Page 48 of Offside

"It's the outcome I want too."

"Tell me why."

I looked at the article still open on my phone. The picture showed my body at its weakest because weakness made a clean story. The writing underneath made something public that shouldn't be.

"Because somebody already decided my medical record was useful without asking me," I said. "I'm not doing the same thing to you."

The tension around Declan's mouth eased.

He nodded.

I called Marchetti while Declan sat beside me.

"Independent specialist and performance counter," I said. "Nothing public beyond the medical line. The staff conflict stays out."

"For now," Marchetti said.

"Until I tell you differently."

He heard the distinction. "Understood. I'll send options for the assessment."

We left the conference room together. He put his hand into mine where everyone could see.

18

Declan

On Friday night, Bishop ate noodles from a white takeout carton, six feet away from a sealed letter sitting in the back of my desk drawer. He'd come to my apartment because I'd asked him to.

The radiator struck the wall twice while we ate. He looked toward it with an odd satisfaction.

"It wins," Bishop said, laughing.

"Every night. I stopped expecting it to improve."

"You could move," he said.

The Denver offer was open on my laptop. I'd moved it to one side when the food arrived, but Bishop had seen the subject line. He hadn't asked whether I was taking it.

The article earlier had changed everything around us. Reporters had waited at the facility entrance. Park's access review remained open. Bishop had repeated the club's narrow line and walked past the questions about his future without offering further comment. He'd kept our agreement.

That didn't make the drawer behind me easier to open.

"You said you'd tell me about Rochester when you were ready," Bishop said.

I set my carton.

"Is this you being ready?"

"No." I looked at him. "It's me choosing to tell you anyway. I'm not sure I'd ever be ready, to be honest."

"I'm listening," he said. He put his food aside.

I began with the facts I'd spent years compressing.

"I worked at a sports-medicine practice in Rochester for three years. I was twenty-six when the relationship began. Her name was Marguerite Feld. She was forty-one. She ran my division and signed my evaluations."

"How long?" he asked. His face held still.