Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Jason
In Case of Emergency, Use Your Safe Word
I’m fucking up my life.
Like, epically.
Leif called me last night just to tell me he’s putting his ass on the line. Those are his actual words. Do I know what they mean? Fuck, no. He added, “Stop self-destructing, or I’m flying out to break your other knee.”
Not sure if that was a joke. He said it with the voice he saves for penalty shots and family emergencies. And knowing him, he’ll bring snacks to my hospital room afterward like that makes it okay.
Then Jacob called me this morning. It made everything feel like a tag-team intervention. His message was clear: he didn’t call in one of his sacred favors so I could fuck up my life and treat rehab like it’s optional and it’s okay to fuck off my life.
He threatened to fire me if I didn’t pull my head out of my ass. Or maybe he said he’d put my head up my ass. Hard to tell—he was pissed and mumbling incoherently.
So, yeah. Skipping therapy today? Off the table.
I even showed up early. Gold star for me, right? But the second I walk in, I know something’s off.
Nobody looks at me.
The new front desk girl—the one with the small voice and marshmallow boundaries—gives me this smile like she’s about to apologize for my dog running away. All tight lips and awkward eye contact. It’s the kind of smile you give someone who just got dumped via text . . . on Valentine’s Day.
Behind her, one of the aides is furiously reorganizing resistance bands. She’s yanking them off hooks with unnecessary aggression. Pretty sure one just snapped and flew into the supply closet. Nobody reacts.
Even the playlist is wrong. Typically, it’s hype pop or something stupidly upbeat. Today? It’s whispery acoustic guitar and lyrics about losing yourself—real subtle, guys.
“Room B,” the receptionist says, eyes darting like I might run.
I nod once. No jokes, no wink, just the limp of a man who knows he’s walking into a trap and forgot his helmet. Another no-crutches day. Just me, a brace that pinches every time I breathe, and a knee that may or may not betray me like an ex with a grudge.
The walk down the hallway feels longer than usual.
Every step echoes too loud. Like the floor’s announcing: Ladies and gentlemen, the idiot has arrived.
Room B is looming at the end like Mount fucking Everest. I pause in front of the door, crack my neck, and stretch as if I’m about to run a sprint instead of open a door, then push it open like maybe—just maybe—I’m still in control of something today.
I’m not.
Because Reese isn’t inside.
Nope. It’s Scottie.
And holy fuck, I was not ready.
She’s got her hair clipped up in that twisty thing women do that makes them look like they have secrets and knives.
She’s scribbling something on the whiteboard as if it owes her money, and she hasn’t even looked at me yet—but I’d recognize that all-caps handwriting anywhere.
Angry little letters that think they’re six feet tall.
There’s a height-adjustable desk next to her, a laptop open on top, glowing as if she’s reading my soul—or worse, charting my failure in real-time.
I could leave.
I should leave.
Every instinct in my body screams to run—like, full-on Olympic sprint, don’t-look-back, fake-my-own-death kind of run.
Instead, I smile. Like I don’t feel the shift in the air. Like her silence doesn’t press against my skin and itch.
“Wow. You clean up nice, Doc,” I say, lounging in the doorway like I wasn’t two seconds from retreating.
“Didn’t know you’d be here today. Should I have brought flowers?
Chocolate? Those sour Cluster Nerds you inhale when you think no one’s watching?
I could bring strawberries if you like—even dip them in chocolate. ”
Still nothing.
She keeps writing, dry erase marker squeaking like it’s filing a complaint on my existence.
“Where’s Reese?” I ask, stepping farther into the room like I’m not seconds from setting off a landmine. “Did you wander into the wrong room? Because whoever’s your patient today . . . someone should warn them they’re about to get their soul scrubbed.”
Crickets.
Zero acknowledgment. Not even a side-eye.
Cool. Coolcoolcool.
I drop my backpack beside the treatment table and pull my hoodie over my head. It sticks around the brace, takes a second to wiggle free. My shirt rides up with it, just enough to flash skin and scar.
And there it is.
A glance.
Quick. But not that quick.
Her eyes drop—barely a second, maybe less—but they move.
Yeah, she looked.
Victory? No. But I’ll take it.
Still . . . nothing. No hello. No smart-ass retort. Not even a ‘nice abs, Tate.’ I’m tempted to suggest, ‘Let’s do a little exchange: I showed you mine, now show me yours.’ But I’m thinking that if I say that, I might end up with not only another knee broken but probably also a rib or two.
She clicks the marker closed and turns around.
Her face is a brick wall. There’s no curve in her lips, no softening in her eyes. It’s just clinical calm with a dash of you’re-a-fucking-nightmare.
“Where’s Reese?” I ask again, straighter this time.
“Not here, obviously.” She glances at her hands, then at me. “She transferred your file.”
Something pulls behind my ribs—tight and wrong. “So . . . who am I working with today?”
“Me.”
That’s kind of funny because the last time we discussed my rehab, she said something along the lines of ‘dead before I take you under my wing.’ Okay, it wasn’t that dramatic, but it landed somewhere around there.
I, of course, laugh. Not because it’s funny.
It’s not. But because what else am I supposed to do?
“That’s hilarious,” I mutter. “Great joke, but it’s not April Fool’s, and I don’t think anyone pulls pranks on that day anymore.”
She doesn’t blink. “It’s not a joke.”
“You said no.” It slips out before I can shape it into something safer. “You made a whole thing about how I wasn’t your responsibility. You didn’t want the headache.”
“I still don’t,” she says, brushing invisible lint from her leggings. “But congratulations, Jason Tate. You’ve managed to piss off everyone else in this practice. No one wants to work with you.”
“So I’m your pity case?”
Her eyes flick up—quick, clean, zero hesitation. “Do I look like I’m here to hold your hand?”
No. No, she fucking does not.
That shuts me up longer than I’d like to admit.
She turns back to her desk—the adjustable one, raised halfway like she planned to alternate between murdering my dignity sitting and standing.
Her laptop’s still open, casting a glow over the disaster that is probably my file.
She grabs the folder—my folder—and holds it out like it might catch fire if she touches it for too long.
“Three PTs have flagged you,” she says, voice as cool as the AC vent humming overhead. “You walked out on two mid-session. Reese filed a formal hold after you bailed halfway through a set and told her she had the motivational energy of a sea sponge. Want me to keep going?”
I lift a brow. “That doesn’t sound like me.”
She levels me with a stare that could sterilize surgical tools. “You called one guy a ‘glorified gym bro with a CEO complex.’”
I wince. “Okay. That one I remember.”
“You’re impossible,” she says, flipping the folder open like she’s preparing to dissect me in public. “But you’re not unfixable. Which is why I’m here.”
“Because you care?”
“No. I’m here because I promised my brother I’d help you.” She huffs. “But, also because you deserve better than the bullshit you’re pulling to sabotage your career. You didn’t work your ass to end up losing everything to an injury because you can’t get past your fear.”
For a moment, I can’t breathe. It’s as if her words punched me so hard I can’t even pull air back into my lungs. Is she right? Am I sabotaging myself because of fear? I . . . but she kind of cares, doesn’t she?
My mouth quirks. “Wow. That’s romantic.”
“Do not flirt with me, Tate, or I’ll make every other muscle in your body soar, and not in a good way.” She smirks for half a second—half a second—before snapping the folder shut.
“God, that’s hot.”
“Stop using humor as a defense mechanism.” And then she adds, quieter, “You’re on the edge, Jason. If I don’t take you on, they’ll drop you. The team—and I’m not talking about this PT.”
Of course not. She means the Vipers.
“Then maybe they should,” I say. “Would make it easier for everyone.”
There’s something behind her eyes now. Not pity. Maybe it’s disappointment.
She steps forward, stopping just in front of me. Not close enough to crowd me, but close enough that I feel it.
“I won’t let you ruin yourself to prove a point.”
Silence.
Scottie doesn’t say anything. Just moves to the corner of the room, organizes a few bands on the wall like she isn’t waiting to see if I’ll implode or cooperate. Like she didn’t just throw my entire rehab back under a microscope—and put herself behind the lens.
I don’t move.
Not yet.
My fingers tighten around the folder. It’s heavier than it looks. Or maybe that’s just the shit inside it—the paper trail of every failure I’ve racked up since the surgery.
All of it is here.
Every missed rep. Every note about “resistance to protocol.” Every subtle, clinical way of saying, He doesn’t want to get better.
They think I’m afraid of pain.
They’re wrong.
I’m afraid of getting better and still not being enough.
“Sit,” she says eventually, not looking at me.
I lower myself onto the bench, muscles stiff and locked, posture garbage. The brace digs into my shin like it’s trying to mark territory. I’m halfway between boiling and exhausted, and she’s acting like this is just another session.
It’s not.
This is the moment everything starts to unravel.
And she knows it.
“I’ve read your logs,” she says. “Watched the footage. Reviewed the drills you’ve skipped and the ones you’ve butchered on purpose.”
I bristle. “I didn’t butcher?—”