Page 23

Chapter Nineteen

Michele

“Y our nose is broken, and we had to stitch up that cut above your eye,” Parker tells Jensen as he shines a light in his eye, checking for a concussion. “Your pupil size is normal, but you’re going to need to sit out of practice for the rest of the week just to make sure.”

I expected there to be some injuries during training camp, but nothing as bad as this. I had to partially beg Parker to sit in the box during practice, claiming we should be close in case someone needed something, but he saw right through my bullshit. He never said anything, but I’m sure he noticed me paying more attention to one particular player than the others.

Today was the first day I cleared Cole to get back on the ice with limited contact since he joined the team. I couldn’t stop watching him skate around the ice, chirping at his teammates. Cole and I have been working closely with each other to get his shoulder back into tip-top shape. If he managed not to strain his shoulder and continued on our treatment plan, I could’ve guaranteed that he’d be off the injured reserve by the beginning of the season, but now, not so much.

“This is bullshit,” Jensen swears, leaning his head back on the training bench. “Hendrix needs to put his fucking little brother on a leash.”

“I don’t think you want Cooper or Beau to hear you talking shit, Jensen. Don’t you think your mouth has gotten you into enough trouble today?” Parker mumbles as he types something into his tablet.

“What the heck happened, anyway?” The question slips out of my mouth before I can stop them.

What can I say? I’m nosy. To anyone else, it looked like two hockey players getting into a fight about something stupid, but since I didn’t take my eyes off Cole for a minute during practice, I noticed when his demeanor changed, and not in a good way. At first, I thought he was in pain, making a note to check in with him at the end of practice. He was favoring that side of his body for sure, but then I noticed how his once-relaxed posture became rigid, all warmth draining from his face. His face turned murderous when Jensen started mumbling something to him before he sprang into action. If I’m being honest with myself, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the change if I wasn’t watching him so closely because no one else did. Dad stood in front of the group of them, giving directions for the next drill they were going to run.

He went after the rookie like a man possessed. Cole did everything he could to get to Jensen, going through both his brothers and other members of the team. Cole was shouting something at Jensen, but I couldn’t make it out over everyone speaking at the same time. I tried to get closer, but Parker grabbed my arm to stop me before telling me to head into the training room for some bull shit piece of equipment. I wanted to protest, but judging by the look in his eyes, Parker wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Nothing for you to worry about,” Beau responds, winking at me as he slides onto the bench across from Jensen.

“Who are you to decide what I need to know?” I snap back, tossing a roll of tape at Beau’s head, but he quickly reaches up to bat it away. To my surprise, he completely misses, and it smacks him right between the eyes.

His eyebrows pull down in confusion as he slides off the table and bends down to grab the roll off the floor. I turn toward Parker, wondering what the hell is going on, but he shakes his head slightly and mouths, “ Later. ”

“You’re showing your age, netminder. You aren’t getting slow on us, are you?” Parker says, a hint of concern in his voice.

“Gotta keep you on your toes.” Beau stands to his full height and drops the roll onto the now-vacated table, his eyes focusing on Jensen for a moment before turning toward Parker. A forced smile spreads across his face. “What’s the verdict, Doc?”

“He’ll live.”

“Good. I really don’t want to bail my brother out of jail.” Beau reaches for Jensen, gripping his arms tightly, causing him to wince. His eyes swing toward me, ready for me to jump in and stop him, but I say nothing. Instead, I focus on the tablet in front of me.

“Why don’t we head into my office and update our notes?” Parker motions toward his office tucked back in the back corner of the training room. “Beau, can you sit with him for a few minutes and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid? Don’t let him move until we get back.”

“You got it, boss.” Beau uses his other hand to give Parker a mock salute, his eyes never leaving Jensen’s face. “I’ll shout if we need anything, but we won’t.”

I have a feeling that Parker and I aren't just going to his office to compare notes. “That’s not fair. Why does he get away with calling you boss?” I complain, trying to break the tension.

“I’ve told him a million times not to call me that, but I stopped wasting my breath. The first thing you’ll learn around here is they’ll capitalize on any sign of weakness they can.”

“He’s right.” The corner of Beau’s mouth pulls up slightly. “Nothing gives me more joy than getting under Parker’s skin. Well, except doing the same thing to my big brother.”

“Are you in here giving these two a hard time?” Cooper comes gliding into the training room, plopping down on the stool Parker just vacated.

Jensen eyes the two brothers wearily, shifting nervously on the bench. “Never. Parker and Michele here were giving me a clean bill of health. Said I can go back to practice tomorrow.”

“You’re full of shit. What we said was that you’re out for the rest of the week, at least. Keep it up, and I’ll send you to the hospital for a CT scan instead of letting you hang out here for a few hours to check for concussion symptoms.”

The two brothers lock eyes, silently communicating something with each other, before Cooper winks at me. “You are going to be just fine, Michele.”

“You had your doubts?” I question, feeling as if Cooper is talking about something a lot more important than whether I can hold my own in the locker room setting. “I’ve probably spent more time in this locker room than you, Hendrix.”

“Burn.” Beau chuckles, holding his hand up for a high-five, which I return wholeheartedly.

Something tells me that Parker isn’t the only one who knows about my relationship with their coach. Over the last few weeks, I haven’t gone out of my way to keep the fact that I’m the coach’s daughter a secret, but I haven’t said anything else. Dad keeps things completely professional in the locker room, although he’s been avoiding me like the plague since my first day here. Not that I’m complaining. The last thing I need is him breathing down my neck, looking for any small things to pick at and remind me about how I don’t belong here.

“What do you mean?” Jensen asks, his head swiveling between me and Cooper. “Did you play hockey before becoming a physio?”

“No.” I grab all the used gauze and antiseptic wipe wrappers off the table, make sure the area is spotless and ready for the next injury or catastrophe on the ice.

Jensen props himself up on his elbows, his eyes following me as I move around him. “That’s it, just no?”

“Yup,” I say, popping the P at the end for emphasis before striding away from all three men and toward Parker’s office.

Parker laughs loudly. “Let the lady have her secrets. Just lay your ass there and chill out. Let us know if you feel anything off or any concussion symptoms pop up.”

I plop down in the chair closest to the door, Parker right behind me. “What the hell was that?”

Parker pushes the door shut behind him, giving us some privacy before taking a seat behind his desk. “You need to be a little more specific.”

Okay, that’s fair. A lot happened in that few-minute exchange with the three players. I could be talking about any number of things, but I choose to go with the most important one in my opinion. “Beau’s delayed gross motor function. I barely tossed that roll of tape at him. He should’ve had no problem catching it.”

“You noticed that, too?”

“How could I have missed it?” I enter the code into my tablet, immediately searching for Beau’s file, but come up empty. “He doesn’t have a file? How the hell does he not have a file? He’s a professional hockey player, for Christ's sake.”

“Not all our players are going to get injured, Michele.” Parker chuckles, clicking a few buttons on his keyboard before his eyes scan something on his screen. “He hasn’t had so much as a pulled muscle in the last two years.”

Does this man have a superpower I’m not aware of? It’s common knowledge that the repetitive hip rotation, extreme flexibility, and sudden directional changes required of any NHL netminder can lead to hip impingement, labral tears, and groin strains. I have never met one that hasn’t had frequent hip and groin issues, sometimes multiple during a single season, and Beau seems to have avoided all of this for the last two years.

“How is that possible? He’s a netminder. Don’t they pull groin muscles regularly?”

“Beau has been doing this for years. He knows how to take care of his body.” Parker shakes his head, his eyes remaining focused on whatever is on his screen. “Unlike most of the other players, he comes to me before something is a problem so we can manage it with some specialized stretching.”

The urge to call bullshit is strong, but I keep my mouth shut. I know Parker is damn good at his job, if not the best in the world. If he says Beau is good to go, then he is. “That means no concussions or chance of trauma recently.”

I nibble on the tip of my thumb, my mind racing for any reason that his gross motor skills would be so off, and none of them are good. Beau is, for all intents and purposes, a healthy male in his late twenties. If this were a genetic condition, we can assume that any of the scarier conditions would’ve presented before now, but we can’t rule anything out.

“What about Cooper? Is he showing gross motor delays, as well?”

“No. Other than his ACL tear last season, Cooper hasn’t had any major problems either.”

I nod my head, my mind still trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I know from looking at Cole’s chart that everything for him is fine. If it were anyone but Stacey who did his final assessment before releasing him from physical therapy, I’d want to run all the tests again. But my best friend is damn good at her job.

“We can rule out any genetic conditions since neither of the other two brothers is presenting with any symptoms.” I push to my feet, pacing back and forth in front of Parker’s desk.

“It’s probably nothing.” Parker leans back in his chair, threading his fingers together before placing them on the back of his head. “Beau is a jokester and hates conflict. I have a feeling he was just fucking with the both of us.”

You could definitely cut the tension in that room with a knife the minute Beau walked into the room. Jensen looked downright terrified, sandwiched between both Hendrix brothers. I could see him trying to crack a joke to break the tension. That’s what I did, but I just can’t shake this feeling that we are missing something important.

“I would love to believe that, but I have a feeling that’s not it. You didn’t see his face when he missed that tape. He looked just as worried as we both were.”

I saw the confusion and a flash of fear in his eyes before he picked up the tape off the floor. I remember Dad used to always say a netminder is only as good as the quickness of his glove, or something like that. I don’t remember it perfectly, but it makes sense. The quickness of his reflexes and ability to grasp the puck out of the air with his glove are requirements for his job on the team. If he loses those, he may as well kiss his career goodbye.

“Could it be Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)?” I wince, hating to even speak those words out loud.

CTE is every athlete’s worst nightmare. It’s a brain disorder believed to be caused by repeated head injuries. After repeated damage to the brain, it’s believed that the nerve cells in your brain degenerate, which continues to get worse over an extended period and repeated damage to the brain. A common warning sign of CTE is a progressive deficit in motor function, including problems with balance, gait, and coordination. However, the only way to definitively diagnose CTE is after death, during an autopsy of the brain. And since I would like to keep Beau alive for the foreseeable future, we’re going to have to make an educated guess.

“It could be. He has had concussions in the past, but I haven’t noticed any issues with his balance or any speech issues. He was skating around on the ice like usual. He even beat some of the rookies during the speed drills during practice.”

“That doesn’t rule out CTE completely, but it soothes my worries a little.” I flop back down in the seat, my leg bouncing up and down with nerves. “I know I should let this go, but I just can’t shake the feeling that this is something we should be concerned about.”

Parker shakes his head, typing something into his computer before smiling at me. “I can’t let this go, either. Beau isn’t just one of the players; he’s a friend. I’m just as worried about him as you.”

“What are we going to do about it?”

“I don’t know. There isn’t much we can do based on the information we know.”

Parker is right. I doubt Beau will be up for a full physical and a blood panel at the doctor's office right now. I know that’s probably overkill and could cause him unnecessary stress, which could potentially make things worse. Either way, we need more information.

“Do you do physical workups at the start of the season?” I ask, an idea forming in my head.

“Sometimes, but I don’t think we’ve done one in a few years.”

“Although we don’t know how many rookies are going to make the final roster, this is as good a time as any to do a comprehensive workup on the team. That way, we can get a baseline on how well the entire team is doing before the start of the season.”

Parker thinks about it for a moment before responding. “It’s a good idea. The veterans could use a full workup, as well. None of them are getting any younger. Although it would be a lot of late hours here at the training center, it can be done. We just need to get your dad to sign off on it.”

“You can leave that to me. Dad loves this team and will do anything he can to ensure all his players are healthy throughout the season,” I respond with conviction.

Dad might be focused on winning conference championships and the Cup again this year, but he also cares for his players. I don’t want to tell him who we are specifically looking at so that we don’t draw any unnecessary attention to Beau, but he needs to know we have concerns.

“If you can get your dad on board without breaking patient confidentiality, we can make it happen. I just need to talk to the other trainers. We are going to need all hands on deck if we are going to do a comprehensive workup on twenty-something players.

“It's settled. Please don’t tell Stacey it’s my fault she’s going to be seeing even less of you than expected. She’ll never forgive me,” I whine, not wanting to get on my best friend’s bad side. It’s only happened a few times, and none of them were pretty.

“Oh, shut it. She always forgives you and blames me.”

“That’s right. Chicks before dicks.” I giggle, causing Parker to roll his eyes. “Don’t ever get me fired, or you might find yourself potentially without a girlfriend.”

“You aren’t ever going anywhere if I can help it. You’re the reason I manage to get out of here before sunset most days. Though not today.” He sighs, chuckling softly to himself. “But that’s also your fault.”

“How the hell is it my fault? I’m not the one who went after Jensen like a rabid dog on the ice during practice.”

“Very vivid description. But you can’t have not noticed?”

“Notice what?” I pull my bottom lip between my teeth and bite down on it.

The idea of this having to do with me causes wetness to pool between my legs. Why is it so hot that Cole beat the crap out of a potential teammate for saying something inappropriate to me? I have no idea what the answer to that is, and I don’t care, but more importantly, what am I going to do about it?

“You know what? Why don’t you ask him yourself,” Parker responds as I spin around in my chair and notice Cole, Beau, and Cooper all having a chat with Jensen. I would say it was friendly, but judging by the murderous look on Cole’s face, I have a feeling it’s anything but.