“Oh. That makes a lot more sense, ’cause I don’t think he’s gonna be in any kind of shape to have sex in the foreseeable future.”
“Probably not, if getting excited makes him cry.” She pats my shoulder. I know it’s her hand, because it’s soft and warm and it seems to have a direct, semipsychic connection to my dick, making it stir. “See you tomorrow, Shippy.”
“I hate that fuckin’ nickname,” I grumble. And then it’s lights out.
CHAPTER 13
PRETTY PAINFUL
Bishop
“Hey, Shippy, rise and shine.” Those words are followed by a repetitive poke at my shoulder.
“Would you fuck off?” I slap my brother’s hand away. “And stop calling me Shippy.” I pry one lid open, slowly. It’s a challenge. My brain and body are not interested in doing things like moving or being alert.
“You have company.”
“Huh?” I glance at the clock on the nightstand. It’s nine in the morning. I’ve been out for a lot of hours.
“Company. You have a visitor.” Nolan is grinning, like an asshole.
“Stevie?” I attempt to sit up in a rush, forgetting that I’m not really in any kind of shape to be doing anything quickly. I bite out several curses and flop back down on the mattress.
“Look at how excited you got there for a few seconds. I mean, I get it. That chick is hot.”
“That chick is off limits, brother, so keep your hands to yourself. And don’t flirt with her,” I snap.
“I can’t not flirt. That’s like me telling you not to be an asshole.”
He has a point. “Just stay away from her. If she’s not here, who is?”
“Ryan.”
“Who?”
“King.”
“Oh.” No one ever addresses Kingston by his given name, apart from his parents. Not even his siblings. He’s always been King or Kingston for as long as I can remember. “What’s he doing here?”
“Picking you up for a team meeting or something. Or maybe going door to door trying to recruit people into his Polo Army.”
I ignore the dig at Kingston. He’s a good guy. Super straightlaced. Like, the straightest arrow I’ve met. Guy still drinks milk with dinner, and often at the bar, or whenever he can, really. He rarely has more than one beer, and he doesn’t drink at all if he’s driving. He honestly looks like he should head up the chess club, with his uniform of polos, khaki pants, and polished dress shoes.
“Can you tell him I’ll be out in a minute?”
“Sure thing. You need help?”
“I’m good.”
Nolan leaves me to manage getting my ass out of bed. I notice that my bathroom looks a lot cleaner than it did last night. It takes me a full ten minutes to get ready. Kingston is sitting at my kitchen island, drinking a glass of milk.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“It’s no problem. I came early since I know you’re not moving fast these days.” He finishes his milk, rinses out the glass, and puts it in the dishwasher. “You ready to go?”
“Yup.” I pocket my wallet and phone. Since I’m on crutches, King takes my to-go coffee, and we head for the elevators. I glance at Stevie’s door; the paper is gone, which means she’s already left for work. I wonder if we’ll still have our morning underwear competition now that she’s helping me with PT. Guess I’m not going to find out today.
“How was practice yesterday?” I ask once we’re in Kingston’s SUV. He drives the speed limit dead on and keeps his hands at ten and two, like he was taught in driving school. While he may be a rule follower, he doesn’t expect that of anyone else. He accepts people for who they are—rule breakers and all.
“Okay. You getting injured shook the team up, though. You know how it is: some of the guys are superstitious. How you handling things?”
I wish I wasn’t one of the superstitious ones, but losing team captain and being out with an injury after the first exhibition game is shit luck. “I’m not happy, obviously. I don’t want to miss the beginning of the season.”
“I get it, but that’s a bad pull. You don’t want to rush it and reinjure, either.” King flicks his blinker on a full block from where he has to turn.
“I know. It hurts like hell. I’ve never done this kind of damage before. I wish they hadn’t put me on defense. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been playing forward.” I lift my hat and run a hand through my hair. “I can’t afford to have a bad season, you know? I only have a two-year contract, and if I screw this season, I could be sent somewhere else—or worse, the farm team.”
“You’re too good of a player to get sent back to the farm team,” Kingston says.
“I’m only good to the team if I’m on the ice. Warming the bench for five mil a year isn’t going to get a contract renewal. I need a few more years at least to make bank, especially if Nolan keeps living his life like it’s going to end tomorrow.”
Kingston knows about my brother’s health issues. “He’s not taking care of himself?”
“Not the way he should.” I blow out a breath. “I’m worried about the long game, you know?”
“I get it, but you’ll only be out for the first few weeks of the season, so you’ll have lots of time to prove your worth to the team.”
“I really hope so.”
We pull into the parking lot, ending the personal conversation. The team meeting is a whole lot of morale-building bullshit. The GM, Jake Masterson, is well respected despite being young for his role. He and Waters will be pumping up the team, so it’ll be a lot of rah-rah crap today, which I’m not in the mood for, considering I get to watch all the action from the bench.
Apparently Waters is going to be hosting a party for the team prior to the official start of the season. I’m not big on parties, or lots of people and socializing outside of the rink, but I can’t exactly avoid these kinds of things when it’s pretty much the only way I can mesh with my team.
After the meeting there’s a training session I can’t take part in, so I’m sent to work with one of the team physiotherapists instead. I will say that Stevie is much nicer looking and smelling than the guy I’m dealing with. He’s professional and efficient, and those are the only good things I can say about him.
We go through range-of-motion exercises, and he pokes and prods me for a good forty-five minutes. By the time he finishes his initial assessment, the verdict is that I’m going to need intensive sessions, starting tomorrow.
I head to the locker room, where the rest of the team is suiting up for ice time. I’d like to call an Uber and take my ass home, since my groin feels like it’s on fire again from all the unpleasant attention, but I realize I need to stick around. If I can’t play, I should be watching my teammates, getting a sense of how they work together.
I take a seat on the bench while the guys do warm-up drills. This is fucking depressing.
Waters drops down beside me. He’s dressed in a suit, which is pretty much what he wears all the time unless he’s in the gym training with us. He’s a hands-on coach, in the middle of everything. Super friendly and just . . . nice. It’s irritating since I’m in such a shit mood. “How you holding up?”
“I’m all right. Not happy about the situation, but we’re starting rehab tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll beat the six-week healing time.”
Alex claps me on the shoulder. “Just don’t push yourself too hard, too fast. I know when I screwed up my shoulder, I wanted to be back on the ice for playoffs. Injuries like this can mess with your head and your morale.”
“I remember when you took that hit. It was bad.” I’d been playing in the minors, waiting to be called up, and it was all the hockey world could talk about. The top player in the league being out for the end of the season because a rival player had had a beef with him and took him out of the game. Cockburn has since retired from the league, although maybe retired isn’t the right word. At the end of the season that followed, his contract expired, and no one would renew.
Waters nods his agreement. “If I’d pushed rehab the way I wanted to, I wouldn’t have had the last few years of my career, and the only reason I didn’t was because my best friend was there to keep me from being an idiot. So listen to your body and make sure you don’t do more damage than good when you’re pushing the recovery angle.”
I don’t want to hear all the ways I can ruin my career, even though I get what he’s saying. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
He cocks a brow. “I know it’s been a rough start, but one injury doesn’t have to dictate the rest of the season for you.”
I track Rook on the ice, watching him move seamlessly between players as he heads for the net with the puck. He’s flawless out there, quick and fluid. He manages to slide it past Kingston. He skates around behind the net, coming to a stop in front of him. King gets along with everyone, and nothing really ever seems to rile him up. We’re pretty much opposites, apart from both liking routines. Rook puts a hand on Kingston’s shoulder, and they talk for a few seconds. King nods, probably eating up whatever advice he’s being given.
I should hate Rook less, knowing that he doesn’t have a sidepiece living across the hall from me, but I find I loathe him more. He acts like a golden boy, when really he was the furthest thing from it at the beginning of his career.
He skates over to the bench and grabs his water bottle. “How you doin’, Winslow?”
“All right.”
“It was a good save the other night.” He tips his head back and squirts water into his mouth, eyeing me from the side.
“Thanks,” I grind out. I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or being seminice because Waters is here and listening.
“When you’re ready to get back on the ice, you should spend some time working with the other guys on defense.”
I bite back an asshole reply and force out, “I’m sure that’ll be part of the training plan.”
“Actually, I’m not convinced defense is necessarily the best place for Winslow.”
Rook and I break our stare down and give Alex our full attention.
“What? But I thought you agreed that Winslow would be better guarding the net than trying to score on it,” Rook spits out.
Alex pins him with a look that seems a lot like a warning. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Bowman.” He turns to me.
“You have a lot of size, Winslow, and I felt like defense could be a good fit, especially with how tight you and Kingston are. With time and practice, you’d make a great defensive player, and maybe that’s something you’ll want to focus on later in your career, but I think it may have been a mistake on my part to move you there now. I’ve been studying your performance on the ice with Nashville, and you have a lot of speed for your size, so for now we’ll shift you back to forward, where you’re more comfortable.”
I nod and fight a smile, because I can practically feel Rook seething. “Who’s going to take his place on defense?”
“You can let me worry about that, Rook, since that’s my job.” Alex smiles tightly.
“Right, yeah. You know what’s best for the team,” Rook replies.
“Actually, I have an idea.” Alex steeples his fingers and looks between us.
“What’s that?” Rook leans on the boards, trying to appear casual, but his tension is obvious.
“Once Bishop is back on the ice, I think it would be good for the two of you to work together.”
“Are you serious?” And Rook is back to looking like he wants to punch me. Or Alex. I’m not sure which.
“Very.” He turns to me. “With more speed training you’ll be second line, and since Rook is the best forward we have, it makes the most sense for you to work together when you’re ice ready.”
Rook smirks and cocks a brow. “I’m not the best; you are. Maybe you should lace up your skates and get back on the ice, Coach.”
“I lost that title last year when you blew my scoring record out of the water.”
And now it’s turning into a fucking lovefest. Rook is such a brownnoser. “Do you two want a minute alone?”
Both of their grins drop, and they pin me with the same unimpressed look.
“Kidding. It was a joke.” I’m not kidding at all, but I don’t need to piss off my coach and my team captain with more of my asshole remarks.
“You’re being given a golden opportunity here, Winslow. I get that you’re unhappy about the situation, but don’t screw yourself over because of pride.” Waters pushes to a stand, and Rook gives me an arched brow before he skates away, as if to say he won that round.
I wish I could stop digging holes for myself.
I consider how pissed off Rook would be if he knew his sister had offered to help me with physiotherapy. Not that I care. I want back on the ice more than I want him to like me.
“Everything okay?” Kingston asks on the way home.
“Waters wants me to work with Bowman when I’m ready to get back on the ice.”
“That’s not a bad thing, is it? He’s got the best scoring record in the league.”
“Not you too.” I roll my eyes. “Why is everyone so up this guy’s ass?”
Kingston shrugs. “He’s a great player. Plus he waived his no-trade clause so he could be part of a new team and so his wife could be closer to his family. He’s a good guy.”
I chose to come to this team, too, but that doesn’t seem to matter to anyone but me anymore.
“You should’ve heard him and Waters. They’re so far up each other’s asses it’s ridiculous. ‘You’re the best.’ ‘No, you’re the best.’” I mock their voices. “I’m surprised they didn’t offer each other goddamn blow jobs to go with the lovefest.”
“They both have wives. And kids.”
Sometimes Kingston can be super literal about things. “I know that. I don’t honestly mean I think they’d blow each other. I just mean it was a mutual and annoying lovefest. I should probably shut up. I’m in a bad mood.”
“Do you want to grab lunch?” Food is Kingston’s way of changing this subject.
“Nah. I’m tired. I need a nap.”
I take the meds like I’m supposed to when I get home and fall asleep on the couch with a cold compress on my thigh.
My brother is home this afternoon, so I do myself a favor and run a bath so I can manage the heat-therapy shit. Stevie left me a short list of things to do today, among which are to take another epsom salts bath, alternate with cold compresses, and keep a detailed record of the exercises I do with my team physiotherapist.
I try to get into the tub on my own, but I can’t do it without causing myself more pain, so I get Nolan to help me. He won’t shut up about how crappy it must be to have a hot chick all over my jock when getting hard feels like someone is stabbing me in the balls with a fiery poker.
The highlight of my shit day occurs when Stevie shows up at my door at seven. She’s holding a piece of the pizza I brought her yesterday in one hand and a rolled-up yoga mat in the other hand. Today she’s wearing a pair of athletic shorts and a tank top. It’s a lot of skin on display. Tanned skin wrapped around toned muscles. She clearly works hard to stay in shape, which I can appreciate, because I have to do the same thing.
She looks me over with pursed lips. “I see we’re out of clothes again.”
“I get hot.”
“I’m sure you do, Billboard Balls.” She flips her hair over her shoulder—it’s now pale blue—as she slips by me.
“What did you call me?”
“It’s what me and the girls call you at work.”
“You talk about me at work?”
“I talk about what an asshole you are, so don’t let that inflate your ego.” She shoots me a look. “Did you take an epsom salts bath and use ice therapy this afternoon like I told you to?”
“Yeah.”
“Great. Now give me a rundown of what you did with your team therapist today. I’m assuming you saw him? Her?” She drops down on my couch and stretches her legs out. Her feet a
re bare, toenails painted the same shade as her hair.
“Him, and go right ahead and make yourself at home,” I grumble.
She gives me a syrupy smile. “Watch the ’tude, dude, unless you want today’s session to suck more than a sex worker on Saturday night.”
I lower myself into one of the recliners. “Mostly he poked at my legs and did range-of-motion exercises until I was at risk of vomiting.”
She makes a face. “Can you not talk about throwing up while I’m eating?”
“You asked.”
“Not for references to regurgitated food.”
Dicken jumps up on the edge of the couch and headbutts her. Then he jumps onto the cushion beside her, making his broken-squeaky-toy sounds and getting all up in her face, sniffing her pizza. She gives him a scratch under the chin, but he doesn’t stick around. Instead, he jumps off the couch and trots over to his dish to check out the contents.
She pokes at my brother’s insulin kit sitting on the coffee table, her expression shifting to concern. “Are you a diabetic?”
“No, my brother is.” I wish he’d put that stuff away, but it’s always lying somewhere: coffee table, kitchen counter, bathroom. I ended up getting him a spare, which I keep in my medicine cabinet on the not-so-off chance that he can’t find his.
“Type one or two?”
“One.” I don’t love talking about my brother’s health issues, mostly because they seem to stress me out more than they do him.
“Is that why he doesn’t have a license?” Stevie picks an olive off her pizza and pops it in her mouth.
“Pretty much, yeah.” He had a license, but he’s had too many visits to the hospital in the past year for unregulated insulin issues, and they took it away. He has to be clear for a year before he gets it back. His vision isn’t great, either, which is another strike against him.
“That happened to my dad too.”
“Your dad’s a diabetic?”
“Was. He passed away from complications a while back.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. Me too.” She stuffs the last of her pizza slice into her mouth.
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