Page 25 of The Assist
He shrugs. “Didn’t think I’d come. But then I did.”
“So eloquent,” I mutter, turning away to hide my smile.
But I feel him watching me. As he always does. Like he’s not just seeing me, but cataloguing me. Noticing the way I tie my hair. The freckle on my jaw. The crack in my voice when I say his name.
He doesn’t sit on the table or take his shirt off. He leans against the wall like he’s afraid if he gets too close, something will snap. “I meant what I said last night,” he says finally.
I swallow. “I know.”
His brow furrows as if he’s waiting for something more. Some reassurance. Some invitation. But I don’t give it. I can’t. Not when the air between us is thick with whatever-the-hell-this-is.
“I don’t want to screw this up,” he says again, softer this time.
“I know that too.”
He pushes off the wall and walks toward me, slow and deliberate. Every step makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise. My hands stay still on the bench, but my whole body goes tense with anticipation.
He stops barely a foot away. “I don’t know what this is,” he admits, eyes searching mine. “But it’s not nothing.”
I nod. Because I feel it too. This charged, crackling thing that lives in every glance, every brush of skin, every near-miss.
“But it’s messy,” I whisper. “You’re my patient.”
“And you’re the only person I can talk to without pretending.”
“That doesn’t make it easier, Dylan.”
“No,” he says, eyes dark. “But it makes it real.”
I look at the circles under his eyes, the bruise of sleeplessness in his posture. The way he’s standing like he doesn’t trust the floor beneath him. And my heart twists.
He’s not just scared. He’stired. And underneathit all, he’s trying. In his own broken, beautiful way, he’s reaching out. For me.
I take a breath and let it out slowly. It’s measured and full of thought.
“Okay,” I say finally. “Sit. Let me check your shoulder.”
He hesitates, surprised. Then nods, pulling off his hoodie. The T-shirt beneath clings to him, damp at the collar. He smells like effort and something unnameably him. I keep my hands steady as I work. Thumb over deltoid, fingers along his scapula. The muscle’s tighter than yesterday. He hisses through his teeth when I find the knot.
“You’re overcompensating again,” I say, pressing deeper. His recent scan shows his muscle is repairing well but it’s still fragile and I need him to keep that in mind when he skates.
His voice is rough. “Old habits.”
We fall into a rhythm. Touch, tension, release. He breathes in time with my movements, and for a moment, it feels like we’re in sync. Like the world narrows to this room. This moment.
Then I say, “What happens when you’re back on the ice full time?” I cleared him to skate last week but he’s not played a match yet. That’s his goal for the week, to play at the weekend.
He tenses under my hands. “Don’t know yet.”
“You’ll be focused. Pulled in a dozen directions. Media, pressure. Travel. What happens to this then?”
He turns to face me, and the vulnerability in his expression nearly undoes me.
“I don’t want this to be a distraction,” he says. “But I don’t want to let it go either.”
There it is. The choice we keep circling. I could shut it down right now. Draw the line, make it clear. Tell him this can’t happen. But instead, I say, “Then don’t screw it up.”
He blinks. “Is that you giving me a chance?”
