2. Ellie
CHAPTER TWO
ELLIE
PRESENT DAY
My blazer was gray. It shouted professional in a voice that didn’t waver. I’d paired it with black pants and a white blouse, and pulled my long hair back in a low bun.
Boston traffic was its usual disaster. The GPS kept rerouting me through side streets that all looked the same, with brick buildings and narrow lanes, and pedestrians who crossed whenever they felt like it. I didn’t mind. It gave me time to think.
Or to not think.
To remind myself why I was doing this.
The fellowship at the sports clinic had been good. Better than good, actually. For ten months, I’d worked with athletes from three different hockey leagues, learning techniques I wouldn’t have touched in a standard practice. My recommendation used words like “exceptional” and “natural instinct.”
And now I was here, ready to start my first day at the Purple Punishers’ arena, my dream since I’d decided sports medicine was my path.
The fact that he was on the roster didn’t matter.
I’d decided it didn’t. Because I wasn’t returning to the team’s orbit for Brashe Kedish.
Even if I’d checked the roster four times last night.
Even if I knew his number (8), his position (starting goalie).
I’d convinced myself that knowing these things was normal preparation and not evidence of anything else.
This was my career. I wouldn’t let one humiliating incident at a picnic dictate where I worked.
Besides, he probably didn’t even remember who I was.
I pulled my vehicle into the staff lot and parked, staring out the windshield.
The facility was newer than I’d expected. Glass and steel. The team’s logo, a snarling purple bear, hung above the entrance. I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror, pleased to see I looked composed.
I looked like someone who had her shit together.
My new boss, Patty, met me in the lobby. She was exactly what I’d expected from our phone calls. Thirty-something, with blonde hair and laugh lines around her eyes. She wore scrubs with cartoon orc hockey players on them and a lanyard that said Head Physical Therapist in block letters.
“Ellie.” She pulled me into a hug before I could offer a handshake. “It’s good to finally meet you in person. Have you settled into your condo?”
“I’m almost unpacked. My cat’s thrilled with the sunlight she gets in the windows.”
“Awesome.” She stepped back, her gaze taking in my bag slung over my shoulder. “Let’s put your things in the office, and I’ll take you on a tour.”
“Sounds great.”
We stopped by our shared office, where she pointed out my desk, and I locked my purse in the drawer.
Then she took me from the bottom of the building to the top, chattering the entire way through.
She pointed out the locker rooms, the weight room, a therapy pool in the basement, stopping at the ice rink itself, which I could see through big windows, pristine and empty.
The boards had been painted purple, and the team logo glared from the scoreboard hung over center ice.
“And back here,” Patty pushed through a set of double doors, “is where we’ll spend most of our time.”
The training room was decent-sized. Treatment tables lined one area, each with its own set of resistance bands and foam rollers.
Cabinets had been stocked with tape and wraps, plus equipment that cost more than my first car.
A whirlpool had been placed in an adjacent room, and I spied a cold plunge next to it.
“This is home,” Patty said. “Or it will be once you’re here long enough. We do most of our therapy here. The guys are intense, but most of them are just overgrown puppies. You’ll see.”
I nodded. I’d seen. One of them was not a puppy. He was a full-grown wolf who didn’t hesitate to bite.
“To reorient you, our office is this way.” Patty led me down a hallway, past more locked rooms and a door labeled Assistant Coaches.
“Don’t worry if you get lost. Someone will point you in the right direction.
You’ll be sharing with me for now, but if the budget gets approved, you’ll have your own space next season. ”
I’d already seen how small the office was.
Two desks had been placed on opposite sides, and whiteboards covered in player schedules and injury notes took up the wall in between.
Patty had covered part of her desk with framed pictures of her kids and husband.
From what I could tell, she had three of them, all with gap-toothed smiles.
“I know it’s not much,” Patty said. “But it’s got a door, and that’s something.”
“It’s great,” I said.
We sat, and Patty walked me through the schedule. Morning skates, afternoon lifts, with treatment windows in between.
“One other thing that might interest you,” she said when she’d finished. “I’ve applied for a grant to develop a new rehabilitation protocol, and it looks like I’m going to get it.”
“Tell me about it.”
She explained, nodding slowly after. “It’s a new idea, of course. If approved, I’ll study the techniques with the Punishers. And if it goes well, we may roll it out league-wide.” Her gaze met mine. “I’d like you to co-author with me if you’re open to that.”
“Really?” I breathed. Opportunities like this didn’t come along often.
She grinned. “Really. Think about it. You don’t need to decide yet.”
“I will.” This could be career-making stuff for a new physical therapist.
“Let me tell you more about our guys.” She talked about the players like they were hers. “Mikael’s got a shoulder thing we’re watching. Fedor’s knee is holding up, but we’re being careful. And Veskar needs to stretch more but good luck getting him to admit it.”
She talked about most of the players, though she didn’t mention Brashe. I didn’t ask.
After Patty had loaded a tablet with the team’s schedule, injury reports, and contact info for everyone from the equipment manager to the Zamboni driver, she set me loose.
I was Dr. Eleanor Lundrig, and I was here to work.
I stepped out into the hallway and decided to poke around the treatment room some more before walking through each level of the building to make sure I understood where everything was.
Then I saw him.
Brashe leaned against the wall about twenty feet away, talking to Veskar.
He’d cut his hair shorter since last summer, closer to his skull on the sides, though it still fell forward over his forehead when he tilted his head.
Which he was doing now, listening to whatever Veskar was saying.
He wore compression shorts that hugged…everything, and a team hoodie with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
He’d crossed his muscular forearms over his chest. This was basically the same relaxed posture from the picnic, like the world existed just to hold him up while everyone else revolved around him.
He looked exactly the same.
This was annoying.
I should not have noticed any of that.
I didn’t slow down or speed up my pace. I kept my eyes forward, my face arranged in an expression that said I belong here without speaking at all.
I walked past him like he was furniture. The wall was more interesting than the orc leaning against it.
I felt rather than saw his gaze fall on me.
The conversation stopped, and the air changed.
That was the only way I could describe it.
Like pressure shifting before a storm, the kind of thing your body knows before your brain catches up.
Every instinct I had screamed at me to check his expression.
I needed to see if there was recognition there, or surprise, or, worst of all, irritation.
I kept my eyes forward, my flats clicking on tiles in a rhythm I forced to stay even. The tablet in my hands was a prop, a piece of armor, something to focus on that wasn’t the big, burly orc who’d gone completely still against the wall.
Veskar spoke. “Kedish?”
I was past them now.
My shoulder blades itched with the weight of his stare.
I didn’t look back.
The girl at the picnic didn’t exist anymore. I wasn’t the one in the yellow sundress who’d thought confidence was enough. That a clever line and a smile could make someone see her as something other than a body they’d already decided wasn’t worth their time.
I was the woman who walked past him like he was nothing because that’s what he’d shown me I was to him.
Except…
No. I wasn’t going to let myself wonder if I’d misunderstood him. I knew what I’d seen in his face.
They were players to keep on the ice. Even him.
Especially him, if I was being honest. Because nothing would prove I’d moved on quite like wrapping my hands around Brashe Kedish’s potential injuries and being completely unmoved by it.
The door to the training room was a short distance away. I could hear Patty speaking inside, talking to someone about treatment schedules.
Behind me, Veskar said something. Brashe’s response was low enough that I couldn’t make out the words.
I didn’t need to.
I pushed through the door and let it swing shut behind me.