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“Really?” I breathed. Opportunities like this didn’t come along often.

She grinned. “Really. Think about it. You don’t need to decide yet.”

“I will.” This could be career-making stuff for a new physical therapist.

“Let me tell you more about our guys.” She talked about the players like they were hers. “Mikael’s got a shoulder thing we’re watching. Fedor’s knee is holding up, but we’re being careful. And Veskar needs to stretch more but good luck getting him to admit it.”

She talked about most of the players, though she didn’t mention Brashe. I didn’t ask.

After Patty had loaded a tablet with the team’s schedule, injury reports, and contact info for everyone from the equipment manager to the Zamboni driver, she set me loose.

I was Dr. Eleanor Lundrig, and I was here to work.

I stepped out into the hallway and decided to poke around the treatment room some more before walking through each level of the building to make sure I understood where everything was.

Then I saw him.

Brashe leaned against the wall about twenty feet away, talking to Veskar. He’d cut his hair shorter since last summer, closer to his skull on the sides, though it still fell forward over his forehead when he tilted his head. Which he was doing now, listening to whatever Veskar was saying. He wore compression shorts that hugged…everything, and a team hoodie with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He’d crossed his muscular forearms over his chest. This was basically the same relaxed posture from the picnic, like the world existed just to hold him up while everyone else revolved around him.

He looked exactly the same.

This was annoying.

I should not have noticed any of that.

I didn’t slow down or speed up my pace. I kept my eyes forward, my face arranged in an expression that said I belong here without speaking at all.

I walked past him like he was furniture. The wall was more interesting than the orc leaning against it.

I felt rather than saw his gaze fall on me.

The conversation stopped, and the air changed. That was the only way I could describe it. Like pressure shifting before a storm, the kind of thing your body knows before your brain catches up. Every instinct I had screamed at me to check his expression. I needed to see if there was recognition there, or surprise, or, worst of all, irritation.

I kept my eyes forward, my flats clicking on tiles in a rhythm I forced to stay even. The tablet in my hands was a prop, a piece of armor, something to focus on that wasn’t the big, burly orc who’d gone completely still against the wall.

Veskar spoke. “Kedish?”

I was past them now.

My shoulder blades itched with the weight of his stare.

I didn’t look back.

The girl at the picnic didn’t exist anymore. I wasn’t the one in the yellow sundress who’d thought confidence was enough. That a clever line and a smile could make someone see her as something other than a body they’d already decided wasn’t worth their time.

I was the woman who walked past him like he was nothing because that’s what he’d shown me I was to him.

Except…

No. I wasn’t going to let myself wonder if I’d misunderstood him. I knew what I’d seen in his face.

They were players to keep on the ice. Even him.

Especially him, if I was being honest. Because nothing would prove I’d moved on quite like wrapping my hands around Brashe Kedish’s potential injuries and being completely unmoved by it.

The door to the training room was a short distance away. I could hear Patty speaking inside, talking to someone about treatment schedules.

Behind me, Veskar said something. Brashe’s response was low enough that I couldn’t make out the words.