Cinder came in with his medical bag and the ease of someone who’d done this a thousand times. He was in his thirties, with kind eyes that missed nothing.
“Morning,” he said to me, then nodded at Kincaid. “Coach.”
“He’s cleared,” Kincaid said, already moving toward the door. “Pupils responsive, no nausea, answers coherent. But he’s yours now.”
And just like that, he was gone.
The door clicked shut behind him, and I stood there in the middle of the hotel room feeling like I’d just watched something significant walk out, except I couldn’t name what it was or why the absence of it made my chest feel hollow.
“Sit,” Cinder said, gesturing at the bed. “Let’s have a look.”
I sat. Let him do his assessment—the same questions Kincaid had asked me three times through the night, the same checks of my pupils and reflexes and coordination. His hands were professional, impersonal, nothing like the careful warmth of Kincaid’s palm on my cheek an hour ago.
“Concussion’s mild,” he confirmed after a few minutes. “You got lucky. The ribs are going to hurt for a week so you won’t be playing, but nothing’s cracked. Keep the ibuprofen on schedule, ice the face, and if you feel nauseous or dizzy, you tell me immediately. Understood?”
“Understood.”
He packed up his bag with the same efficiency he’d unpacked it. “Team breakfast is at eight-thirty. Max wants everyone there—show of solidarity after last night. You up for it?”
I thought about sitting in a room full of teammates while looking like I’d been used as a punching bag. Thought about the questions, the attention, the visibility when I’d spent two months trying to be invisible. Then I thought about them all having my back in the game, and last night in the ER.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m up for it.”
Cinder smiled—brief, approving. “Good. Shower first. You smell like a hospital.” And I guessed he should know.
He left, and I was alone in the room that still smelled faintly like Kincaid’s cologne, or maybe I was imagining that. Probably imagining that.
I stood there for a moment in the quiet hotel room, trying to sort through the last twelve hours. The game. The bathroom. The hospital. Kincaid’s hand on my face in the lamplight. The way I’d woken up pressed against him like my body had made a decision my brain hadn’t been consulted about. That seemed to be a pattern I needed to break.
I needed to shower. I needed to get dressed. I needed to go downstairs and face my teammates and pretend I was fine, which was something I’d gotten extremely good at over the last two months.
What I needed to stop doing was thinking about the way Kincaid’s voice had sounded at six-thirty in the morning, rough and low, and the fact that he’d stayed.
I grabbed clean clothes from my bag and headed for the shower.
The hotel restaurant was one of those places designed to handle large groups efficiently—long tables, buffet setup, staff who knew how to keep coffee flowing without asking. Most of the team was already there when Max and I walked in having met in the elevator, scattered across three tables that had been pushed together near the windows.
The conversation didn’t stop exactly when we entered, but it shifted. Heads turned. Keegan half-stood from his chair, then seemed to think better of it and sat back down. Morozov said something in Ukrainian that sounded concerned. Varga just stared at my face and whistled low.
“Jesus, Russo,” Ilyin said. “You look like you went through a car wash without the car.”
“I feel better this morning,” I admitted, making my way to an empty seat between Morozov and one of the younger defensemen whose name was Declan Porter.
“How’s the head?” Keegan asked. His voice was careful, the way people’s voices got when they were trying not to make a big deal out of something that was clearly a big deal.
“Fine. Mild concussion, nothing serious.”
“Those guys got arrested,” Varga said. “Security footage was clear. Cops picked them up at some bar in Wrigleyville around two AM.”
Cole snorted. “They had help finding them,” which everyone seemed to think was funny.
“Good,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say. “Will I have to speak to the cops?”
“Let the team lawyer’s handle it. They’ll let you know,” Max advised.
Morozov pushed a plate of scrambled eggs toward me. “Eat. You need protein.”
“I’m not sure I can chew,” I said, touching my jaw experimentally. I picked up a fork and started working through the eggs in careful, small bites. My jaw protested, but it was manageable. Around me, the conversation gradually returned to its normal rhythm—game talk, chirping, the cadence of a team that had spent enough time together to develop its own language. It was good to be included.
