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Chapter Twenty-Five

“Word on the street is the Renegades top line we’ve come to love and admire is back. Better than ever. We can only hope. Also, did anyone get a load of local golden boy Shep Landon’s latest Insta? That man increased Mapleton gym memberships by 3000% with one post. God bless him and his gorgeous chest, too.” Penni’s Puckleberry Tea

Boh

I pulled the Range Rover into a guest parking spot in the Brightside parking lot and shoved out of the car in a rush. I could have invited Novy along for this appointment since she’d come to most of the previous ones, but something stopped me.

I expected good news from Dr. Altman today. Good news that cleared me to get back into the real work of being a hockey player.

Good news that felt like getting a surprise hit in center ice—thrown off my skates with the wind knocked out of me as I crashed down, thoughts spinning.

If Dr. Altman cleared me on the concussion protocol, I would no longer require a Designated Medical Guardian. The official role Novy filled would no longer exist. She could stay, of course. Or move back to her own place, but we could continue what we’d started. The personal side of things. The side of things where she slept in my bed and cared about my health the way a loving partner would.

Legally our contract would be coming to a close, but we had the option, as free-thinking adults, to continue what we’d started.

The idea was as unnerving as it was enticing. A partner to care where I spent my nights, how I spent my days. Beautiful, caring, loving Novy. I ached at the idea of not seeing her every day. Of not choking down her smoothie experiments. Of not teasing her about her derby outfit, not training with her in the gym at my apartment.

Of waking to an empty bed.

But the stark image of Tom Edwards never left my mind. Of his treatment of his wife, a woman I’d watched him worship for years. A woman I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he loved and yet still treated like mud on the bottom of his shoes. A nuisance, a hassle. Disrespected and disregarded.

No one deserved to be treated that way by the person they loved. But what true partner would leave a lover who was so afflicted they disappeared into their sickness? Became an unrecognizable person, a stranger in their own home?

I couldn’t imagine Novy abandoning anyone she accepted into her inner circle, much less her partner. What if we made it, what if we got together and stayed together and I turned into Tom Edwards after a few years?

She would never leave me.

A man could lean on a woman like Novy, with her loyalty, dependability, and unwavering steadfastness. I snorted. Sounded like I described a faithful hound. But in the taciturn world of professional sports, where injury or politics could change your trajectory in an instant, I imagined the love and support of a woman like Novy made the uncertainty livable. Something told me nothing about hockey or a professional hockey player’s life would phase Novy. If I ended up traded to a new team, she’d roll with it. We’d figure out a plan to make it work.

Maybe I’d be healthy for a couple years, maybe I’d be healthy for twenty years, maybe forever.

Or maybe I’d turn into a raging lunatic, a danger to anyone foolish enough to stick around me.

I needed to let Novy go. The moment I was cleared, I needed to let Novy go.

The apartment would turn back into the shell it was before she arrived. Before she turned it into a home, a place I wanted to be simply because she was there.

A few minutes later, a staff member showed me to Dr. Altman’s office. He pulled my record up on his tablet, thumbing through my medical record. “These all look good, Boh.”

My heart pounded, ready to thunder out of my chest. “So I’m good to go?”

He shook his head. “Not quite. The imaging is good, let’s us know we’re still only dealing with the concussion. But we need to repeat your neuro testing. When you were here last, you still had a significant deficit when it came to processing speed.”

“Let’s do it, then. Now. Today.”

“Absolutely.”

We moved to a table and he put me through a series of cognitive tests to evaluate my processing speed. The tests seemed basic, obvious. Draw a line from here to here, then here to here, on and on. Couldn’t get much easier. But in the days after my concussion? Connecting lines, drawing in a specific order was out of my control. Impossible.

Today, I whipped through the familiar tests.

“You’re close, Boh.” Dr. Altman leaned back in his chair. “Give me two more weeks. We’ll do this one more time, and if it goes as well as I expect it will, I’ll clear you to play.”

My heart pounded. Apprehension dancing with adrenaline in a deadly mix that left nothing but confusion in its wake.

“I’ll be here.”