Page 3 of Offside

"That's a real change," he said to Vicki.

"That's the comparison?" Vicki asked. She checked the number herself.

"From last week. More from July. Active and passive," Declan said.

Vicki nodded once. "I'll get Reyes."

"I'm skating Thursday," I called after her. She kept walking.

Declan set my arm down. "You can tell Reyes that."

"I'm telling you," I said.

"I report what I find. Reyes decides contact and clearance." He picked up the tablet. "What I find today is less active elevation, less external rotation, and loss of strength after contact."

"You could write that it recovered."

"Did it? Did the shoulder recover?"

The arm hung beside me, heavy but usable. I could close my hand. I could move the elbow. I couldn't raise the shoulder high enough to take a man off the puck without turning my whole body into him.

He made a note in front of me. No drama. No promise that Reyes would clear me and no satisfaction in being right.

"Lie back," he said. "I want the muscle to stop guarding before we test again."

I lay down. He put a folded towel under my elbow so the arm didn't drag on the joint, then worked his thumb into the muscle below my collarbone. He found the place that had tightened around the shoulder and stayed there.

"Breathe, Bishop."

"Trying," I mumbled. The shoulder stayed braced under his hands.

"Then let it go. Stop holding the whole side up."

I let the breath out.

His other hand settled across the top of my shoulder. The muscle gave by degrees under his palm, each breath making room for the next. I watched the shoulder chart above the corner station until the printed labels blurred.

Declan shifted his hand half an inch and found the last hard band of muscle. I closed my eyes.

For months, he'd told me to breathe like this. I'd worked very hard not to notice why obeying him felt different from obeying anybody else in the building.

The shoulder released under his hands, slowly enough for both of us to feel it.

The rest of me didn't.

2

Declan

The coffee maker clicked off at 5:17. I stood in my dark kitchen and waited another ten seconds before pulling the pot free. It had dripped onto the hot plate the day before, and Anna had laughed at me for wiping it up before I poured the coffee.

I filled my gray travel mug. The old mug had a dent near the bottom from a fall two winters ago. I opened the refrigerator to grab the lunch I'd packed the night before.

Anna came into the kitchen wearing my T-shirt and one sock. "You're sneaking out."

"I make coffee loudly enough to warn the neighbors."

"Your neighbors are eighty and take their hearing aids out at night." She leaned against the counter and closed her eyes. "You said you'd call yesterday."