Page 196 of Pucking Strong

Smiling weakly, Teddy places his hand on mine on the table and gives it a squeeze.

“Understood,” Cheryl replies, typing down a few notes on her tablet.

I glance to Teddy, and he gives me a nod of reassurance. I squeeze his hand back, and we wait. After a few tense moments, Cheryl looks up over her tablet. “Tell me about how you two first met.”

Teddy is all smiles as he stretches back in his chair. “Do you want to start, or should I?”

I pick up my mug of coffee, taking a sip of the lukewarm brew. “I’ll start.”

Cheryl looks to me, her fingers poised over her keyboard, ready to type.

“The first thing you need to know about Teddy is that he has expensive and terrible taste in coffee.”

“Pressure good?”

Lying face down on the massage table, I grunt something that sounds like assent as the PT intern, Cassidy, glides her thumbs up the column of my neck.

“You’re carrying quite a bit of tension,” she explains as she works.

Astute observation. It’s been a week since the social worker interviewed us all again. A week and we’ve heard nothing. Before, it would have been in my nature to sit and wait. Having Karro has changed that in me. Now there can be no waiting quietly while our fate is decided by other people. I have to do something. I have to fix this. I can’t just lie here with my head metaphorically in the sand.

“If you could just try to relax,” Cassidy says in a soothing tone.

But I can’t relax. If anything, my shoulders tighten as she pushes down with her thumbs.

“Why don’t we try taking a few deep breaths?” she offers after another minute.

It’s no use. Lying here is only making me more frustrated. I’ll get no relief from a massage today. I have to get up. I can’t call Cheryl and it’s too late to call Elin in Sweden. Perhaps I’ll go for a run.

“Is something wrong, Mr. Karlsson?”

Before I can reply, the door opens.

“Knock knock, asshole.” Novy lets himself in, turning up the dimmed lights. “Hey, you almost done in here, bud?”

Flustered, Cassidy steps back. “I—we have this room reserved for another thirty minutes, I think.”

“Really? Hmm, well, by my watch you’re done.”

“But I—”

“Tell you what,” he says over her. “I keep an open tab down at the coffee cart. Why don’t you go get yourself a little afternoon pick-me-up? Leave me and Karlsson here alone to talk hockey for a minute. Assistant captain stuff. Very secret.”

My groan echoes in the face hole. “Both of you can go.”

“Thank, Cass. You’re a treasure,” Novy calls, ushering her from the room and closing the door with a snap.

I sit up to find him leaning against the door, arms crossed. Muttering a curse in Swedish, I swing my legs off the table. Neither of us cares that I’m dressed in nothing but my boxer briefs. “What do you want, Novikov?”

He stares me down. “Do we have a problem, you and me?”

“No.”

He chuckles, dragging a hand through his hair, still damp from his shower. We finished up practice less than an hour ago. “Yeah, see, only I don’t believe you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you just called me Novikov. You guys only do that when you’re pissed at me for something … except Mars. He only ever called me Novikov. But even you call me Novy.”

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