The rink was a cathedral of cold—roaring with fans and soaked in adrenaline, but beneath the noise and clatter of skates on ice, she only heard the hitch in his breath.

She hadn't planned on being down there. She was backup today, clipboard in hand, mostly keeping stats and watching movement patterns from the bench while the lead physio handled the more immediate injuries. But midway through the second period, chaos struck. A brutal check near the boards. The lead physio already knee-deep with another player’s dislocated shoulder. Her headset buzzed. "He's yours."

She hated rushing onto the ice. The pressure. The stares. The split-second decisions. But as she reached him—number 18, face creased in pain and sweat-slicked under his helmet—everything sharpened. The cold didn’t bite anymore. The noise faded. Only him.

He was half-sitting, half-leaning against the boards, one glove discarded, pressing into his own side. “Hip,” he muttered, jaw tight. “Might’ve pulled something when I pivoted.”

She nodded once and dropped to her knees, gloved hands already checking alignment and tension, the practiced detachment barely holding against the pulse of awareness crawling under her skin. The stretch of muscle beneath her fingertips. The way his eyes followed hers—direct, but not unreadable. Curious. Almost like he’d been waiting for this. For her.

“Anything worse?” she asked, gentle but firm.

He hissed as she pressed just below the crest of his hip. “No. Not tearing. Just... pissed off.” He tilted his head back, teeth gritted, chest rising fast beneath the pads.

“Ribs?”

He grunted. “You know the drill.”

She did. She’d watched him enough, tracked his movements on the screen, logged every shift in gait and posture. Knew he favored his left. Knew he never stayed down unless he needed to. Knew he laughed too loud off the rink and tried to hide bruises like they weren’t proof of how much he gave to a game that never gave back gently.

She taped, iced, advised. All business. Mostly. But something simmered just under the surface—something not quite professional. Not quite personal. That tightrope space between a body in pain and the hands that are trying to fix it. She caught it in the small twitch of his lip when she said he’d probably be benched the rest of the game. In the way he didn’t protest, just looked at her like she’d said something that meant more.

He rose slowly, one hand still brushing his side, and leaned in close enough for only her to hear.

“I’ve been skating into hits all season, hoping you’d be the one they’d send.”