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“Me? Kedish?”

“My youngest has the flu. I’m going to be in and out for the next week, maybe two, sharing nurse duty with my husband.” She rubbed her temples. “Kedish tweaked something in practice today. He didn’t report it, which is shocking, I know, but the coach noticed and had him assessed. Coach wants him on a treatment plan ASAP. We can’t afford to have him down during playoffs. The medical team already saw him, and the MRI shows a grade one strain. No tear, thankfully.”

Grade one. Manageable. Six to ten days of targeted treatment, and he’d be fine.

“Can’t someone else⁠—”

“You can handle this, Ellie. And honestly?” Patty’s gaze sharpened. “He needs someone who won’t put up with his bullshit. He’s going to try to downplay it. He’s going to try to skip sessions. Don’t let him.”

My fingers tightened on my tablet. There had to be someone else. Anyone else. But asking would require explaining why, and I’d rather gargle broken glass than admit to Patty that Brashe Kedish had gotten under my skin almost a year ago and never left.

I couldn’t let this matter.

“Alright. When’s his first appointment?”

“Tomorrow at two PM. Don’t be late, or he’ll use it as an excuse to bail.”

“I’ll be on time. I hope your child feels better.”

“Thanks.”

I typed the appointment into my calendar. Tomorrow. 2 PM. Brashe Kedish.

My finger hovered over his name on the screen. Then I closed the tablet and went to prep the treatment room.

Brashe had said me working here was going to be a problem.

He had no idea.

CHAPTER SIX

BRASHE

The next day, I accidentally showed up twenty minutes late to my PT appointment.

That was a lie. I’d shown up late on purpose.

I sat in my truck in the parking lot, my hands locked on the steering wheel, staring at the building.

My ribs felt too tight. Like I’d strapped on a weight vest and forgotten to take it off.

This was fine. I’d had injuries before. PT wasn’t new.

Except it had never been with her.

The clock on the dash ticked over to 2:20 PM.

I got out of my truck, my hip flexor protesting the movement with a dull ache that radiated down my inner thigh. It wasn’t bad enough to stop me from walking. But it was bad enough that I’d felt it the second I’d pushed off wrong in practice, that split-second of oh fuck before the muscle seized.

I could skip PT. Tell Coach I’d do the stretches on my own, ice it, and take some anti-inflammatories. I’d done that before with other injuries. But this wasn’t small enough. The MRI had made that clear. Coach Beecham said I wasn’t playing until PT cleared me.

I went inside.

The treatment room was located down the hall from the main gym. I’d been there before, but it looked different now. Colder. A treatment table sat in the center of the room, covered with fresh paper. A desk sat against one wall, the computer monitor dark. Cabinets lined the other side, labeled with supplies.

Ellie stood by the desk, writing something on a tablet. She didn’t look up when I walked in.

“You’re late,” she said in a neutral tone of voice, the same she used for everyone.