Page 66 of The Goalie in Room 1

December

“Again,” he said.

I glared up at Thad from the exercise mat on his living room floor.

The look would’ve sent most people searching for safer ground. It had worked on teenage pricks and hockey players alike my whole damn life. It did not work on Thad. He merely crossed his arms over his chest and stared back at me. Meanwhile, I lay flat on my back with my right leg locked straight inside the brace.

“Uh…is this a trick? Because I’m pretty sure the physical therapist said three sets of ten, and that was ten.”

“She did, and it was not. That was nine.”

“It was ten,” I argued.

“Nope. It was nine. It would’ve been ten, but you half-assed your way through number six.”

“I’ve never half-assed anything, Doc. I paused.”

“Nope. You dropped your leg to the floor. You half-assed it.”

“I did not half-ass anything. I lowered it fast.”

“Nine. You dropped it.”

“Ten.”

“If you do another one, we’ll call that one ten.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I fucking don’t,” I muttered. This back and forth between us had developed over the weeks since my surgery.

Our bantering and bickering was a version of foreplay, at least for me. It turned me on like nothing else when he challenged me at every turn. He cheered for me too, but not to the detriment of my health or recovery.

“Fine,” I said, tightening my quads and lower abs as I glared at him.

He glared back with a smug smile and…

Yep. A cock that pressed against his gray sweatpants.

I smirked as I lifted my leg. The movement was slow, but the leg came up. My knee stayed straight inside the brace as my heel hovered several inches above the floor. The muscles in my abdomen and along my leg burned, but the ones on the front of my thigh were a raging inferno.

But…

They held.

No shaking.

No sharp stabbing inside the joint.

None of the weaknesses I’d experienced in the year since the injury that had made my leg feel detached from the rest of my body.

“Hold,” Thad said, his held-out hand a silent echo of his command.

I stared at the ceiling, my eyes watering from forcing myself to focus and not blink. The breath I held hissed through clenched teeth when I could no longer keep it in. When the last of the air escaped, I gnashed my teeth until they felt close to exploding.

“Three…two…one,” he counted down, his hand lowering as he did.