Chapter One #2
“Fine. You look like a raccoon who lost a bar fight.” I say, pressing a little too firmly with the gauze. He winces, but the smile doesn’t fade.
“Hold still,” I say instead, pressing a little too firmly with the gauze.
He winces, but the smile doesn’t fade. “You’re enjoying this,” he says.
It’s not a question. He thinks he knows the answer.
“I’m enjoying you not bleeding on my floor,” I fire back.
“Mm.” His grin curves slow, like he’s in on the secret. “Keep telling yourself that.”
Damn him. The worst part is—he’s right, but I’ll never own up to it. The board still has my last ethics review tucked neatly in a file somewhere from a complaint that lacked proof. One wrong move and I’m the headline again.
I clean, clot, and slap on a couple of butterfly strips on the wound. It’ll hold… for now.
I glance over his face again to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
His lashes are absurdly long—too pretty for someone with that jaw line.
They make those crystal-blue eyes unfairly bright.
Hard not to get lost in them, especially this close.
He catches me staring as I finish up and his grin turns into a sexy smirk.
Dammit, stop being hot while I’m working.
“Stop smiling. You’ll pop it open and it’ll scar.”
“Don’t girls find scars sexy?” he asks.
“I don’t know… maybe girls do. You’ll have to find one to ask. Women prefer their men with working brain cells. You’re damaged goods.”
He chuckles, low in his chest, clearly pleased with my answer. “Then it’s lucky I’m not looking for a girl.”
I freeze for half a beat. His eyes glitter back at me as if he knows he's baiting me in, waiting for me to bite.
He leans in, voice dropping. He leans in, voice dropping. “Fun fact—your pupils dilate when you look at something you want. Want me to test it?”
“Fun fact—if you don’t stop talking, I’ll butterfly-strip your mouth shut next.”
There’s no truth to my threat, and he knows it. In an industry full of men, you learn to beat them at their own game. Or at least settle for a draw.
He mimes zipping his lips, eyes dancing, then pops up from the bench when they call his number.
He shoots me a wink, only seen between us, and then tugs on his helmet, our nine-inch height difference plus his skates giving him an unfair advantage.
“Don’t write checks you can’t cash, Doc. You’d have to catch me first.”
Then he takes one step and jumps over the boards. I step back as he skates off, blades carving through the ice. The boards rattle with the next hit, the roar of the crowd filling the void between us.
Cold whips past my cheeks, but I barely feel it. My skin’s still flushed from the heat of our exchange. The familiar rush of adrenaline hums through my blood, the same one that always follows our back-and-forth.
This is exactly why I set boundaries. Why I promised myself nothing—especially not a pair of blue eyes and a smile like that—would ever mess with my focus again.
Fraternization between a player and team doctor could cost more than just my license but also rattle the Hawkeyes franchise with sanctions against the team that could cripple the team's playoff eligibility.
But when his name booms through the announcer’s mic, the traitorous part of me perks up and takes notice of him skating across the ice, with one last smirking glance back at me.
I shove the thought away, reaching for the med kit, rechecking supplies that don’t need rechecking.
Gauze, tape, saline--all perfectly fine.
Still, I count them again. Anything to keep my hands moving and my mind off the fact that I just patched up the league’s biggest problem child… and maybe my own.
The third period is hockey stick warfare. My gloves squeak at how hard my fists are clenched.
Somehow, we pull it off.
3–2 over Colorado.
This isn’t the series. But it’s a lifeline. 2–1.
The player tunnel turns into chaos—mitts slapped, helmets knocked, words spoken that I won’t put in any report.
My first stop is the quiet room to check on Scottie, and then from there, document, document, document.
In the locker room, relief and joy braid through triage.
Theo and I ping-pong across bodies—shoulders, eyes, hamstrings.
Bruises are already blooming like storm clouds and no one seems to care.
They’ll take an ice bath and be good as new because of the endorphin rush of a win.
Aleksi drifts into my orbit smelling like sweat and wintergreen, half-dressed in the slacks from his press suit, hair still damp from the showers, chest bare and flushed from the ice. The gash is holding. My work.
He taps my kit like it’s a door.
“Congrats, Doc,” he says, voice rough from yelling on the ice but still carrying that warmth that sneaks under my skin. “Series is a real thing again.”
It’s not the first time I’ve seen him shirtless. I’ve patched up half the roster over the years: torsos, bruises, stitches. It’s just anatomy. Usually.
But Aleksi’s different. Maybe it’s because he’s so at ease in his own skin, all six-three of him radiating confidence. Or maybe it’s because that same skin reads like a map of things I can’t help but want to know more about—things I’ll never find in a medical chart.
My gaze catches on the pale arc beneath his sternum. An old surgical scar.
I know the basics: open-heart surgery at two years old, done in Germany, and several others after that.
A hip repair at nineteen that nearly ended his career.
I know his twin sister lives in Helsinki where he greew up, but she’s been working in France for the last year.
His mother and nephew live there too, and he’s close to all of them.
The contents of their care packages make the rounds in the locker room.
Home-made confections his mother makes, store-bought Swedish and Finnish treats from his childhood, new skin care products his sister thinks he’ll like—he’s always proud to share.
I know he was close with his father before he passed somewhere between college and Aleksi signing with the international team, but the rest is a blank.
Just the little bits I’ve heard, the hints he’s dropped since joining the Hawkeyes last summer when they brought him up from the farm team.
I catch myself wondering what each mark cost him. What he remembers of it.
And that’s exactly the kind of wondering I can’t afford.
Knowing a patient’s medical history helps you treat them. Knowing their personal one blurs lines you can’t uncross. I’ve seen enough careers end over that mistake—mine almost included.
I clear my throat and gesture toward his face instead. “Looks like it’s holding.”
“Good thing,” he says, grin crooked. “You’d charge double for an after-hours patch-up job, right?”
He picks up a small black packet from the bench beside him, the label full of impossible Finnish vowels.
“Celebratory salmiakki,” he says. “My mom sent it in her latest care package. Very… acquired. Makes your face do fun shapes.”
I don’t know why the sweetness of Aleksi’s mother is the thing that gets me.
Maybe because my own relationship with mine is…
strained, at best. She hasn’t remembered my birthday since I was a kid, missed my high school and college graduations, and I didn’t even bother inviting her to my med school ceremony.
The idea that she’d ever send me a care package is laughable.
But it doesn’t make me jealous of Aleksi. If anything, part of me wants to be that mom—the one who sends her grown son candy across an ocean, just to remind him of home. I thought I’d be a mother by now, but life and an ugly divorce had other plans.
“You’re giving me experimental candy?” I ask, lifting a hesitant brow.
“For your collection of interesting data,” he says with a grin. “Apparently Jupiter’s finally in a good mood. Obviously improved puck luck.”
“Obviously.” I slide the packet into my kit. Aleksi and his random facts. “Hydrate.”
“Yes, ma’am.” His eyes crinkle. “You’re very bossy when we win.”
“I’m always bossy.”
“True.” He tips his head, studying me. “You okay? You sprinted for East when he went down.”
“I’m fine. More importantly, he will be too.” I nod toward the quiet room. “He’s not my biggest fan right now. We’ll re-evaluate before morning skate.”
“Tell him I’m bringing the good licorice. Not the evil kind.”
“Right. That’ll fix it,” I deadpan, and he laughs, because even if candy can’t fix the loss of a shift, it helps. Especially because Scottie Easton is a human dumpster when it comes to food. I’ve rarely seen him without some kind of snack in his hand… unless he’s skating.
He taps two fingers to his temple in an exaggerated salute. “See you at Oakley’s after media. I owe you a drink for the eye.”
“You don’t owe me anything. It’s my job.”
The idea of sitting casually with Aleksi at the bar while he buys me a drink sounds nice in theory, but it’s also one step closer to misleading him into thinking something between us could ever happen. Nothing can happen as long as we both work for the Hawkeyes and he’s a professional player.
“Right,” he says, bright, unbothered by my attempt to rationalize whatever that was on the bench.
I should shut it down. Instead, the corner of my mouth betrays me. He catches it like a puck through traffic, smiles like he knows exactly what he’s doing, and then he’s gone—swallowed by victory, steam, and music.
The rest is routine.
Head coach wrap-up. Media crushes the hall like a tide. I do my interview, hating the “female doctor in a male sport” questions. Today, most stick to Easton: Will he play on the road in two days? What’s his current condition?
I give them as little as possible and get out.
I dodge cameras, finish my notes, and send the concussion report.
Cammy, Peyton, Vivi, and Penelope—the group of WAGs I’ve somehow become part of, even though I’m not a wife or a girlfriend—are waiting to walk to Oakley’s.
Still, these girls are the closest thing I’ve got to a family.
They’re the ones who made moving here and leaving behind everything I knew in Florida bearable.
Actually, more than bearable. They were my saving grace after the media storm that branded me the jersey-jumper doctor following my divorce.
We head to Oakley’s together, the local sports bar just a few blocks from the arena where the players and fans flood after every game.
One soda, a round of hugs, and I’m out—successfully dodging Aleksi.
Not that it’s difficult. He’s a social butterfly, magnetic in a way that keeps people orbiting him.
Still, even in a packed room, I can feel it—the weight of his gaze finding me again and again.
Those bright blue eyes that always seem to shimmer when they land on me.
I catch him trying to work his way through the crowd more than once, only to get stopped by a fan.
He’s too polite to brush anyone off, which gives me enough time to slip to another corner, pretending to be fascinated by whatever conversation I can latch onto.
But it never lasts. Before long, I’ll look up and he’ll be watching again—mischief curving his lips, like he knows exactly what I’m doing. Like he thinks this is a game.
In my car, I don’t turn the radio on. My brain is still a highlight reel—the hit, the pupils, the glue, the wink. I pull the licorice out of my pocket, regard the label, and almost laugh at the dare. I put it back.
There’s a rule that keeps my life clean and my heart intact. I broke it once and watched my life burn. I’m not watching the full rerun.
So I focus on what’s ahead. It’s what I’ve done since fourteen: best grades, hard work, every scholarship, college acceptance, med school, and never repeat the life path my mother—and her mother—took: drugs, alcohol, worthless men.
Unfortunately, my retired NFL ex-husband is Exhibit A in repeating my mother’s choices.
I should’ve seen the love-bombing the day I met him in the locker room.
I should’ve known a reputation doesn’t change just because you make a wedding vow.
Four years of long-distance marriage became one of my worst mistakes.
Then a year of post-divorce bad decisions and worse rumors had the medical board sniffing around for “fraternizing with a patient” when the press made fake allegations to sell stories. It wasn’t true, and the case closed. But it almost ended me.
I was almost done being a team doctor until I bumped into Penelope Matthews at a charity event and she asked if I’d ever thought about switching leagues. The NHL felt like fresh air, and having a female GM felt like a new start.
That’s when I solidified my rule. No players. Not ever again.
Now I just need to keep it. No matter how a six-foot-three Finnish winger keeps stealing my attention.
Eyes on the only thing I’m allowed to carry home: we got a win. The series is alive.
When I open the door to my tiny studio apartment, the only thing I can afford, even with the generous salary Penelope pays me, it’s a reminder of every financial crater my ex-husband left behind.
My name was still tied to his debt, his credit cards, the house.
I’m finally free of it now, but barely. And yes, I did turn down the Hawkeyes’ offer to live in the team’s discounted apartment complex where all the players stay during the season…
because, well, that should be self-explanatory.
No players. And living with them is too close for professional boundaries.
I drop my bag. Something like his grin still lingers in my mind, unreasonably bright in the dim. I flick the light off, shake my head, and tell the empty room the one fact that can’t be ignored:
One hot night with Aleksi isn’t worth my medical license.
God… I hope I’m right about that.