Chapter 10 10
Roman's POV
I was so bored of staying in the hospital that I had reorganized everything on my bedside table three times already. I even spent a full minute trying to reach the window from my bed, just to have something to do with my arms. One week in this bed and I was already losing my shit.
The knee killed me every time I shifted position, which was constantly, because lying still did not come naturally to me. The worst part wasn't even the boredom, but the feeling of the season moving without me. Out there, my team was practicing and preparing, pushing toward the next match, and I was in here nursing a busted knee.
It had been a bad night before the first match of the season. I hadn't slept well and I knew why. The anniversary of Aaron's death was just around the corner, and it always hit me harder than I expected it to. A whole year had gone by, and I still hadn't gotten over Aaron. How could I? Aaron had been my world!
So, I had scored a few goals in the second half and thought I was pulling it together. Then that brute had hit my knee.
The thing that kept eating at me in the corner of my mind, was that Aaron never missed a match through injury. Not one, in his entire college career. People loved to remind me of how perfect he was, and I always felt the numerous eyes on me, silently urging me to prove that I could live up to his name. The great Aaron Foster.
I grabbed my laptop when it started ringing, nearly knocking it off the bedside table in my hurry.
The screen filled with the familiar faces of my friends and teammates: Miles, Dex, Paulie and Hartley squeezed onto a bench in the locker room. Jesse and Carson calling in from someone's dorm room, while Coach Bailey at her desk with her glasses pushed up on her head.
The screen filled up with faces. Miles, grinning already. Dex, Paulie and Hartley crammed onto what looked like a bench in the locker room. Jesse and Carson joining from what appeared to be someone's dorm room. Coach Bailey in her office, her reading glasses pushed up on her head.
"There he is!" Miles announced. "The invalid."
"Looking rough, Captain," Dex added cheerfully.
"You all look terrible as well," I grunted back at them. I propped the laptop up on my and settled back. "How bad was practice?"
"Paulie fell twice with his skates on, funniest thing," Hartley reported.
"Twice? I fell once," Paulie corrected. "The second time was a controlled descent."
"When are you coming back, Captain?" Jesse asked, leaning close to the camera. "We kind of need you around here."
"Doc says a few more weeks minimum," I replied. "Harmony is working on my range of motion right now, so—"
"Harmony?" Miles raised his eyebrows.
My ears heated up immediately. I hadn't even realized that the name had slipped out of my mouth. "My um... physiotherapist."
"On a first name basis already?" Miles observed, to which Dex made a snort and Carson laughed.
"Coach, your boys are bullying me!" I whined at the square with Coach's face on it.
"Ah, let them." Coach waved her hand, but she was smiling too.
"So, um, What's the situation with the Midwest Regional?" I asked.
Coach Bailey leaned forward in her chair. "The draw from the last match has put us against Northwestern University in the second match of the tournament. That's happening two weeks from now."
She looked at me steadily. "Which you will be watching from the sidelines, Foster. Don't even think about it."
"Coach, come on! I'm already on crutches!"
"I need you healthy for the back half of the season, not hobbling around making that knee worse just because you got impatient." Her voice didn't leave any bit of room for argument. "Your job right now is to recover, and that's it. Let your team handle the rest. We'll find a substitute for you."
"A substitute can never live up to me." I grumbled.
Miles chuckled. "Ha! You wish!"
"Northwestern University's center has been kind of sloppy on the left side all preseason," I told them. "If I'm not gonna join the next match, I think you guys should run the play we practiced in September, the one where Dex cuts wide. They won't be expecting it."
"If you're not gonna join the match? You still seem to think there's a way you're weaseling on to the ice on my watch?" Coach Bailey quipped, and the other boys laughed. "Besides, that's already in the plan. We're working on it."
"Alright..."
The door of my room opened just then, and my physiotherapist walked in. Sinclair was in green scrubs, and her dark hair was up in a ponytail with two strands loose on either side of her face. The scrubs fit her well, especially from the waist down, and I noticed that before I even noticed anything else. Her thighs, and what might be behind.
She had her clipboard under one arm and she was reading something on it as she walked, completely unfazed by my existence.
I thought, very briefly, about what it would be like to get on my wobbly feet, cross the room and kiss her. Just to see what she would do.
"Hello, Foster, we're progressing to resistance work today," she said, still looking at the clipboard. "Nothing too intense, but it'll be harder than yesterday. I need you to sit up straight and move the laptop."
"Good morning to you too," I replied.
She finally looked up, and I realized I had been talking to her thighs. From the slight narrowing of her eyes, I could tell she had noticed too.
"Is there a problem?" she asked.
"No," I grumbled. I shifted upright, tapped out of the video call and pushed the laptop to the side table. "Let's just get on with it."
She pulled the chair to my bedside and set the clipboard down. "Please lose the attitude, Foster. It slows things down."
I said nothing. She positioned her hands around my knee with skill, and we began.
This one was way harder than the day before. She added a resistance band around my lower leg and walked me through a series of controlled movements that felt like punishment. Every time I thought I had found the limit of what my knee could do, she adjusted the angle slightly and found a new one.
"Oh, my God, that hurts!" I groaned.
"I know. Just hold it there," she instructed, and I obeyed while gritting my teeth.
"You're compensating with your hip!" She told me, pressing two fingers lightly against my outer thigh to redirect the movement. "Let the knee do the work."
"Well, maybe the knee doesn't want to do the work!" I replied through my teeth.
"That's why we're here." She released the position and made a note. "Start again."
We went through it four more times. By the end of the physiotherapy, I was sweating like a wet rag, and she was writing in her notes with a focused (cute) scrunch of her forehead.
"Better than I expected," she said, standing and snapping off her gloves.
"High praise," I muttered.
Harmony picked up her clipboard. "Alright, Foster. I'll go get your drugs and we'll—"
"Excuse me?"
Harmony and I both turned towards the sound of the new voice, which was coming from the door. A young intern had his head through the gap of the door, staring at us eagerly.
"A woman said she is here to see Mr Foster. Should I let her in?" He asked.
Harmony turned to me in surprise. "Didn't know you were expecting a visitor."
"I'm not." I replied, but waved at the intern regardless. "Let her in."
The intern nodded and disappeared again. A handful of seconds later, the door creaked open again, and an older woman calmly stepped in. And all I could do was stare at her, horror gathering in the pit of my stomach.
"Mom?"