Chapter 3
Penalties
Riley
The training room hums like a beehive someone kicked.
Fluorescents buzz overhead, relentless and too bright, washing everything the color of paper.
Antiseptic sits thick in the air, hummingbirds in my sinuses.
I’ve wiped the table twice, aligned the tape rolls like soldiers, and I’m still not ready when Jason walks in and turns the room smaller by existing.
“Door was open,” he says, which is true and also not the point.
He’s already in a thin compression shirt, sleeves shoved up.
The skin at his wrist is pink around my neat sutures, the padding holding, the locker-room tape still crisp.
He flexes once as if to test the world. I pretend not to notice the fabric pulling across his chest.
“Sit,” I say, and he does, because even he knows better than to argue with me in my lab. I glove up and try not to hear my pulse in the latex snap.
He sets his forearm on the table. “Thought I’d get the A-team.”
“You did,” I say, picking up the alcohol swab. “You also get the truth. If you keep chopping at sticks like you’re auditioning for a lumberjack competition, I’m stapling your hands together.”
“Hot,” he says.
“Medical,” I counter, and the corner of his mouth lifts like I handed him a win. I hate that my insides map the motion like it’s a play we practiced. We didn’t. We won’t.
I clean the skin with small, clinical circles that have nothing to do with the circles my thoughts run. He holds still in the way only athletes and liars can hold still.
“Pain?” I ask.
“Only when I do this,” he says, flexing so his forearm muscles jump and my professionalism wobbles a fraction.
“Don’t do that,” I say. “Or I’ll tell Coach you need a week in a bubble.”
He leans back a little, eyes sliding to my face. “You’d miss me.”
“Like a rash,” I say, reaching for pre-wrap. The roll whispers against his skin as I wind it, halo-soft. His scent is clean sweat and ice and whatever expensive soap his housekeeper buys in bulk. I angle my body to block the doorway—instinct or habit or both. I don’t need this to be a show.
He watches my hands. “You’re good at this.”
“Don’t flirt with your healthcare provider,” I say, sharper than I mean, because it lands where it shouldn’t. He goes quiet. I regret the edge but not enough to dull it. I anchor the pre-wrap and pick up the rigid tape. “Tell me when it feels too tight.”
He breathes out once, slow. “I’ll survive.”
“That’s not the bar.” I lay the first strip. “The bar is optimal function without further injury.”
“I liked you better when you called me a drama queen.”
“I can multitask,” I say, and our eyes meet for half a second too long. There it is—the undercurrent we pretend is a riptide and not a choice. I look away first, because I have to. I’m the one who signs incident reports when people forget the rules.
Footsteps pass in the hall. The door clicks. I exhale and test his scaphoid with my thumb. He doesn’t flinch. Neither do I. “Grip.” I hand him a shortened stick handle. He wraps his fingers, knuckles whitening, and lifts his brows.
“Better,” he admits.
“It will be if you listen.” I finish the cross strips, smooth the edges, cut the tape clean. My glove squeaks against his skin. Tiny sound, huge reaction in my chest. I step back—for angle and survival. “Again.”
He repeats the grip. The wrap holds. So do I.
Jason rotates the handle like he’s testing a weapon, not a joint. “Admit it,” he says, casual as sin. “You missed having me at your mercy.”
“Mercy implies you ever deserved it.” I take the handle back, set it aside, and lift a cold pack. Condensation beads against my glove as I press it to the padding. “Five minutes. Then contrast.”
His mouth curves. “You giving me the cold shoulder on purpose or is this part of the treatment plan?”
“It’s the don’t-be-an-idiot plan.” I shift the pack, watch the wall clock, count a quiet fifteen before moving it again. The seconds thrum. “And for the record, I’m not your shoulder of any temperature.”
“You used to be,” he says, so softly I could pretend I didn’t hear it.
I set the ice down harder than necessary and peel the glove edge for air. “We used to be a lot of things. Past tense. Keep it that way.”
He studies me. Not the professional once-over I give him—posture, tension—but something more invasive, like he’s mapping borders on a country he remembers too well.
“You’re different,” he says.
“I’m busier.” I swap the cold pack for heat, towel-wrapped so I don’t overcook tissue. He watches the switch like a magic trick. “Heating now. Tell me if it’s too much.”
“Define too much,” he murmurs.
“Jason.”
He exhales in surrender, but his eyes don’t. “Feels good,” he says, voice lower, like warmth is traveling places it shouldn’t. I refuse to follow that thought. I’m a professional, not a bonfire.
The compressor coughs to life in the back. Fluorescents saw at my nerves. I unwrap the heat, check skin, set the cold again. He flinches; I catch his wrist, instinct beating self-preservation. His pulse jumps under my fingers. Mine answers.
“Still dramatic,” I say, but softer. “You’ll live.”
“Debatable.” His gaze drops to where I’m touching him. “Careful, Sunshine.”
The nickname flicks a match. “Don’t.” I step back so abruptly the stool squeaks. Space helps. It doesn’t fix. “You want rehab, I’ll give you rehab. You want nostalgia, write a song about it.”
He huffs a laugh that isn’t amused. “You were meaner when you were scared.”
I go still. The room clicks louder in the silence his words make. Jason Maddox has never met a line he won’t stride over.
“I’m not scared,” I say, calm because I decide to be. “I’m employed.” I lift my chin toward the window that looks into the hallway—shadows moving beyond it, a world always watching. “And I like my job.”
His jaw works. “I’m not here to wreck it.”
“Then don’t,” I say. Easy. Impossible. My hands find the tape again, because tasks are survival. “We’re building a routine: post-practice treatment, ice, soft tissue, mobility. You show up on time. You don’t argue. You listen.”
“Bossy,” he says, something almost relieved under it, like rules taste good in his mouth if I’m the one making them.
“Structured.” I cut the tape, toss the tail. “Four weeks minimum. Travel included.”
His brows lift. “Travel?”
“It’s standard when we’re managing an injury with risk of compensation.” My voice doesn’t shake. Progress. “You want the wrist, you get me.”
His eyes heat, a banked flame catching. I feel it under my skin and pretend I don’t. “Careful, Lane. Sounds like nostalgia.”
“Sounds like work.” I toss the cold pack, reach for sanitizer. The smell blooms sharp between us. “You’ll be fine if you keep your head on straight.”
He leans in, elbows on knees, smile a slow, dangerous thing. “Define straight.”
I open my mouth with a retort loaded—
The door bangs open so hard the stopper squeals. Coach Evans fills the frame like a thundercloud in a tracksuit, whistle string cutting a diagonal across his chest. “Lane. Maddox.” Gravity doesn’t ask before it drops you.
Jason leans back a fraction, charm wiped clean. I straighten, gloves squeaking as my fingers curl. “Coach,” I say, neutral. Safe.
He plants his hands on his hips and rakes a look over Jason’s wrist, my setup, the clock. “How long?”
“Ten minutes for contrast, then soft tissue and mobility,” I answer. “He’s taped and stable.”
“Stable is not good enough,” Coach snaps, eyes flaring. Then to Jason: “You love a hero play, kid. Save it for the third. Until then you do exactly what she says or you don’t see the ice.”
Jason’s jaw ticks. “Yes, Coach.”
“Good.” Coach turns to me. “Blackwood’s on a tear about keeping our assets upright. You’re point on Maddox until he’s boring to look at.”
“Point,” I repeat, because that could mean a dozen things, half of which I can manage without losing parts of myself.
“Travel. Practice. Game ops. Off-day protocols.” He fires the words like pucks from a machine. “You stick to him like epoxy. If he breathes wrong, you fix it. If he argues, you report it.”
My stomach does a controlled free fall. “Travel included?” My voice stays even. I’m proud of that and hate that I have to be.
“Road trip starts Thursday,” he says. “Back-to-back, then a three-city swing. No excuses.” He points his whistle at Jason. “You get one body. We’re in the business of keeping it expensive.”
Jason’s gaze skims my face and away, quick as a blade. He’s good at hiding tells. He forgets I’m good at catching microflinches. The one I see now lands under my ribs. Useless data. I file it anyway.
Coach narrows his eyes. “Questions?”
I have a hundred. Boundaries. Optics. The exact pattern of freckles on a shoulder I no longer have the right to touch. I pick the only one allowed out loud. “Authority to override him if he resists treatment?”
Coach’s mouth kicks, almost a smile. “You always had that, Lane.” He jerks his chin at Jason. “And you—if I hear even a whisper you’re freelancing, I bench you and we watch tape for eight hours. Your choice.”
“Eight hours with you?” Jason says dryly. “I’ll behave.”
“Good boy.” Coach claps once, the sound cracking the room, then strides out, leaving the door yawning and orders hanging like neon.
Silence swells. The fluorescent buzz comes roaring back. I set the timer with hands that do not tremble. Professionalism isn’t a mask. It’s armor I forged.
Jason watches me, unreadable. “Epoxy, huh?”
“Try not to wriggle,” I say, because jokes are cheaper than honesty. I lift the cold pack, check blanching at his fingertips, re-seat the wrap. “You heard him. Travel. Practice. Rehab.”
His smirk is familiar and dangerous and softer at the edges than it should be. “Guess you’re stuck with me.”
“No,” I say, refusing the bait. “You’re stuck with me.” I tidy my kingdom of supplies and let my lungs remember air. I can do this. I’ve done harder things than keep my hands steady while my history sits three inches away and breathes like a dare.