Chapter 6 Elise
ELISE
The morning light was too bright and the coffee wasn't strong enough and Elise was reading her own text messages like a detective examining evidence.
She sat cross-legged on her bed with her phone propped against the pillow, scrolling back through last night's conversation with Sienna.
The sling pressed awkwardly against her chest. Her shoulder ached with the deep, constant throb that had become her new companion, worse in the mornings before the anti-inflammatories kicked in.
Outside her bedroom window, the trees were still in the early sun, and the distant sound of a garbage truck rumbled through the quiet street.
Thanks for the eggs btw. Best meal I've had in weeks. Don't tell anyone.
That was fine. Friendly. Normal.
Still awake. Can't sleep. Shoulder keeps waking me up when I roll over.
Also fine. A patient updating her doctor on symptoms. Completely reasonable.
Goodnight, Sienna.
Elise stared at the message. She'd used her first name.
Not Doc, not Dr. Park. Sienna. After midnight, lying in bed with one good arm and a shoulder full of torn cartilage, she'd typed Sienna's name as if it belonged in her mouth.
As if they were friends, or adjacent to friends, or whatever this was that she didn't have a word for yet.
Had that been flirty? She wasn't sure. It hadn't felt flirty at the time.
It had felt right, like the only honest thing she could have said after an hour of texting back and forth in the dark.
But now, in the grey clarity of morning, with coffee going cold on the nightstand and her shoulder throbbing through the painkillers, it was obvious.
How the casualness of a first name at midnight might carry more than she'd intended.
Or had intended. She wasn't sure about that either.
She scrolled further back. Best meal I've had in weeks.
Don't tell anyone. That was fine. That was gratitude.
But the don't tell anyone part had a conspiratorial edge to it, as if the scrambled eggs were a secret they shared, and Elise's stomach tightened at the memory of Sienna in her kitchen, sleeves rolled up, cracking eggs into a pan with the focus she brought to everything.
She closed the messages and set the phone face-down on the duvet.
The apartment was quiet around her. Lex's old room was still empty, the door ajar, and through the gap the bare mattress was visible, curtains she'd never bothered to close.
The kitchen smelled faintly of the scrambled eggs Sienna had made last night, or maybe Elise was imagining that.
Maybe she just wanted the apartment to still smell like someone had been in it.
She got up, showered one-handed, dressed in training kit she couldn't train in and her sling, and took a taxi to the stadium, the windows down. The air smelled of salt and car exhaust and the heat of a Phoenix Ridge morning in late autumn.
The Valkyries' training complex was a modern facility on the north side of the stadium, all glass and steel and bright corridors lined with team photos and sponsor logos.
The building smelled of floor polish and protein shakes and the rubbery tang of fresh equipment.
Elise badged through the staff entrance and walked down the main corridor toward Medical, her bag slung over her right shoulder, trainers squeaking against the polished floor.
She felt conspicuous in a way she never had before.
She was used to arriving here in full gear, heading to the locker room with purpose.
Now she was heading to the medical suite in leggings and a zip-up, and the difference sat heavy in her stomach.
She passed the gym first, where the sounds of weights clanking and music thumping leaked through the glass doors. Then the team lounge, where voices carried. Then the corridor turned toward the medical wing and she heard footsteps behind her.
"Moreno! Wait up."
Frankie jogged to catch her, still in her practice gear, hair slicked back. Her face was flushed from the morning skate and she was grinning as she always did, like the world was a joke she was in on and everyone else was catching up.
"How's the shoulder?"
"Sore. But getting there."
Frankie fell into step beside her, matching Elise's slower pace without comment.
"Good. Because I'm not doing your faceoffs for you forever.
I won sixty percent last time and my back is killing me from crouching down that much.
Mara's got me filling in on the draw and honestly, Elise, my body was not designed for that kind of sustained squatting. I'm built for speed, not endurance."
Elise smiled. It was a real one. "You're built for complaining."
"That too." Frankie bumped her good shoulder gently. "Seriously though, take your time. We've got you covered. The team misses you but nobody wants you back before you're ready."
Elise swallowed. "Thanks, Frankie."
"Also, Lou said to tell you she's saving you a seat at the next home game. Front row, behind the bench. She said you can yell instructions at her the way she yells instructions at everyone."
"That sounds like Lou."
Frankie peeled off toward the locker room with a wave, and Elise continued down the corridor to Medical. The encounter had been kind and casual and exactly what she needed, and the tightness in her chest eased a fraction.
Rowan was coming out of the medical suite as Elise arrived, her practice bag over her shoulder, cheeks still pink from training.
She was the youngest player on the squad, barely twenty, and she had a nervous energy about her that reminded Elise of a young horse, all long limbs and bright eyes and barely contained movement.
"Hey, Elise." Rowan stopped in the doorway. "Dr. Park just iced my ankle. She's really good. Like, really thorough."
"I know."
Rowan shifted her practice bag higher on her shoulder, eyes wide. "She explained the entire anatomy of my ankle joint to me while she was taping it. With diagrams. I now know what a lateral malleolus is and I'm not sure I wanted to."
Elise laughed. "That sounds like her."
Rowan wished her luck and disappeared down the corridor, and Elise pushed through the door into the medical suite.
Sienna was at the counter, her back to the door, washing her hands.
She was in her usual work clothes: dark trousers, a fitted white blouse with the sleeves rolled to her elbows.
Her dark hair was pulled back in its ponytail, neat and smooth, and the overhead lights caught the silver at her temples.
The room smelled of antiseptic and beneath it, a scent that was clean and specifically Sienna.
"Morning," Elise said.
Sienna turned. Her expression shifted when she saw Elise, a smile briefly crossing her face before she pulled it back. "Good morning. How did you sleep?"
"Badly. But the anti-inflammatories helped."
Sienna reached for a towel and dried her hands, her eyes moving to Elise's shoulder with a physician's reflex. "Pain level this morning?"
"Five. Maybe six when I first woke up."
Sienna nodded and gestured to the treatment bed. "Sit down. Let's have a look."
Elise set her bag by the door and crossed the room.
The treatment bed was the same one she'd been on the night of the injury, the vinyl still cool beneath her thighs as she hopped up.
The room was bright and clinical, and everything about the space was controlled and controlled and nothing about the way Elise's pulse picked up when Sienna stepped closer was clinical at all.
"I'm going to explain your rehab programme," Sienna said, pulling up a chart on her tablet. "We'll be working together daily for the next six to eight weeks. Each session will be forty-five minutes to an hour, depending on where we are in the protocol."
She talked through the phases. Phase one was the current stage: rest, gentle mobilisation, inflammation management.
Phase two would begin in about ten days, progressive strengthening exercises targeting the rotator cuff and scapular stabilisers.
Phase three was sport-specific work, stick handling, shooting, balance on the ice.
Phase four was return to play, a graduated process with specific benchmarks Elise would need to clear before she could join full contact training.
Sienna explained each stage with the same thoroughness Rowan had described, gesturing at diagrams on her tablet, her voice clear and steady.
Her hands moved when she talked, long-fingered and sure, drawing shapes in the air to illustrate joint mechanics.
Elise watched those hands and thought about how they'd pressed against her chest in this room last night, the press of Sienna's palm through her sports bra, and the back of her neck went hot.
"Any questions so far?"
"When can I skate?" The question came out sharper than she intended.
"Phase three. Roughly week four or five, if everything progresses on schedule."
Five weeks. The number lodged itself behind Elise's ribs.
"And until then?"
"Lower body conditioning in the gym. I've already coordinated with Kylie on a programme for you.
Squats, hip thrusts, cycling, core work.
Everything that doesn't load the shoulder.
" Sienna set the tablet down and looked at Elise.
"I want to check your range of motion today. Can you take your top off for me?"
The request was straightforward. Medical. Elise had heard it a hundred times from a dozen different physios and doctors. She unzipped her training top and pulled it over her head one-armed, the movement still clumsy with the sling, and sat on the treatment bed in her sports bra.