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I think about the cap hit on a fourth-line winger.

I think about Brick eating.

Neither one does the job.

The shears work up along my ribs, slow, and her wrist stays braced against my side the whole way because she needs it steady, and I stand there in the dark with my heart going like I just finished a shift and hold absolutely still for a woman with a blade an inch from my skin.

The fabric gives.

She pulls it over my head.

Light. Her face eight inches from mine.

Color sits high on her throat and she hasn’t stepped back yet.

She checks the shoulder first.

That helps.

It doesn’t help anywhere near as much as I need it to, and she’s close enough to know it, and she doesn’t step back.

“Thank you.”

“Not yet.”

She sets the shears down and takes my wrist. “Show me how you tried to remove it.”

“You just saw the successful portion.”

“Mr. Riley.”

I demonstrate with the free arm, lifting before I pull back.

“There.” She brings my elbow against my ribs. “You go up first. That puts you into the worst part of the range before the shirt has cleared the shoulder.”

“You’ve been waiting your whole career to teach this lesson.”

“I did not expect the student to be thirty-eight.”

“Cruel.”

“Elbow in first.”

She guides the arm across my body instead of up and back. Nothing catches.

“Again. You do it.”

I repeat it. Her hand stays under my forearm until she knows I have it, then leaves.

“That is how you get out of a shirt.”

“Twenty years I’ve been getting out of shirts.”

“Badly.”

I look down at what used to be a base layer. “Expensive lesson.”

“You can afford another shirt.”