Page 101 of Rookie Recovery

“I’m not signing off to let you play.” The words fell out of my mouth, plopped onto my desk, and sat there like fat, wet toads. I wished I could take them back.

I knew I couldn’t.

Bowie’s green stare kept boring through me, except this time, he wasn’t undressing me. This time …

Suddenly his face—that beautiful, eager face—was inches from mine. There was no happiness anywhere in sight; his beauty was overwritten in hard, angry lines. “I can do this. It’s my decision—”

“No.” My voice came out cold, impersonal. “No, Bowie. It’s not.”

“Fuck that,” he snarled, stepping back, stepping away. “Fuck you, Jamie.”

“Bowie—”

He was already turning.

Leaving.

“Bowie!”

He slammed the door.

Leaving me. Alone. With his words and mine, with the file on his desk, the unsigned paper, and the choice I’d made. For him.

My hands were shaking. My breaths too fast and shallow.

I couldn’t stop seeing Bowie’s face—the anger and hurt.

Couldn’t help wondering if this was all my fault—and whether I’d done the right thing. Surely I had. I’d been here before. Seen how this ended. Saw it over and over again, every day. Felt it in every fucking step.

I could still undo the decision.

Clear him, let him play, win him back. Watch that unhealed injury keep returning over and over and over until he couldn’t fight it anymore. Go out in a short-burning blaze of glory.

Or stick to my decision. And maybe it wouldn’t get better after two games. Or four. Maybe he would watch his career slide out of his grasp. Quietly and unremarkably, the opposite of how mine had ended.

I’d burned bright—and just as quickly gone dark.

Skating, pain—so much fucking pain that I pushed through to keep going—and finally, pain I couldn’t get up from. Pain that ripped away the game so thoroughly, I knew I’d never compete at an elite level again.

The pain still haunted me, echoed my footsteps. Reminded me of how easily something you loved could be lost. Especially if you didn’t bother to take care of it. Fucking hell.

This was all my fucking fault.

“Fuck.” I slammed my fist against the side of the filing cabinet. I didn’t even feel it.

“Jamie?” Katie popped her head through my office door, and from the arch of her brows and rigid downturn of her mouth, she was worried. “You okay?”

I threw myself back down in my chair. Gripped the arm rests so tight a knuckle on my right hand—the one I’d smashed into the cabinet—split open. A bead of blood dribbled down my finger.

“Okay.” Katie kicked the office door closed. “Talk to me.”

She dragged the extra chair around to my side of the desk. Sat. Stared me down with unblinking determination.

“It’s nothing.”

“Fuck that, Sullivan. You just punched a cabinet so hard your knuckle’s bleeding. You’ve been on cloud fucking nine for like two weeks now, thanks to the British Wonderboy, so I can only assume he’s involved in this somehow, too.”

I opened my mouth to retort, protest, but she held up a hand. “Don’t bother. I’m not dumb.”

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