Page 30 of Unwritten Rules
I drag my eyes from the pile of mashed potatoes on my plate to meet her mossy green-blue eyes across the dining table. Her chocolate hair is pulled back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, and the beige pantsuit makes her look every bit the part of a successful prosecuting lawyer.
“It’s going,” I say, my foot tapping the marble floor incessantly.
“And the new physio? Your father and I heard the club hired someone new to fill the previous roll.”
From my right, Dad looks up from his plate, pale blue eyes piercing the side of my face. I hold Mum’s gaze. “She sounds too young to be taking care of the team, and especially your injury. The club should’ve hired someone more experienced,” Dad says, voice tight.
I was thinking the same thing after my first session, that maybe Tatum wasn’t as qualified as I was led to believe. But those thoughts vanished the moment I was presented with the custom recovery plan she whipped together on Monday night. It was far more detailed than the previous one I was given, even down to each hour of the day. That alone had me intrigued to follow it, which was why I started first thing yesterday morning. And to say the results were mind-blowing is an understatement. After I completed the RICE method before bed, I noticed the swelling in my quad had already started to go down. When I was following the other plan, it felt like I wasn’t going anywhere with the recovery, but that isn’t the case with Tatum’s plan. And today, I feel great. The pain is still there, same with the limp, but it’s far more manageable.
My jaw clenches, sending a zap of pain down my throat. “Her name is Tatum, and if she weren’t any good, Coach Phil wouldn’t have hired her.”
Dad shakes his head. “Phil shouldn’t have hired his daughter in the first place just because he felt bad for her. He needs to get arealprofessional in to look after you.”
My gaze sweeps over the wrinkled black suit hiding my father’s frame, showing hours of sitting in an office researching player statistics, countless meetings and media appearances. As a commentator, I know it kills him to be the one calling the games and not playing. If he hadn’t gotten injured, I have no doubt he would’ve played long into his early thirties. Now, he’s in his late forties, chasing the glory days he’ll never get back.
“Would you be willing to tell that to Phil’s face?” I deadpan, meeting his pale blue eyes. “Because I don’t think he’d take kindly to hearing you say his daughter isn’t capable of treating a grade two quadricep muscle contusion.”
Dad’s jaw ticks as he holds my gaze, knife and fork hovering over the plate. “That’s not the point, Sin. I’m concerned shedoesn’t possess the skill set to be treating a team of thirty young men and ensuring they’re in top shape.”
After my session with her today, seeing how passionate she is about her job, Tatum deserves far more credit for her abilities than what my father is reducing her to. Don’t get me started on the stretches we went through. I had joked about her “working me out” but she made good on that promise and delivered in every sense of the word. When I walked out of her office, my muscles felt lighter and my limp not as noticeable.
“She’s more than capable,” I tell him, my voice even. “Our session on Monday was far better than I could’ve expected. She knew exactly what I needed and promised she would do everything she could to get me cleared at the six-week mark. Hell, the new recovery plan she sent through is working wonders already.”
I’m reminded of Tatum’s gentle touch skimming my injured quad two days ago, assessing the swollen area with precision for the first time. I hadn’t expected her to read me like a book and call me out on lying about the pain. I had every intention of downplaying it so I could be cleared early to play, but it seems nothing gets past her. She saw through the tight-lipped smile and recognized the pain I’m still experiencing two weeks after the injury occurred.
If that doesn’t scream competent, then I don’t know what does.
“Eli, darling, it shouldn’t matter the skill level of the girl,” Mum interjects, voice calm like the ocean on a summer’s afternoon. She raises a curved brow at my father. “As long as Sin is getting the recovery he needs, then that’s all that matters.”
Dad huffs a breath and returns his attention to the steak he’s cutting in to. “Fine. But I will be having a word with Phil to make sure the treatment is up to standard. The last thing you need is to be sidelined for longer than necessary. The longer you’re off thefield, the harder you’ll have to work to get back to how you were before the injury.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to remind Dad that I’m more than taking this recovery seriously, and I don’t need him to tell me what I already know. But I swallow the words because it’s not worth speaking them aloud. If I do, I’ll spend the next however long left of this meal listening to him lecture me about the importance of sportsmanship and how I need to put myself first, as if I haven’t already heard the same spiel countless times.
I snap my mouth shut and go back to eating. Silence settles in the room again, licking at my sides, threatening to pull me under. And just when I think I’ll get through one dinner without discussing my sister’s life, Mum has to go and ruin it.
“Have you heard from your sister since she left?” Mum lowers her knife and fork, and pats her nude-painted lips with a cloth napkin. “She’s not returning my texts or calls.”
“She’s probably busy with Gran,” I point out, pushing a chunk of broccoli around the plate, my appetite long gone. “You know how Mia is.”
“I know she’s good at ignoring your father and I.” The bitterness in her tone doesn’t go unnoticed. Mum exhales a sharp breath. “Did she seem okay when you helped her move?”
I shrug. “Yeah, I guess. She was her normal self.”
“Did she confide in you about anything? Or if she has plans to come home any time soon?”
If only she knew what is really going on with Mia and why she doesn’t want to talk to either of our parents.
But my sister’s business is not mine to share.
I raise a brow at her. “Mum, she’s not coming back. Not while Gran needs her help.”
“She needs to be at home,” Dad retorts, peering at me over the rim of his wine glass, dark red liquid swirling at the bottom.“Mia should be here studying law, not prancing around in Barrenridge with no direction but a dream of playing the piano.”
I drop my hands to my thighs, clenching them to ward off the need to defend my sister with an iron fist. My parents have never understood Mia’s goals of playing the piano and her love for interior design. Not once has she ever expressed interest in studying law like our mother or pursuing a dead-end, boring office job. She has always been creative—far more creative than I ever could be.
Mia has been taking piano lessons for as long as I’ve been playing rugby. My parents thought she needed a hobby while I was playing sports, and Mia expressed interest in wanting to play the piano. I don’t think they realised just how into it she would get. And I think it pisses them off more that she’s phenomenal at playing the damn thing.
I may have been bored shitless when attending her school performances in primary and high school, wishing I was hanging out with Khai instead, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t supportive of my sister. If anything, I’m her number one fan, always pushing her to not give a shit what Mum and Dad think about her choices and to do what makes her happy. All the while I should’ve been taking my own damn advice.
