The Goalie Bet novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: One Week

Session two. Dana's plan is brutal and Logan hates it. Jenna walks into the training room with coffee for him and calls Dana "the help."

Session two, and he was on time.

That surprised me more than anything else he'd done.

He came in at 4:34 with wet hair and a coffee he set on the windowsill.

"No drink on the table," I said.

"It's on the sill."

"The sill's a surface."

He moved it to the floor and sat on table two without being told.

I took that as a win and didn't say so.

"Yesterday's set. How's the hip?"

"Sore in a good way."

"There's no good way to be sore. Where?"

He pointed. I pressed. He didn't flinch, which meant nothing yet.

"Left side's tight," I said.

"I know. I've been skating on it since November."

I looked up at him.

"Say that again."

"Since November."

I went to the whiteboard and wrote three words.

LOAD. CONTROL. RETURN.

"That's the plan," I said. "Load the tissue without letting you cheat it. Control the movement so your left stops covering for your right. Then return with a hip that pushes off."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Where's the part where I get fast."

"The part where you get fast is the part where you stop asking me for it."

He laughed, one short breath through his nose.

The plan was brutal and I knew it going in.

Week one was isometrics. Hold the position, count it out loud.

Then bridges until his hamstring shook.

Then the wall sit, which is not complicated and is the worst thing I know how to do to a person.

I put him on the floor with his back against the wall.

"Two minutes. Right leg straight."

His face did something.

"Right leg straight."

He got forty seconds before the shaking started.

At a minute ten his breath went ragged. At a minute thirty he closed his eyes.

"Talk," I said. "It helps."

"About what?"

"Anything."

He talked about a game in November. Forty-one saves and he lost anyway.

His voice went flat when he said it, and I heard the flatness.

"Ten seconds."

"I'm going to die on your floor."

"Five. Four."

He got there. I told him to rest and he lay back with his arm over his eyes.

The door opened without a knock.

I didn't know her then, not to look at.

Dark brown hair down past her shoulders. Charcoal leather jacket, plum blouse, black trousers that cost more than my car.

She had a second coffee in her hand.

"Baby," she said, to him.

Logan moved his arm off his eyes.

"Jenna."

"I brought you one. The good place, not the machine."

She crossed the room and set it on the table beside him.

Then she looked at me, top to bottom, and took her time.

"You're the help," she said.

"I'm the athletic trainer assigned to him."

"Same thing."

She turned her back on me like the conversation was over.

"Wade said you were in here with a student."

"I'm in here with my trainer."

"She's a student."

"She's my trainer," Logan said.

Jenna sat on the edge of table one and crossed her legs.

The whole room got smaller.

"You look gray," she said. "You're not eating."

"I'm eating."

She reached over and pushed his hair off his forehead.

He let her do it. I watched him let her do it.

I wrote the wall sit time on the clipboard.

"Twenty second rest," I said. "Then bridges."

Jenna didn't move.

"Can you give us a minute?" she said, to me.

"No. He's on a clock."

"A clock."

"Four weeks."

"Well." She smiled, and it wasn't a nice smile. "Four weeks is a long time to spend with someone who doesn't like you."

"Jenna." Logan sat up.

"What. I'm being friendly."

"You're not."

"I'm being honest, which is different." She stood and smoothed her blouse.

"For what it's worth, I think it's cute. The little rehab room. The little plan."

She walked to the door and stopped with one hand on the frame.

"I already talked to the placement coordinator about her," she said.

Logan's head came up.

"What?"

"I called this morning. Left a message."

"About what?"

"About what it looks like when a student books an empty room with a player for four weeks."

"I don't lock the door," I said.

"You will."

She was still looking at Logan.

"I'm not trying to hurt anybody. I'm trying to protect you. You're hurt and she's got you alone in here every day."

"Jenna."

"You can thank me later."

She left. The door swung shut slow and clicked.

The coffee she'd brought him sat on the table going cold.

I stood there with my handwriting running off the line.

"Kline."

I looked at him.

"She does that," he said.

"I know what she does."

"You don't. That's the first time you've met her."

"I've met her. I just didn't know it was her."

He stood up off the mat, favoring the right, which he always did and never admitted.

"The coordinator won't take a phone call from her seriously."

"She's the captain's sister."

"She's my ex."

"She's the captain's sister," I said, "and I'm a student on a placement, and my supervisor signs my hours."

He didn't have anything for that.

He picked up the coffee and looked at it and put it down again.

"Bridges," I said. "You're not done."

"I'm done for today."

"You're not."

I stepped in front of him. Not touching. Just there, between him and the door.

"You said you'd last a week."

"I said I wouldn't beg. I didn't say I'd stay after she threatened your job."

"That's not your problem."

"It is now."

He looked down at me. He was a foot taller and it didn't feel like it.

"You don't get it. She'll actually do it. She's done it before."

"To who?"

He didn't answer.

"Logan."

"Some trainer. Last year. Different team. She got her moved out of the program."

I let that land.

Then I went back to the mat and sat down and looked up at him.

"Bridges. Fifteen. Both legs."

He stared at me for a second.

Then he came back and lay down on the mat beside me.

He did the fifteen. His right hip shook on every one.

I counted out loud because he wasn't counting.

When he finished he stayed flat on his back with his chest going.

"You're going to lose this bet," I said.

"Probably."

"You know that."

"I know that."

He turned his head and looked at me from the floor.

"You're not going to make it easy, are you."

"No."

He reached up and I thought he was going to take my hand.

He didn't. He took the cold pack off the table and put it on his hip himself.

"Same time tomorrow," he said.

I stood over him with the clipboard against my chest.

"She already talked to the coordinator," I said.

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