13. Chapter 13

The last two weeks had been exquisite.

Bliss.

Fucking heaven on earth. Long days of work, sure, but around the work hours were hours of hiking, exploring the city, dinners at new restaurants, Monday night open hockey, Sundays on the couch with a roast, and yes, hot sex. A lot. All over my condo. Places I had previously been unaware it was possible to fuck. Who knew ottoman sex was so good?

Two weeks of things I didn't know I could experience, feelings I didn't know I could feel. And all of them, revolving around one grinning, blond, beautiful man named Archie Bowman.

Heaven. On. Earth.

These MRIs, however, were the exact opposite. Or, more precisely, telling Bowie about them was going to be absolute hell.

I set the printouts back down into the manilla folder and slid it closed. Tossed the damn thing onto my desk, and dug my fingers into my hair. Like ripping some of it out would help me find a solution. My elbow jiggled my computer mouse, waking my laptop.

Lesson 9, the screen reminded me in bold black letters.

Because one thing I hadn't done in the past two weeks was study. In fact, I hadn't bothered to do more than open the lesson—and leave it on page one of the chapter. I'd been busy, distracted as hell. But I hadn't worried, because helping Bowie had been so fucking rewarding.

Maybe, I'd thought, staying in the hockey arena a little longer wasn't so bad. Not if I was helping pro athletes stay in the game. Not be like me. I was saving careers and otherwise broken dreams. Maybe this was what I was meant to do, with my unique combination of personal experience and education.

Except, now I didn't know what to do.

Bowie's medical release form sat on top of my keyboard, waiting to be signed. I knew what everyone wanted me to do. Pick up the pen, sign my name, let him play. Would be so easy to do, and both Bowie and Coach would grin happy grins and maybe Bowie would find some creative ways to say thank you.

I felt sick.

If it were anyone but Bowie …

"Fuck." I stood, shoving my chair back so hard it crashed into the filing cabinets against the wall. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

This was my fault somehow, wasn't it? My treatment plan hadn't been right. Hadn't been good enough. I ran my fingers through my hair again. I shouldn't have let him skate. Or spend so much time running around, hanging in the weight room, walking Brady, hiking, having goddamn sex …

He should've been taped up and lying down, except I'd gotten selfish. I'd wanted to be with him. Have fun with him. Kiss him and touch him and taste him. I'd gotten too goddamn close, and now, I couldn't get my head on straight enough to be objective.

"Hey Kitty."

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He was here. Standing in my doorway, blond and beautiful and beaming like the ray of fucking sunshine he was. The sight of him normally sent my heart catapulting into my ribs, my stomach fluttering in a storm of butterflies. But now, it collapsed into a cold pool of dread as I turned to face him.

He was here to get the results of his MRI, the wonderful news that all my weeks of therapy and exercises and all his weeks of not skating had paid off. That he was healed and whole and in mint condition once again.

He was here for me to tell him he was ready to play in the upcoming season opener. He was here to watch me sign his medical release and hand it over to Coach Dave. Clear him to skate.

I wanted like anything to do it.

"Are you pre-sex-hairing your hair for me?" He nudged the door closed behind him, his eyebrows taking on a questioning arch. "Usually that's my job?"

I smoothed my hand over my hair, even though the damage was already done. "No. Just … thinking."

"You look extra grumpy today." He sidled up next to me, close enough for me to feel the delicious heat of him. His fingers brushed my knuckles, the touch sending electricity zipping across my skin as those digits trailed up my sleeve to my elbow. "Kitty? What's up?"

"Sit down, Bowman," I said, pulling out my professional doctor voice, because I didn't know how else to do this. Dr. Sullivan could deliver bad news to a patient. Jamie sure as fuck couldn't.

"No, I don't like that tone." Bowie crossed his arms and set his butt on the edge of my desk. His eyes strayed down to the medical release form lying on my keyboard. The one I hadn't yet signed. Wasn't sure if I would. Could.

I reached past him to the manilla file labeled Bowman in neat block letters. I didn't bother to open it, because the digital imaging wouldn't make much sense to him. "It's a whole lot better."

He grinned. "Of course it is. I have the best physiotherapist in America, right?"

"But it's not a hundred percent."

His face fell. Smile vanished. Brows pulled low like he was trying to figure out what all those words meant laid out in that order. "Okay, so … What's that mean?"

"Means …" I blew out a long, slow breath. "Means you shouldn't play in the first game. Or two."

"What?" His brows shot towards his hairline, nudging up under the tumbled, stray locks. "Shouldn't … but I still can, right?"

I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw ached. "Technically. But when an injury isn't fully healed, playing on it is risky. A little hit or a weird tweak might re-tear it. You want to wait until we get a clean MRI—"

"No." He shook his head, sat up straighter than a fence post. "No, it's not bothering me. No pain. It feels perfect. Like new."

"C'mon, Bow. Be honest."

There was no way it wasn't still bothering him. Sure, his mobility was a lot better, and the pain was down. But there was still inflammation, which meant pain. It was just minimal enough to push through.

But I knew how many lies we told to stay in the game. Players, coaches, doctors. All for the good of the team, the game. All for the win.

"It's fine!" He held out both arms to show me. His face was written with pleading, with hope. With desperation. "C'mon, Jamie."

I tore a hand through my hair. He wasn't listening. "My professional diagnosis as your PT is that your injury isn't healed and you should have a few more weeks before you get back on—"

"No. No, no, no." He was shaking his head again, panic rising in the notes of his voice. "I need to play."

"Two games, maybe three, that's it—"

"Three fucking games?" His eyes went so wide, white showed all around the irises. "You're fucking mad if you think I'm gonna sit for three fucking games."

"You'll be back in no time." I sounded desperate, pleading. "Stronger than ever—"

"No way." He sliced a hand out through the air between us. "I'm not sitting."

I set the manilla folder on the desk, just to give my hands something to do and my eyes somewhere else to look that wasn't his terrified, destroyed face. "Your health is more important than anything."

"Fuck. That." He stretched to point behind him, towards the ice, the game, his future waiting to happen. "I need to get the fuck back out there. I can keep doing stretches. Wrap it, take my medicine, whatever you want. But I need to play, Jamie! You think they're gonna keep me around if I'm riding the bench all season?"

Fuck pro sports, honestly. Fuck coaches. Fuck the win-or-die attitude that had cost so many athletes their health, their careers, their mental health, fuck, even in some cases, their lives.

My fingers curled into fists at my sides. "This is your future, Bowie. It's not worth throwing away over one damn game. I won't sign off on any games if you can't be rational about this."

"No. Fucking no. No way. No. We've been doing stupid exercises and stretches for two fucking months. Wrap me up, give me some painkillers, and let me play."

For a heartbeat, I was twenty-six years old again. Sitting in a chair across a desk from my coach and my doctor, begging those same fucking words. Except they'd agreed without hesitation. Desperate to get me back in the game.

It'll hurt, but you can push through the pain, right kid?

I'd nodded—eager and grateful. So fucking grateful. Yes, I can do it. Yes, wrap me, put me in, I'll be fine. Just like Bowie was doing now. The pain didn't matter. Only the game did.

Put me in, Coach. I'll skate through it.

Six fucking months I'd done that. Gritted my teeth through every fucking stride. Every hit. Told myself I'd ice it after. Wrap it. Pop the ibuprofen and acetaminophen like candy. Until one day, those stopped being enough. Until I struggled to get out of bed, until my game took a noticeable downturn.

"No." I took a step forward like I was going to reach out to him. But I held myself back. I had to be the professional now, not the lover or the friend. "I'm not letting you take painkillers so you can wreck your health and your career. I've been down that road, and I know how it ends."

"This game is everything. This is who I am." His voice was anger and panic and desperation wound together so tightly, I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. "Without hockey, I'm nothing."

"That's not true." I crossed my arms against my own emotions, like that would keep them from spilling out of me. "I'm not going to watch you throw yourself away on a silly injury."

"No, instead, you're going to bench me. Watch me watch it all trickle away from the sidelines. Because you're scared to take a shot on me. Or us. Or yourself."

The words hit like a punch, cracking across my chest with almost physical force. I couldn't muster up a response. Couldn't read his expression, whether he'd seen the impact of his accusation on my face.

"You ran away from this game." His green laser-eyes bored into me in a violent undressing, ripping through skin and bone and words and feelings. "You're still running. And I will do anything to stay in it."

"You think I don't know what that's like?" My voice went so calm, I almost didn't recognize it. "I wish someone had been scared for me when I was your age. Told me my career wasn't dependent on the next game. Hell, I wish I'd believed that about myself. Maybe I'd still have a fucking career."

Breathing was so painful, I had to stop.

"Jamie—" Bowie said, the hurt and anger in his voice like knives against my heart.

"No, Bowie. I get it. I really fucking do." And that's why I couldn't let him go out there. Couldn't watch him tear himself apart. "I won't let you end up like me."

He stared at me, face blanched with shock.

"I'm not signing off to let you play." The words fell out of my mouth, plopped onto my desk, and sat there like fat, wet toads. I wished I could take them back.

I knew I couldn't.

Bowie's green stare kept boring through me, except this time, he wasn't undressing me. This time …

Suddenly his face—that beautiful, eager face—was inches from mine. There was no happiness anywhere in sight; his beauty was overwritten in hard, angry lines. "I can do this. It's my decision—"

"No." My voice came out cold, impersonal. "No, Bowie. It's not."

"Fuck that," he snarled, stepping back, stepping away. "Fuck you, Jamie."

"Bowie—"

He was already turning.

Leaving.

"Bowie!"

He slammed the door.

Leaving me. Alone. With his words and mine, with the file on his desk, the unsigned paper, and the choice I'd made. For him.

My hands were shaking. My breaths too fast and shallow.

I couldn't stop seeing Bowie's face—the anger and hurt.

Couldn't help wondering if this was all my fault—and whether I'd done the right thing. Surely I had. I'd been here before. Seen how this ended. Saw it over and over again, every day. Felt it in every fucking step.

I could still undo the decision.

Clear him, let him play, win him back. Watch that unhealed injury keep returning over and over and over until he couldn't fight it anymore. Go out in a short-burning blaze of glory.

Or stick to my decision. And maybe it wouldn't get better after two games. Or four. Maybe he would watch his career slide out of his grasp. Quietly and unremarkably, the opposite of how mine had ended.

I'd burned bright—and just as quickly gone dark.

Skating, pain—so much fucking pain that I pushed through to keep going—and finally, pain I couldn't get up from. Pain that ripped away the game so thoroughly, I knew I'd never compete at an elite level again.

The pain still haunted me, echoed my footsteps. Reminded me of how easily something you loved could be lost. Especially if you didn't bother to take care of it. Fucking hell.

This was all my fucking fault.

"Fuck." I slammed my fist against the side of the filing cabinet. I didn't even feel it.

"Jamie?" Katie popped her head through my office door, and from the arch of her brows and rigid downturn of her mouth, she was worried. "You okay?"

I threw myself back down in my chair. Gripped the arm rests so tight a knuckle on my right hand—the one I'd smashed into the cabinet—split open. A bead of blood dribbled down my finger.

"Okay." Katie kicked the office door closed. "Talk to me."

She dragged the extra chair around to my side of the desk. Sat. Stared me down with unblinking determination.

"It's nothing."

"Fuck that, Sullivan. You just punched a cabinet so hard your knuckle's bleeding. You've been on cloud fucking nine for like two weeks now, thanks to the British Wonderboy, so I can only assume he's involved in this somehow, too."

I opened my mouth to retort, protest, but she held up a hand. "Don't bother. I'm not dumb."

"Fine," I sighed. I swiped the trail of blood away with my opposite thumb, exposing raw, red skin across my knuckles. Shit, I looked like Rowan. "Bowie and I have been … whatever. But I fucked up."

"Explain fucked up."

I jabbed a finger towards Bowie's file folder, cock-eyed on my desk. "I wouldn't sign the release paperwork to let him play."

She winced. "Oh."

"Yeah. Oh." My knuckle was still leaking blood in a narrow trail down my middle finger. "He's not happy with me."

"How bad is it?" She leaned back, studying me. She knew there was more to my putting a fist halfway through my filing cabinet than a simple diagnosis.

She knew if it had been a clear-cut decision, I wouldn't have hesitated.

"It's a couple of games. A few more weeks of healing. That's all." I gripped the arms of the chair again, watching the blood slide farther down my finger. "I'll sign it once his MRI comes back clean."

"Jamie," Katie said, reading between all my lines, like she always did. "Are you being … overly cautious? Because it's Bowie?"

"I was in charge of his recovery." I was still staring at the blood on my knuckle. "It's my fault. I won't be responsible for a worse injury, too."

"You can't force anybody to heal."

"No, but I could've done a better job making sure he did."

She huffed. "You really think that kid would have sat around and behaved for two months if you hadn't been watching him?"

"No," I sighed, tilted my head up towards the ceiling tiles. "And he wasn't listening to me about sitting out now, either. So I …"

"You made the choice for him," she supplied.

I snorted. An ironic sound. "You think I don't know what he'd choose? Without bothering to consider the facts? All he wants is to play."

Her face softened with sympathy as I looked up. "They all do."

"So did I. What do you think I chose?" I murmured. "And Coach Turner isn't gonna make the decision that protects the player. Trust me on that. His job is the game. Bowie's health—that's mine."

"Jamie …" Katie let her words trail off, like she was struggling with whether to give voice to her thoughts. "You think maybe you're letting your feelings for him and what happened to you affect your judgment?"

"No." The word came out in a bark. "I've been here before, okay? I've seen this from the other side. You don't make good decisions, smart decisions, when you think your whole life rides on this one game."

"Oh, Jamie." Katie sighed. She leaned forward onto her elbows to study me closer. "You have to look at it objectively. If this wasn't Bowie, what would you do?"

I was breathing too hard, too fast, again. My hands clenched into fists. Hell, this was the reason I'd gone into this career.

Because I wanted to make sure nobody had to go through what I did.

"I can't let him end up like me. I can't do that. I can't see him end up"—the word snagged in my throat—"broken."

"Jamie—"

But I couldn't listen, not anymore. I hauled myself out of my chair. I needed to get out of this office, out of this rink. Out of this fucking field, if I was being honest. Because she was right. I wasn't being objective. Not with him, not with something like this.

Hand shaking, mind spinning, lungs heaving, I stormed out.