Page 27 of Playing for the Hat Trick
My stomach sinks. Not a full-body plunge, just enough to trigger the internal screaming.
“No.” It’s instant, primal. A full-body hell no.
Reese raises a brow like I just said the sky’s not blue. “You don’t want to hear the pitch?”
“Unless it ends with me exorcising a hockey player who treats physical therapy like a prison sentence and me like I kicked his dog? Pass.”
“He’s not asking for you.”
“Perfect. That means we’re aligned. He’s someone else’s problem.”
“I’m assigning him to you.”
There it is—the guillotine drop.
I sit up straight. Drop the civility act. “First of all, you don’t have seniority. I’m your boss. Second . . . well, you have a full rotation of senior PTs. I built that roster. Any one of them can handle this.”
“No one wants him.”
My mouth slams shut so fast I hear my molars crack.
She continues as if she didn’t just sentence me to pain. “Alex submitted an official refusal. Cited two incidents of non-compliance. One full-on walk-out. A verbal altercation in the main turf area. Refused dry needling. Opted out of neuromuscular drills. Said activation flow ‘feels dumb’—”
“It does feel dumb,” I mutter.
“—and this morning, he arrived mid-somatic flow, laid flat in Savasana like a corpse at peace, and then told Alex, and I quote, ‘fuck you, you’re all fucking useless.’”
My gaze drops to the folder.
This isn’t a client spiraling. This is someone flinging themselves off the edge and lighting the parachute on fire mid-air. The fuck with Jacob’s big favor; we tried, and we’re done.
“He’s a liability,” I say. “Cut him loose before we’re all on damage control.”
Reese exhales through her nose. “He’s drowning. Not fighting. There’s a difference.”
I look out the window.
The skyline stares back—glass, concrete, taxis crawling in gridlock, and a bike messenger yelling at someone’s grandmother. Business as usual. New York doesn’t pause for anyone’s breakdown, least of all a pro athlete too proud to ask for help.
And maybe that’s the problem. He’s unraveling, and Reese is asking me to thread him back together like I’ve got a goddamn miracle needle hiding behind my credentials.
If I shut this down now, he’ll get routed out not only of this practice but the team. He’ll be another failure on paper. Another note in the file that says: non-compliant, unreceptive to care. Someone else’s headache.
But it’s Jason fucking Tate, and I know more about him than any other person in this building. He’s not just another injury. There’s a history behind making it into the big leagues.
This Jason gave his signing bonus check to pay off his sister’s college debt.
This Jason built an ice rink in his old neighborhood so kids didn’t have to drive two hours to the nearest one. He is the same guy who showed up to a children’s cancer ward in full gear because a five-year-old told a nurse he wanted to “meet a hockey superhero.”
I know that kind of story. It’s tattooed into my bones.
It’s Papa. It’s my brothers. It’s the dream you chase with everything because you were raised to believe it’s the only way out—and once you’re in, you carry everyone with you.
He bought his parents a house. Built one for his best friend’s mom too, after she lost hers to a fire.
He’s not just skating for himself. And he hasn’t been for a long time.
So why is he torching it all?
