The Captain Who Ended My Brother's Career Is on My Table novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Out of Socket
Vera finds the Northmen's captain alone on the training-room floor with his shoulder out, puts it back with her bare hands on his chest, and learns he knew her name and that Harold hired her on purpose.
The man who ended my brother's career was on my training room floor at two in the morning.
I stood in the doorway with my new key card still warm in my hand.
I had three weeks of telling myself I'd never have to touch him.
It was my first night in the building.
My first day on the payroll was Monday, but I couldn't sleep, so I'd driven to the arena to learn where everything was.
I wanted the room to be mine before the players made it theirs.
The hall lights were off.
One bank of fluorescents buzzed over the treatment tables.
Under them a big man in a grey practice jersey lay flat on the rubber mat.
A sweat towel covered his face.
His left arm was bent out from his body at an angle no arm should hold.
A black C was stitched on the chest of the jersey.
Beneath it, a number four.
"Don't," he said through the towel.
His voice was low and wrecked and French at the edges.
"Don't call anyone. Please."
"Why not?"
"Because the man who runs this building hears everything."
He said it like he'd said it before.
I knew who he was before he said another word.
Hugo Bergeron was the captain, a thirty-three-year-old wall of a defenseman.
He was also the reason my brother turns his whole body to look at a person.
I set my bag down very carefully.
"How long has it been out?"
"Forty minutes."
"You've been lying here forty minutes."
"I tried to put it back myself. I'm not good at it."
"No kidding."
I knelt on the mat beside him.
The shoulder had slid forward and down, and the muscle around it had gone into a hard, shaking cord.
Another hour and he'd be at the hospital with a damaged nerve.
I pushed my sleeves to my elbows.
"I'm going to touch you now," I said.
"Yes."
"It's going to hurt."
"Yes."
"If you tense, I stop and we start over. If you swear in French I'll pretend I don't understand."
Something moved under the towel that might have been a laugh.
I took his wrist in my left hand.
His skin was hot and damp, and the pulse under my thumb was hammering.
I put my right palm flat against the bare skin just under his collarbone.
He had cut the sleeve off the jersey, and his chest rose and fell under my hand.
"Breathe out," I said.
He breathed out.
His beard brushed my wrist.
His breath was warm on the inside of my arm.
I was suddenly aware of how few inches there were between his mouth and my pulse.
I turned his arm out slowly, a degree at a time.
His whole body went rigid.
A sound came out of him that I felt in my own ribs.
"Stay with me," I said. "Out. Slow. Out."
"Mon Dieu."
"Out."
I held the rotation, waiting for the muscle to give.
Under my hand his heart slammed against his chest.
For a second his free hand found my knee, and his fingers closed there hard.
I didn't move his hand.
Then the joint slid home with a deep, wet clunk.
He made a sound that was half shout and half sob.
And then it was over.
The arm lay straight, and his breathing began to even out.
I stayed where I was, one hand under his collarbone and the other around his wrist, feeling every line of him go slack with relief.
"Okay," I said. My voice wasn't quite steady. "You can look now."
He dragged the towel off his face.
His eyes were green, and they were wet, and the last time I'd seen them I'd been holding a cup of hospital coffee.
He looked at my hands.
Then he looked at the lanyard that had swung out of my shirt and hung between us.
My photo. My name.
CONTINI, V. HEAD ATHLETIC THERAPIST.
His face changed.
It didn't crumple. It went still.
"Contini," he said.
I took my hands off him.
"Yes."
"From Hibbing."
"Yes."
"You're Sal's sister."
"I'm the person who just put your arm back in. That's all I need to be tonight."
He pushed up on his good elbow and sat against the table leg, sweating, grey around the mouth.
He didn't look away from me.
I'd come ready for a lot of things.
I hadn't come ready for him to look like a man who had been waiting for me.
"I knew your name before I walked in here," I said. "I took the job anyway."
"I know. I read it on the press release too."
"Then you know what I think of you."
"I'd be worried if you thought less."
His voice dropped.
"I put your brother in that hospital bed, Vera. I would give back every year I've got left to undo it."
My hands had started to shake, and I put them on my knees so he couldn't see.
"Don't say his name to me."
"Then I won't."
He took a slow breath through his nose, testing the shoulder.
He winced, and he didn't look away.
"Ask Harold Hedberg why he hired a Contini for this room."
"Because I'm good."
"You are. I just watched you."
He almost smiled.
"That isn't why."
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