Page 63 of Punchline
And then… we were done.
I wasn’t sure how long I thought it should take. Maybe it just seemed quick compared to last night’s visit to the ER, which had lasted three business days. Whatever—I was getting the hell out of here with Jake.
“Well,” Jake said on the way out. “It doesn’t sound like terrible news. And eight weeks—that’s plenty of time to get back in before the playoffs, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah. Tons of time. Especially since I’ll need to get back in condition.” I exhaled. “I have to keep working out between now and then too. Maybe I’ll get on a stationary bike tonight and?—”
“Whoa, whoa.” Jake halted, and when I did too, he put a hand on my shoulder and locked eyes with me. “You’re not going to lose all your conditioning if you take a few days.”
“Yeah, but my hand is fucked up, not… ” I gestured at my legs.
“Right, and your body is sore and tired. I can see it in the way you’re moving.” He squeezed my shoulder. “You can take some time to rest, Ethan. It’s okay. It really is.”
I chewed my lip. Anyone else, I’d reply about how they didn’t understand how demanding hockey was and how quickly we could get out of game shape. But Jake—heunderstood. He knew about conditioning and training for a high-intensity sport.
And he knew about babying an injury, which, yes, fine, I could admit that included babying the whole body for a little while.
I let my shoulders sag. “All right. All right, fine. I’ll take it easy. But only for a few days.”
He smiled, wrapped his arm around me, and herded me back into motion. “Good. We can cuddle on my couch and watch stupid movies.” He paused. “Or hockey.”
“You want to watch hockey with me?”
“Why not? I’m finally learning the damn game.” He pulled me a little closer. “And it means keeping an eye on you so you don’t try to CrossFit your way out of letting a broken arm heal.”
I just laughed.
Yeah, maybe some downtime would be all right.
Especially if I was spending it with him.
CHAPTER 20
JAKE
I got that it was hard to keep a pro athlete down. When you made a sport your life and your livelihood, you wanted to do it. Youneededto do it; it was in your blood. I’d never had a potentially career-ending injury before, but I knew enough about training through pain to know that sometimes it had to happen.
But sometimes it didn’t. And when I, and Marek, and all the trainers,andthe doctor all agreed that taking some time off wasn’t just a good idea, it was essential, maybe Ethan should listen to us and?—
“But Carson agrees with me!”
“Carson is the shittiest example of self-care I’ve ever met,” I replied as I pulled on my sweatpants. Ethan looked a little regretful, but we’d had our fun for the morning. We were having more sex now than before his injury, but some of that was probably because Ethan was desperate to dosomethingwith his body. I took it as a compliment, but I also wasn’t an idiot. “Don’t be like Carson. Get up, get dressed, you’re coming to the gym.”
“First you want me to relax, now you want me to go to the gym… ”
“Not to work out,” I clarified. “Tohangout, so that you’re not here all day obsessing over timelines and messing with your cast.” The swelling had gone down far enough for Ethan to get a cast last Friday, and he’d been a messy combination of happy and annoyed ever since then. Apparently, it itched, and he thought the solution was to stick hard, pointy things into the holes to try and scratch. Nope, not on my watch.
I would have preferred to stay here with him, but Beth had just left on her first vacation since opening the new school and was going to be gone all week,andshe’d already accommodated me taking a week off. I needed to step up and not let Carson handle everything, even though he’d already assured me he totally could, seriously, it wasn’t a big deal and he could handle four classes and day and all the private lessons.
So, so shitty at self-care.
Hence, Ethan coming with me. I rifled through his clean clothes—he’d brought over a suitcase full of stuff once I cleared a couple of drawers for him—and tossed over some boxer-briefs, shorts, and a T-shirt. “C’mon, you’ll feel better getting some fresh air.”
He sighed and picked at the clothes. I left him to it and went to make breakfast.
Injuries sucked. Ethan’s in particular sucked, because his team was doing well on their playoff run but he saw the things the rest of us didn’t in every game. We’d watched three from my couch together so far, and the whole time he’d been mumbling to himself and worrying about someone else getting an injury. “If they lose another forward?—”
“They won’t.”
