Page 6

Ruben

The locker room was loud with the sound of players celebrating and staff yelling at them to get cleaned up. “Doc, I’ll send them to your office as they’re ready,” one of the trainers said to me and I didn’t wait to be told twice; I left the room more than ready to get away from the chaos.

“Hey, can you look at this?” the goalie asked, and I reminded myself I needed to get to know their names.

He held his helmet, and I realized this was the first time I’d actually seen him. His dark hair was plastered to his head and the way he moved told me he was hurting. “Sure, come over here.” I led him to the medical area and tried to ignore how muscular he was when he stripped off what was left of his jersey leaving a tighter fitting long-sleeved undershirt. “That was quite a brawl,” I said and guided him onto an exam table.

“Yeah, they had it in for us,” he said and grimaced.

“What’s your name?”

“Hofstedder, Max,” he said and held his hand out. I stared at it a moment before shaking it and he once again grimaced at the movement.

“How much pain are you in?” I asked and started to examine the multitude of bruises that were already starting to appear.

“It’s not bad,” he said.

“Really? How’s the knee?” He slid his sock down and without even touching it I could see it was swollen. I was right, the stick had caught him just between his pads and there was a dark hematoma that had to be the point of contact.

“It’s okay. Will I be able to play tomorrow night?” he asked not even concerned about me wiping off the blood that was on his cheek, but then his eyes met mine and for a moment I couldn’t look away.

“I’m not sure. Nothing looks too serious, but you will be sore tomorrow. You’ll want to ice that knee tonight or you’ll have trouble tomorrow. I’m going to wrap it just to stabilize it for the night. You don’t have any plans tonight, do you?”

“Hell, yes, he has plans. We’re all going out for a drink. You too, Doc,” the big forward said as he walked over to us. He still had blood oozing from his forehead, and I knew I’d be suturing more than a few of them before I was done tonight.

“Do you mind? Let me finish with Mr. Hofstedder and I’ll suture your forehead,” I said without looking away from my current patient.

“Max,” he said, but it took me a moment to react.

“What’s that?”

“Max, call me Max,” he said.

“Max. I don’t think you’ve damaged anything in your knee, it’s just a really bad bruise. How’s your foot? I noticed you were hit there too.” I cracked open an ice pack and shook it before securing it with tape to the side of his knee. “Leave this in place for the next twenty minutes then I’ll stabilize it. You should continue to ice through the night if you can, but I’ll understand if you miss it from sleep. Not so much if you miss it because you’re out drinking.”

“I wasn’t planning to go out,” he mumbled.

“Well, I think the team will make it hard for you to say no.” I patted his good knee as I stood and examined the bruises on his back, his very muscular back. “You’re going to be feeling this tomorrow.”

“You might be right,” he said as he glanced in the direction of the locker room where the noise was still deafening, before meeting my eyes again.

“You stay put, and I’ll get started on Randall. He’s going to take me a while,” I grumbled, making him laugh. “Randall,” I yelled in that general direction.

“He’s in the shower,” someone yelled back and just then he appeared in only a towel and sporting as many bruises, if not more, than Max had.

“Are you ready?” he asked and walked over to me.

“Yes, right this way,” I said, and he followed.

“How are you doing, Hofstedder?” he asked as he sat on the other exam table, legs spread and not caring that he was showing off way more than I needed to see.

“I’ve had worse,” he said, and I thought that probably wasn’t true, but he didn’t want to let on how bad it really was.

“Well, be ready to play tomorrow too. Dexter’s still in a lot of pain but he might be well enough to play Sunday. Vanel needs more time,” Randall said, and Max nodded along while I continued to clean up Randall and tried to ignore their conversation.

“I should be good to go by then. Most of it’s just badly bruised,” Max said, “right, Doc?” I would have sworn his eyes were pleading with me to not make it sound as bad as it was.

“That remains to be seen. If you rest that knee, and ice it tonight, you should be okay to play tomorrow. But I’ll need to reevaluate it,” I said and took out a suture tray. “You and that other guy really had it in for each other tonight,” I said to Randall as I cleaned the wound.

“Leon? We’re old friends. It just looks good for the fans if they think we hate each other. Plus, we’re both competitive so neither one of us wanted to be the one to lose.” He smirked before flinching away from the needle.

“Hold still or you’ll end up with a scar even worse than you’ll already have,” I warned.

“I can add it to the collection, and it’s just going to happen again the next two nights.”

“You’re going to have a rough week after that,” I mumbled.

“Yeah, just living the dream. You’re going out with the team too,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

“I don’t think so. I still need to patch up a few more of you.” Coach had said the same thing, but I was hoping to somehow get out of going.

“Coach likes us all to go out after a game. He says it builds camaraderie and lets us think of each other as humans and not the animals we are on the ice,” Randall said. “Oh, and you can call me Jarin.”

“Okay, Jarin, and I’ll think about going out.”

“Doc, dinner in an hour. Make sure everyone is patched up by then,” Coach said, before yelling at everyone in the locker room to hurry up.

“Looks like you’re going out with us,” Randall—Jarin said. “I didn’t get your name.”

“Ruben, Ruben Franklin,” I said and tried to ignore the fact Max’s eyes hadn’t left me.