Page 32 of Off Limits PUCK

“Great,” Jones says, clearly excited to hear this.

“I’m all ears,” I say. “Did the test results come back?” I feel every muscle in my body tense up. I want to know the results, butat the same time, I don’t want to if it’s not something I would consider being “good news.”

The doctor chuckles in a cocky way that makes my skin crawl. Kenzie, in a rare moment of kindness, comes and plops on the foot of my bed, distracting me long enough to stop glaring at the guy in the white doctor’s coat.

She glances at me. “I think we’re all a little on edge.” She looks back at the doctor in that appraising way she has when she’s sizing up a man to see if he’s someone she’d be into or not. When she sits back and folds her arms, I know she’s not into the doctor. It’s crazy how well we know each other as siblings, even though we do not hang out.

“Your shoulder is not torn. In fact, despite the beating you took on the ice, it looks to be fundamentally in the same shape. It won’t prevent you from playing, should your team doctor and your coach agree to do that.” He flips through a tablet. “I see that Jones here has told us you are off all the pain meds that your last PT… Juan, oh, I see here he had a medical degree as well. That explains how he was able to prescribe you such strong meds.”

The doctor’s eyes look at me. “You’re not finding a source for these meds now without Jones’s knowledge, are you?”

I know why he’s asking. Many pain meds are addictive. I look him straight in the eye. “No. I do not take any prescribed pain meds.”

The doctor moves on as he senses Jones getting impatient. “Now for the other thing, your concussion.”

“Look, doc,” Jones says. “I’ve got a very anxious coach waiting for my call. He’s about to go into a big press conference and be asked a lot of questions about Jake.”

“Get him on the line,” the doctor says. “Let’s have the news out among us all at once.”

Jones rings Coach, putting the phone on speaker as we wait for the man to pick up. Meanwhile, it’s like I don’t even exist, and that irritates me.

“Where is Allie?” I mouth to my sister. She gives me one of her hairbrained looks and shrugs. I try again, louder, “Where is Allie?”

Then, in true Kenzie fashion, she replies at full volume, subtlety not her strength. “Allie? She’s at the arena doing her job on the other players. She’s coming to my house tonight after. You can come over too. Or we can come to you.”

I cringe. Kenzie sits there, patting my knee like I’m her grandpa who is hard of hearing, totally oblivious that she just announced to the whole world that I plan to see the one woman tonight who is off limits to me.

But Coach isn’t here. It’s just Jones, and he looks too distracted and anxious to notice anything Kenz and I are saying. I shoot my sister a look of “quiet” which she takes as a mean look and givesme one right back. I have to laugh. We never got along. Ever. How we are today is as good as it gets with us.

“Talk to me,” Coach’s rough voice fills the room. Jones introduces the doctor in the white coat and finally I get some answers.

“Concussion is mild. We look for fluid patterns around the point of impact where the skull met the ice, in Jake’s case. The fluid patterns indicate that his helmet did a good job of absorbing most of it. There is no swelling or inflammation. There is nothing to worry about.” He goes on to talk about my shoulder and then the three men next to me strategize a full PR messaging blitz for the interviews tonight, all while I lay there completely ignored.

I’m used to it, but it feels strange, like I’m a commodity and not a human.

Doc in the white coat then looks at me. “Well, we’re all set here. We’re keeping you here for twelve hours minimum to observe you. We’ll run as many tests as we need to before we discharge you to make sure your entire leadership team is satisfied.” Then, he nods and leaves me to my fate of sitting here without my phone in this hospital room.

Jones excuses himself while the nurse tells me she’s going to bring me water and a snack. Then it’s just Kenzie and I.

I look at her as she’s turning up the volume on the TV. “Mom and Dad are going to be so mad at you for this,” she says,sitting cross-legged at the foot of my bed, her back to me. She’s watching the footage of my hit and then she waves her arm to get my attention, as if I have anything to distract me from the TV right then. “Look, they’re about to talk about your hit.”

“Hey Kenz,” I say, knowing the answer already. “Any chance you can go back to the arena and grab my phone for me?”

She snorts, not bothering to look at me. “Fat chance, big brother. But I can text Gator to bring it to you.” She turns to look at me and waggles her eyebrows. “I mean, if you give me his number.”

I stare at her in that condescending big brother way. Then she huffs and looks back to the TV.

“I know, I know. I don’t like hockey guys. Oh, Allie was asking all about your past the other day,” she says flippantly, proving yet again that she’s too much of an open book to ever keep a secret. “Pretty sure she won’t like hockey guys anymore either, once she finds out your dirty little secrets!”

I throw a pillow at my sister, who shrieks and throws it right back.

But I’m zoned out all during Coach’s press conference. I wonder what Allie found out about my past on her own from digging around online? The idea of it leaves a ball of worry in the pit of my stomach.

Chapter nineteen

Allie

What I’m doing iswrong. But I’m going to do it anyway. I clutch Jake’s phone to my chest and walk into the hospital’s main entrance. Thanks to Kenzie’s tendency to gossip, I know which floor he’s on and which room he’s in. I also know that a security guard named Bart is watching his room to keep any stalkers out of it.

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