Page 111 of Learn Your Lesson

But the flu was something Coach didn’t fuck with.

The last thing he wanted was for anyone else on the team to catch it, for a group of us to be down with body aches, fatigue, and a fever. I’d seen guys play evendaysafterhaving the flu, and it was hardly ever to their full capacity.

And so, when I’d shown up to practice sick as a fucking dog three days after Disney, Coach had ordered me to see the team doctor. I thought they’d tell me the same as usual — it’s a virus, hydrate and rest and don’t push too hard.

Instead, I’d tested positive for influenza, and I’d been sent home without the option to stay even if I wanted to.

And I did. Ineededto stay, to be at practice, to be on the flight to our next away game.

We had twenty games left of the regular season.

Twenty.

In hockey, that might as well have been one.

The race for the playoffs was too fucking tight for me to be out. It was almost impossible for usnotto make the playoffs at this point, but these next twenty games could mean the difference in having home ice advantage and top seeds versus being a wildcard.

That’s how close the teams in our division were. That’s how much every game mattered at this point.

I’d thrown a fit when Coach told me to leave. I’d been even more pissed when I missed our away game against Pittsburgh and we lost. It didn’t matter that my backup played great, that it really wasn’t his fault for the L. I still felt the responsibility of it weighing on me.

As it was, I was laid up on the couch on my final rest day, grumpier than I ever had been and scowling at the television as I played the latest episode ofJeopardy.

I had clearance to return tomorrow, as long as I was feeling better. And to be honest, Coach and I both knew that even if Iwasn’tfeeling better, I’d still be there.

Fortunately, I actually was on the mend, my body aches less severe, fever lowering, cough receding, throat no longer making it feel like I was swallowing razor blades.

I knew I had Chloe to thank.

When I’d been sent home, she’d launched into action like a nurse, forcing me into bed and bringing me everything I could possibly want or need to recover. She’d insisted Chef Patel not come to the house, to prevent her from getting sick, too. That meant Chloe was cooking for us. She’d also taken over completely with Ava, on top of teaching five days a week, and had cleaned the house with disinfectant more in the last few days than I’d ever done in the years I’d lived here.

“The last thing you need is for Ava to get sick next,” she’d warned my first sick day home, wiping down the TV remote with a Lysol wipe.

And I’d tried not to give in to my urge to pull her into me, to thank her with an embrace since my words were fucking broken.

It was such as simple act of care, but the fact that she wanted to keep my daughter well, that she was considerate of Chef, that she so easily stepped up to the plate to handle everything I would have worried about… it was something I’d never take for granted.

But unfortunately for me, Chloealsodidn’t want the flu, and she kept her distance — physically, anyway — and made sure to wash her hands thoroughly after any time she came into my vicinity.

Perhaps that was what pissed me off most about this entire scenario.

Here I was, home, no practice, no games, no responsibilities… and I couldn’t even spend my time fucking Chloe into oblivion.

It was hard to think about anything else after our night in Orlando. I had been plagued by the image of her riding me reverse cowgirl ever since, haunted by the way her legs shook violently when they were hitched on my shoulders, and she denied herself a climax in the name of testing other positions. I could close my eyes and still feel how she tightened around me when she finally relented, could replay the most intense orgasm of my life as I let myself follow behind her, both of us gripping onto each other tight and riding out the waves.

The flu wasn’t the most dangerous part of this situation.

No, it was that Chloe was taking care of me, and that I couldn’t help myself but to talk to her when she brought me food or ran a hot bath on my behalf.

I’d spent the last three days laid up, but I’d also spent them learning her.

She told me about her days at college, about how she had wanted to be a teacher for longer than she could remember. I listened intently as she told both hilarious and horrifying stories of her early teaching days, and I memorized the way her eyes grew distant when she talked about some of her troubled students who stayed in her heart still.

I asked about sewing and her strange fascination with true crime podcasts. She pulled up photos on her phone of what she called her early “Pinterest fails” before she started figuring things out. I passed the time with eager questions, never feeling like I knew enough.

What was even more terrifying was that I opened up to her, too.

I told myself it was the fog of having the flu that loosened my lips, but I’d be a lying sonofabitch if I said I didn’t want to share with her every time she shared with me. I didn’t shy away when she asked about my early hockey days, or my mom, or the strained relationship with my father. I smiled when I told her about Uncle Mitch, how he’d stepped in when Dad had gone hollow. I chomped at the bit to tell her about playing in college, about my first years bouncing back and forth between the AHL and the NHL.