which player?"
"Elise."
She said the name and immediately regretted it, because Helen's eyebrows rose by exactly the millimetres required to convey maximum interest without saying a word. It was a masterclass in therapeutic non-verbal communication, and Sienna wanted to throw a cushion at her.
"What?" Sienna said.
Helen raised her hands. "I didn't say anything."
Sienna pointed at her. "Your eyebrows said plenty."
Helen sipped her tea with elaborate innocence. "My eyebrows are just eyebrows, Sienna." Helen sipped her tea with elaborate innocence. "I'm sure it's perfectly normal for a player to text their team physician at midnight to say thank you."
"It is perfectly normal. She's being polite."
"Of course." Helen's tone was aggressively neutral. She set her mug down on the side table and folded her hands in her lap.
Sienna could feel the flush creeping up her neck. "I drove her to the hospital and made her scrambled eggs. That warrants a thank you."
Helen's eyebrows rose. "You made her scrambled eggs? At her apartment?"
Sienna's face was on fire. "She couldn't cook.
She's in a sling. Her shoulder was just diagnosed with a labral tear.
I made eggs because she needed to eat. That's a basic human kindness, not a.
.." She stopped. She didn't know what to call it.
A date. A romantic overture. A sign that she was losing her mind.
"Not a what?" Helen asked pleasantly.
Sienna grabbed her mug and took a long sip. "Not anything."
Helen held up her hands. "I believe you. Eggs are just eggs."
Sienna took a long sip of tea and wished it were whisky.
The conversation moved on. They talked about Mara's management style and how the coaching staff was bonding and whether Astoria's plans for a training facility upgrade were going to materialise.
Helen told a story about a player who'd come to her office and spent the entire session talking about her dog, and Sienna laughed and the tension in her shoulders eased and she almost forgot about the phone on the counter.
But not quite.
But the text sat in the back of her mind, constant and unavoidable.
She'd put the phone back on the kitchen counter, face down, as if that would help.
It didn't. Every few minutes her thoughts circled back to it.
You didn't have to do any of that. I really appreciate it.
The words were simple. Friendly. There was nothing unprofessional about them.
But the fact that Elise had sent them at this hour, when she was presumably alone in her apartment with her injured shoulder and her sling and the quiet, meant that Sienna was on her mind.
Which meant Sienna's pulse hadn't stopped doing that thing since the phone buzzed.
When Helen got up to use the bathroom, Sienna reached for her phone and typed a reply.
You're welcome. I hope you're resting. How's the pain?
She sent it and then stared at the screen. Three dots appeared almost immediately.