2. Maren
MAREN
My phone rang on a Thursday in March, and a voice I didn’t recognize said, “Ms. Callahan, this is the Phoenix Sidewinders organization. We’d like to talk to you about an opportunity to help build our sports medicine program for the new team.”
I’d thought it was a joke. I’d said, out loud, “I’m sorry, what?”
It wasn’t a joke. They wanted someone to build the sports medicine department from the ground up—create the protocols, hire the staff, oversee everything from injury prevention to rehab to the day-to-day maintenance of keeping professional athletes functional.
The title was Director of Sports Medicine, which I’d have to explain indefinitely since I was a physical therapist, not a physician, but the role itself was exactly the thing I’d have designed if someone had handed me a blank page and said invent your ideal job.
I said yes on a Thursday. I called Griffin that evening and told him, and he already knew. The organization had mentioned they were talking to me, and he’d spent two weeks sitting on it, waiting for me to call, dying a little every day I didn’t.
When I finally got him on the phone, he cheered loudly enough that I had to hold it away from my ear.
“We’re getting the band back together!”
He’d been traded from Seattle in the expansion draft that summer, the chance to come back to Arizona landing at exactly the right moment.
Eight years in the Pacific Northwest had worn on him in ways I hadn’t fully understood until he was back.
I’d gotten used to a version of Griffin who called more than he used to and laughed a beat too late, like he was translating from somewhere else.
By the time training camp opened in August he’d been home two months and was acting like he’d never left.
I was only now realizing how much I’d missed him.
He’d also had, as far as I could tell, four hundred plans in his first two months back.
Dinners, team nights out, golf with the equipment guys, tickets to everything.
Griffin managed himself with people the way other men managed themselves with the gym or the bottle.
I didn’t say this out loud. I’d learned long ago that pointing it out only made him funnier about it.
The facility on the first official day of the combined staff orientation was cooler than outside by about thirty degrees, which meant it was still warmer than it should have been for a building with a sheet of ice in it.
I had grown up in Scottsdale. I understood the desert.
The desert’s relationship with air conditioning remained, after twenty-seven years, a source of personal grievance.
I had a badge. My name on a placard outside a suite of treatment rooms that were mine to organize and stock and run.
I’d stood outside it for thirty seconds that morning doing something I was going to call professional assessment and not doing an internal squeal at how far I’d come in a few years and how lucky I was to have this amazing position.
I had a staff meeting at nine, a tour at ten, and a full afternoon of equipment inventory that was going to take significantly longer than whoever had scheduled it seemed to think. I had a list, a plan, and a good thermos of coffee.
I did not have any reason to be nervous. I was a professional. This was my department.
I am a badass bitch. Just keep telling yourself that till you believe it.
I rounded the corner toward the main rink corridor and walked directly into a chest. Not the work of a badass bitch by any stretch.
When I said “walked directly into” a chest, I meant it.
Not metaphorically. Literally. I had eyes on my clipboard and something solid interrupted my forward momentum and my coffee thermos bounced off my forearm and I grabbed it with the reflexes of long practice, which was the only thing that went smoothly about the next four seconds.
The chest belonged to Ryan Lindqvist. The team roster had his listed height at six-foot-one. The team roster was either wrong or I was shorter than I’d always believed. I filed this away under things to stop thinking about immediately.
I knew who he was…for several reasons. I’d registered Griffin’s captain was Ryan Lindqvist when he was announced but it was simply information, nothing with weight to it.
At least that was the plan for how I’d handle it.
The plan lasted exactly until the moment I walked into his broad chest in the main corridor.
I had a memory of him from college that was not, if I was being honest, vague at all.
A weekend visit to Griffin during his senior year, in February, cold enough that I never really warmed up the whole time, no matter how many layers I had on.
Ryan Lindqvist. Tall, quieter than the other players, steady enough I’d only talked when I wanted to say something worth saying.
There had been a moment, outside, toward the end of the night, the two of us briefly alone, that I had spent more time thinking about in the years since than I’d ever admit.
I’d been eighteen though. I’d gotten on with my life.
That was what I told myself. The problem with telling yourself something was your body didn’t always agree.
I had seen his name on the Sidewinders staff announcement in July and of course on the sports news channel.
I’d gone very still for a moment. The memory of a weekend I’d spent in the freezing cold, the bonfire, and the weight of a plaid blanket, and the effort of holding still on the edge of something happening.
He was taller than I’d remembered. Stop going down this road.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, steadying me with one hand at my elbow. Warm, deliberate, and gone the instant I was stable. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“Neither was I.” I resettled the thermos. Clipboard intact. Win. “Hi. I’m Maren.” Introducing myself seemed the most appropriate given it had been nine years since we’d met, and I wasn’t going to assume he’d placed me when there was a perfectly good chance he hadn’t.
His expression sharpened, fractional, the focused calculation behind his eyes as recognition set in. “Maren.” A beat. “Callahan.”
Well… He’d placed me. That landed somewhere around the pit of my stomach, and I wasn’t going to examine the feeling.
The question was how he’d placed me. Was it by my name, my face, Griffin’s sister?
The other way was another thing entirely, it was not remotely appropriate to think about on my first day of work.
The scent of his soap was clean and understated and not intoxicating at all.
“Griffin’s sister, yes.” I smiled. “Also the new Director of Sports Medicine.” I sensed the pride in my voice and relaxed.
I belonged there. I wasn’t doing anything I shouldn’t, other than running into insanely hot hockey players in the hall.
His mouth curved into an honest, open smile. “Congratulations on the new job.”
“Thank you.” My face flushed, and I wanted to run, like really run, as far away as possible because I was certain he could sense it. Why am I so embarrassed? Ugh. It’s because you never stopped liking him. And now he’s not twenty-two, he’s all man.
“Griffin told me you had taken a great new job with the team. He didn’t mention it was this job.
” He paused, and I met his eyes—somewhere between blue and gray, a color that shifted depending on the light, which I noted in a purely professional capacity.
“He’s going to think this is very funny…
” I stumbled on my words. “You know, literally running into you.” Oh my god, Maren, shut up.
Let the rambling continue. “He thinks it’s very funny.
He called me three times this week to make sure I was prepared to professionally not be his sister, which is not a sentence that gets easier with repetition. ”
Amusement moved through his expression, and he asked, “Are you excited to work with him?” His attention on me was making me nervous, and I needed to get away so badly so I could compose myself. Meanwhile, he was calm as anything, assessing me with those steely eyes.
“Oh, we won’t be working together much, unless he gets hurt—and if everyone does their job, he won’t.
” I gestured loosely. “I’m mostly behind the scenes.
Making sure the team stays functional. Physically.
That’s the job. Injury prevention, rehab, coordinating with Dr. Mike Reyes, the day-to-day maintenance of keeping—” I stopped myself before I said your bodies again, which I had done in my head at least four times and was not going to do out loud.
“Keeping the roster healthy. You know.” I pointed toward the training rooms. “My door is the one with the placard…” I trailed off and then said, “With my name on it.” No shit the door with your name on it is yours. Dear God, please just strike me down.
I held out my hand. “Good to meet you. Or—good to see you again, I suppose. Since we have technically met. A long time ago.”
He shook it and held onto it a beat past the standard duration. It was warm, inviting. “Really good to see you again, Maren,” he said. “Officially.”
He continued down the corridor. I walked as quickly as possible in the opposite direction.
I made it fifteen feet before I stopped and addressed the ceiling for a moment.
He’d said the last word differently—weighted, like he’d used it before in a context I wasn’t part of.
I couldn’t place it. I filed it under things I wasn’t going crazy about and moved on.
Griffin’s best friend. You rambled at Griffin’s best friend about your job keeping his body healthy. Completely professional. Totally fine.
I continued to my meeting.
Nolan Mercer, the owner of the team, spoke for about five minutes at the start of orientation, which was fewer than I had expected from a man who had just spent two hundred million dollars on a hockey franchise.