6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Carissa

I love Mel. My new boss is no-nonsense but unerringly sweet and encouraging, and as she leads me around on an in-depth tour of the Thunder's facility and explains the job, she makes me feel like I might actually have a place here.

Most of the things she tells me are pretty straightforward, but I definitely have some homework before I can really be of use to the team. I don't mind. Learning new things about the human body always puts a skip in my step, and Mel clearly needs the support. She got divorced last year and has been struggling to find consistent daycare for her son, Raiden, so having a second staff member will give her some much-needed flexibility.

After what went down in Philly, I'm desperate to be helpful.

"And it sounds like practice is ending," Mel says right as a cacophony of voices fills the tunnel. We've ended the tour in the small training room that serves as Mel's office, where I'm probably going to spend a lot of time. "Which players did you meet when you were here before? "

I laugh nervously, bracing myself as if all thirty guys might try barging into the tiny room. "Honestly, that day was kind of a blur. I remember Moxie. And…" And Cole, who clearly doesn't like me. "Bean? I think."

Mel chuckles and gestures for me to move to the back wall as the voices get louder. "Bean is a fun one, and he's a major flirt. Even with me. If he ever crosses a line, let me know."

Nerves fill my belly, and it suddenly feels like I just drank a whole liter of soda in one go. But I don't have time to worry about crossing lines because half a dozen bodies spill through the doorway.

"Hey, Mel!" they all greet, their voices bright and happy. Not at all what I expected from rough and gruff men like them.

Then they see me.

The man at the front comes to a standstill so quickly that it looks like he just saw Medusa and was turned to stone. The two behind him collide right into him, knocking him over so all three tumble to the ground. One more man trips onto the dog pile, but the other three manage to stop in time, their eyes locked on me with unveiled interest.

"Boys," Mel says, "this is my new assistant, Carissa."

"Rizzo, right?"

I recognize Bean at the back of the group—he's the one who spoke—and one of the ones on the floor looks mildly familiar. The other five haven't met me yet and have no qualms about staring at me.

I wave, ignoring the bubble of nerves in my belly. "Yeah, Rizzo is great, if you want. That's what my sister calls me."

"From that Travolta musical or the rat?" a burly bald man asks.

At the mention of the Muppet character, a snicker cracks through my nerves, and I manage a smile that doesn't go unnoticed. Those on the floor scramble to their feet, wrapping arms around each other and squeezing in close so they all fit in the small space. "The rat. Don't we look alike?" I bite my lip, curious to see how they react .

Their smiles and laughter fill me with energy and push away the last of my anxiety.

"You're way more attractive than the Muppet," Bean says, and the other guys are quick to agree. Just like before, he looks a lot smaller than the other guys, who all look like they have the sheer power of oxen. That's not to say Bean is in any way small. These rugby men are built differently from anyone I've ever seen, but I have my guesses about his nickname. Compared to the guy whose shoulders he's holding, Bean looks like a beanstalk, tall and thin.

He also looks the friendliest, though none of these guys look threatening. Even with their size. I can't imagine they'll pose any actual threats in a professional setting like this, but it's nice to see the kindness in their gazes, which haven't shifted from me for a second.

Mel clears her throat, and the guys snap out of their stupors and shuffle closer to us. The first man holds out his hand, complete with loose and dirtied athletic tape around a couple of his fingers. "I'm Sharkie. It's nice to meet you, Miss Carissa." He sounds British. Or thereabouts.

The next man's hand is sweaty and entirely engulfs mine. "Scratch." His voice comes out almost hoarse.

The next pushes his way to the front. "French Roast. Welcome to the Thunder." His accent is decidedly not French, though I have no idea where he's from. New Zealand, maybe?

"Gator," the next guy says.

"Ruffles."

"I'm known as Gary," the last man says in a thick Australian accent.

That one catches me off guard. "Do you not have a nickname?"

The room bursts into laughter, and he rolls his eyes. "My name is Jeff."

As soon as Jeff—or should I call him Gary?—lets go of my hand, Mel steps up and puts her arm around my shoulders. "Alright, boys, if you need my help, you can stay. If you're just here to gawk at our new friend, go hit the showers. You smell terrible." The men all start talking at once and pushing forward, but she holds up a hand and silences them. " Real help."

To my surprise, five of the men turn around and leave, grumbling as they go, leaving just Bean and Gator.

Mel sighs. "Shoulder again?"

Gator ducks his head, dark hair bouncing. "It's Bandit's fault. Bad tackle." Now that I'm hearing more out of him than just his name, I'm pretty sure he's from one of the Polynesian islands. I have no idea which one.

"It was an awesome tackle," Bean says.

Mel raises an eyebrow at him. "And what's wrong with you?"

Using Gator's shoulder—hopefully the uninjured one—for balance, Bean holds out his leg. "It's tighter than a…" He glances at me. "It's tight."

"Sit," Mel instructs him and holds out a hand to Gator. "Let's see if it's the subscap tendon again."

I'm not sure what I should do. I figure watching Mel at work is the best way to get a sense of what she does day-to-day, but my eyes catch on Bean's stiff movements as he lowers himself into a chair. Frowning, I take a wary step closer to him. "Your hamstring?" I guess.

He nods.

"May I?"

As his eyebrows shoot up, he clearly has no idea what I'm asking but nods anyway, probably too curious not to.

I've dealt with plenty of tight muscles, and I have a bit of massage training to go with my PT degree. So I'm hoping I can help him. Crouching down, I tuck my fingers around his massive thigh and dig my fingers into the muscle underneath.

Bean yelps and nearly kicks me in the gut. "Ah, sorry."

Though I know I'm half his size and far from intimidating, I narrow my eyes at him. "What kind of stretching did you do before practice? "

He shrugs. "The usual kind?"

"I'll believe that when I see it," Mel says from the other side of the room. She's wrapping ice around Gator's shoulder but watching me at the same time.

Sounds like I need to get here early enough tomorrow to catch the team's warmup routine. With my hands still clamped around Bean's leg, I smile up at him and say, "I could rub it out for you, but you're not going to like it."

He snorts. "You? No offense, but you're tiny."

"So are you," I shoot back. Compared to the rest of the team, anyway. "Maybe you shouldn't judge me before giving me a chance to prove myself, Bean ."

Something sparks to life in his eyes as he matches my stare. "You making fun of my name, Rizzo the Rat?"

"Do you want my help or not?"

"I'd like to see what you can do."

Twenty minutes later, Bean and I are both in tears, though mine are of laughter while his are from pain. I'd be worried about him if he wasn't giggling at the same time while he lies face down on the padded table and I dig my entire elbow into his hamstring to try to work out the most stubborn part of the knot in his muscle.

"For heaven's sake," I say with a grunt of exertion. "Do you ever stretch?"

Mel, who has since sent Gator to the locker room, sips from her water bottle and watches me with a satisfied smirk. "He pretends to," she says lightly.

Bean growls and grips the edge of the table. "Are you trying to crush my leg, woman?" Then he's back to laughing, which I'm guessing is a defense mechanism against the pain. When he can breathe again, he twists to look at me. "Or is this payback for underestimating you? "

"The second one," I tell him, still trying to get at the ridiculous knot in his muscle. Finally something comes loose, and I switch back to my hands and run my fingers down the length of his leg, from just below his glutes to his knee. There's still a lot of tension, but hopefully it won't bother him nearly as much.

"Is the torture over?" Bean asks.

I wipe a layer of sweat from my forehead with my arm. That was a serious workout, but it feels good to be back at the job. Even if this looks a lot different from what I'm used to. Plenty of my patients cried back in Pennsylvania, but none of them ever threatened to punt me into the stands. I also learned a couple new words from Bean today, though I don't plan to use them.

"Tell you what," I say to Bean, digging my fingers into his thigh again so he knows I'm serious. "Promise me you'll start stretching before and after practice, and I'll let you get off the table."

Scoffing, he lifts up on his elbows as if to get up without making any promises.

I roll my knuckles over the most tender spot of his leg.

He collapses with another unmanly yelp and starts laughing again, sprinkling in some colorful curses to go along with it. But once I let up, he tilts his head and gives me a genuine smile. "You don't play, Carissa Paxton. I admire that in a woman."

"Ahem." Two men stand in the doorway with matching expressions of disappointment and concern. Cole is looking anywhere but at me, while the other studies me. Moxie, the captain.

Moxie looks at Mel, who smiles, and turns his attention back to me. "What's going on in here?"

"Torture," Bean grumbles.

"I'm still waiting on that promise," I say forcefully. To Moxie, I keep my voice soft. "I was helping him with a tight hamstring. "

"Still?" Cole's eyebrows drop low as he looks at Bean, who rolls his eyes back at him. "You're supposed to be—"

"If I wanted your opinion," Bean snaps, "I would ask."

I take a step back in surprise. No matter how angry Bean was at me while I worked his leg, his threats never felt real. But his antagonism toward Cole puts a chill in the room.

Moxie sighs, but Cole doesn't seem surprised. Putting a hand on Moxie's shoulder, he mutters something into his ear and disappears. While I still feel the frigid tension between him and his teammate, Bean relaxes as soon as he's gone.

Moxie doesn't. "You know that's not helping anything," he says to Bean.

Ignoring the comment, Bean looks at me. "I promise to stretch. Can I get up now?"

I probably shouldn't love the way he seems afraid of me, but I figured out quickly that the best way to help people heal was to show them I meant business. And with this team being full of men who are so much bigger than me, I need to make sure they don't get the wrong idea about me. I may be small, but I'm not one to be pushed around.

"I'm going to hold you to that promise," I say and step back.

Bean scrambles off the table, probably to get as far from me and my elbow as he can, but he only makes it two steps before he stops and looks down at his leg. "Wow." He wiggles around as if testing the muscle and grins back at me. "Okay, Miss Magic Hands." With a clap on Moxie's shoulder, he heads for the locker room.

I can feel two pairs of eyes on me, but I grab a towel and start wiping down the table, suddenly self-conscious.

"How's Gator's shoulder?" Moxie asks. Thankfully, it's not a question I can answer, so I keep my head down.

"I'd rather he sit out this week's game," Mel says, "but it's up to you. I know he's your best prop. "

Mel said the coach isn't as hands on as he could be, but I'm still surprised by the way she's talking to Moxie like he's the one in charge. He's team captain, so of course he has some say, but just how flaky is Coach Galvin?

Moxie lets out a deep sigh, and there's enough frustration in his tone to make me look up. "Coach won't like it if I take him out of the starting fifteen." He runs a hand through his hair, turning his gaze to me. He seemed nice enough when Darcy was talking to him, but the intensity in his eyes soaks through my skin, telling me that this guy won't bend to my will as easily as Bean did. "So, Paxton. You gonna be torturing my players a lot?"

Heat floods my face, which means I'm probably red as a tomato. It may take a lot to get under my skin, but I do not hide embarrassment well when it hits. "Oh. Well, it took a lot to work out the muscle, so I thought I should—"

"Don't apologize," Mel says. "He deserves it."

"Bean is not big on stretching," Moxie agrees with a nod. "It's a miracle he hasn't been injured."

"It's a miracle he can walk," I mumble back. "Will he actually keep his promise to me, do you think?"

Glancing at the doorway behind him, Moxie shrugs. "Hard to say."

Now that I only have him in front of me rather than an entire team of beautiful men, I can see why he's the team captain. There's a calmness about him, a steadiness that I haven't seen in any of the other guys thus far. He's probably close in age to me, somewhere in his mid-twenties, but his vibes are older.

He's also entirely gorgeous, hazel eyes and curly brown hair above sharp features, not to mention the sheer amount of muscle on the guy. He's more of a lean build than a bulky one, but he could probably squat with me on his shoulders without breaking a sweat. He almost gives Cole a run for his money when it comes to attractiveness .

Almost.

"Can I ask you something, Moxie?" I say, stepping forward so we're not talking across the room. I don't mind Mel listening in, but I'm glad when she busies herself with organizing the kinesiology tape and ice packs.

Moxie is wary, his eyes narrowing as I approach. "Sure."

"What was that between Bean and Cole?"

Tension fills his body, muscles straining as he folds his arms. "That was nothing."

"I don't think that was nothing." Bean may have hissed out a million threats against me while I was working out the muscle in his leg, but other than that I've only seen him good natured and friendly. He was anything but when it came to Cole. "Shouldn't your team be, I don't know, a team? They weren't exactly chummy."

Moxie kicks the door jamb out from under the door and doesn't say anything until the door swings shut behind him. "Here's the thing you need to understand," he says, an edge to his voice. "Cole is my best player, but the rest of the team will never admit it."

"Why not?"

"He's a newbie to rugby and got drafted early, which drives them nuts because it's not easy to make it on a team when the league is so small. Plus, Cole came from the NFL, and most of the guys see football as an inferior sport. "

I consider that with a frown. "That makes no sense. I've never watched a rugby game, but I've seen plenty of football. Those guys take a beating every game and are seriously athletic."

Moxie chuckles and shares a grin with Mel. "Don't let any of the guys hear you say that, Paxton. You'll be an outcast like Cole, and we need you."

We need you . Those words settle over me like a warm blanket in the middle of January, and I can't hold back my smile. "You need me? "

"You have no idea," Mel says, her voice thick with sincerity. "I nearly cried when I heard you were coming on. I'm trying to take care of these boys, but this single parenting thing is harder than I expected."

Moxie's lips press together, and he takes a step toward Mel, as if he wants to comfort her, but he stops himself and shakes his head. "We know you're doing your best," he tells her.

I don't want to interrupt whatever moment they're having, but my curiosity is burning too bright to ignore. "Why is Cole an outcast? Because he played football?"

"That," Moxie says, "and he hasn't been especially friendly ever since his girlfriend broke up with him back in October."

Mel tsks . "Can you blame him? That girl ripped his heart out."

Oh boy. And here I was thinking Cole was just a grump with a high opinion of himself.

"I know that," Moxie says, "but it's not like he's trying to get over her. He just keeps getting worse."

"You know how he felt about her!"

"Not really. He barely talks to me."

"He doesn't have to say the words. Sometimes you can just tell how a person feels about someone by looking at them."

I clear my throat. While tempted to let them keep talking about Cole so I can learn more about him, I don't think this is the kind of conversation he would want me to hear. I don't need a reason to get even more on his bad side. "Any other advice? Bean was easy to figure out, but this is a big team. I want to make sure I'm as helpful as possible. As quickly as possible."

Moxie opens his mouth, but Mel lets out a loud curse as she looks at her phone. Wincing, she offers me a quick apology, then says to Moxie, "Another daycare fell through. I need to go. "

"Of course," Moxie says and steps aside so she can scurry out the door with her bag. As soon as she's gone, he sighs and shakes his head. "She needs help," he mutters.

I know nothing about kids—the curse of being the baby of the family—but I wish I had some way to help. "Could she bring her kid to practices?"

"If Coach is gone, probably, but there's no way to know if…" He stops himself and scrunches his nose as he looks at me. "You're friends with Tamlin Park," he says, as if reminding himself.

I laugh. "Trust me. I barely know Tamlin." It's true enough, considering Darcy is so different when she's playing the part of her reporter alter ego. "I don't have any intention of giving her anything she could use against the team. I need this job, so I'm on your side." I'm sure Darcy will ask if I learn anything interesting, but I mean it when I say I don't plan on sharing any secrets. My sister may have gotten me this job, but I intend to keep it on my own merits.

No way am I letting this one implode like the last one.

Humming, Moxie studies me carefully, then nods, as if deciding he can trust me. "What's your background, Paxton?"

"You can call me Rizzo. Or Carissa."

He smiles briefly. "Carissa."

"Up until a few weeks ago, I worked in a physical therapy office back East." I can see his question even before he opens his mouth, so I add, "I was one of the therapists." Too many people have assumed I was a receptionist or something because I don't look old enough—or strong enough—to be a PT.

He hums again. "Cole says I should keep an eye on you."

As my jaw drops, I can't help but find this whole thing hilarious. I barely talked to the man, but there's something about me he clearly doesn't like. "Cole is paranoid," I say with a grin. "My sister is friends with Bonnie Aiken. You know, the actress? "

Moxie chuckles. "I know."

"So I was hanging out with Cole's friends yesterday, and I think he's convinced I am up to no good."

"It does seem conveniently coincidental."

Shrugging, I grab my bag from where I left it behind Mel's desk, since there's no point in me hanging around if she's not here to show me the ropes. "Maybe, but it's still coincidental, no matter how convenient. I promise I'm just here to work."

But when I open the door and find half a dozen men waiting in the hall for me with bright and eager smiles, a blush steals across my face. "Oh. Um. Hi."

"Bean says you have magic hands," one of them says.

Cue an even hotter blush. "Does he now?"

"We were all hoping to get a taste."

Moxie comes up behind me and clears his throat as he rests one hand on the door frame above me, the other on my shoulder. It's a welcome show of support, whether or not that was his intention. "Careful what you say next, Tink," he mutters.

Tink, the one who spoke, turns beet red and shakes his head wildly. "I meant with muscle stuff! Like she did with Bean! Mel's always fixing the other problems and never has time to help with the minor stuff."

"That's not really in my job description," I say, which is true. But there are few things I hate more than disappointing people, and they're all looking at me so hopefully. I don't want to set a precedent of giving massages willy-nilly, but I could make sure they're doing proper stretches. "But I could try to help."

Their looks of relief and excitement send a jolt of pleasure through me. That's something I could get used to.