Chapter 33 33
Harmony's POV
I had spent the better part of Wednesday convincing myself that I could get out of going to Roman Foster's apartment. Maybe something would come up, a scheduling conflict, a medical emergency, an act of God, anything that would give me a legitimate reason to call Dr Sherman and tell him the arrangement wasn't going to work. Nothing came up. Thursday arrived anyway, the way bad things eventually tend to. I had no choice but to go.
I showed up at Roman Foster's apartment building at eight in the morning with my bag on my shoulder. I had resigned to fate.
Nurse Sarah opened the door before I had even finished knocking, which told me she had probably been watching for me from the window. She was in her full white uniform at eight in the morning, her hair pulled back and looking like she had been awake and operational since five.
"Miss Sinclair," she said, stepping aside. "Right on time. Come in, I'll show you around."
I followed her into the apartment. It was tidier than the last time I came here. I had an inking that Nurse Sarah liked to clean the entire place every single day.
"This is where I keep the medical supplies," she said, opening a cabinet in the hallway. "Everything is labeled. I trust you can read labels?"
"I can read labels," I replied sourly.
"Good. Some of the student staff I've worked with in the past have had trouble with organization." She moved into the kitchen. "I prepare his meals here. I'd prefer if you didn't use the stovetop unless absolutely necessary. Can you operate a microwave without incident?"
I looked at her in astonishment "Yes." What the fuck? "I can operate a microwave."
"Wonderful." She moved back into the hallway without reading my tone at all. "The living room is where we'll be doing most of the exercise work. I've already cleared enough space. The bathroom is there, for handwashing before and after any physical examination, which I assume goes without saying, but I've found it's better to say it regardless."
She is something else, I thought. She is truly, genuinely something else.
"Mr Foster is still in his room," she said finally, stopping outside a closed door at the end of the short hallway. "You can go ahead and set up while I prepare his breakfast. Knock first, obviously."
"Obviously," I agreed.
She disappeared into the kitchen and I stood outside Roman Foster's door for a moment, bag in hand, then knocked twice. But I got no response.
I knocked again, still nothing. I pressed my ear against the wooden door and heard no movement, no sound at all from inside. Then I tried the handle and pushed the door open slowly.
The room was empty.
I stepped inside. The bed was unmade, his phone was on the nightstand, and the window on the far wall was wide open, cold morning air pushing the curtain inward. I walked toward it, frowning, and looked out.
Miles, Foster's friend, was standing on the pavement three floors below, hands on his hips as he looked up. And Roman Foster was on the exterior wall, in full training gear with his skates slung over one shoulder, climbing up toward his own window with the calmness of someone who did this regularly.
My mouth fell open, but thankfully he hadn't seen me. I stepped back from the window and waited.
A moment later, two hands appeared on the window ledge, then Roman pulled himself through, swung his legs over the sill and straightened up inside the room, breathing heavily, and came face to face with me. He froze completely.
"Oh! Good morning, Foster." I greeted in an overly sweet voice.
He still looked shell-shocked, frozen in place.
"Before you say anything..." he started.
"You just climbed up three floors on a healing patellar fracture. Of course I'm going to talk!" I snapped. "Where exactly have you been, Roman Foster?"
"What are you doing here, anyway?" He countered. "I thought you didn't want us to be around each other."
"Your obnoxious nurse arranged this." I explained.
"Ah," was all he said in response, so I continued needling him.
"Roman Foster, where have you been?"
"I went for a walk." He replied with a flippant throw of his shoulders.
"In skates? Do you think I'm stupid?
"I hoped you were, actually." He set the skates down against the wall.
"You went to the rink, didn't you? Against every piece of medical advice I have ever given you, you went to the rink and got on the ice." I crossed my arms. "For how long?"
"A few hours," he muttered.
"A few hours." I sighed in long-suffering. "Sit down. Let me check the knee."
He sat in the chair by his desk, and I crouched in front of him, positioning my hands around the joint. He shifted slightly in the chair, moving his hips forward to give me better access, and for one completely unwanted second, my brain changed gears. I began to think about how he would react if I took him in my mouth right there.
But I shut down the thought almost immediately and focused on the knee.
"Any sharp pain while you were on the ice?" I asked.
"No."
"Swelling during or after?"
"No."
"Stiffness in the joint when you landed?"
"A little at the start," he sighed and shifted even closer, and my brain spiralled again, "but it loosened up later."
I worked through the range of motion checks in silence while he watched me, answering my questions in as few words as possible. He gave short, flat answers delivered to a point somewhere above my head. I had spent weeks wishing Roman Foster would stop talking so much, and now that he had, I found that I didn't like it at all.
I could handle difficult Roman. Difficult Roman I knew how to manage. This version, the one that gave me nothing and looked at me as if I was talking furniture, was harder to navigate than anything he had thrown at me before.
"Flexion is still good," I said, making a note. "You got lucky. If that knee had given out on the ice this morning, it would have set you back by weeks."
I looked up at him. "You understand that, don't you, Foster? You are gambling with your entire season every time you do something like this without clearance."
"Noted," he muttered. "But I need to play on Saturday, and I need to convince Coach that I'm ready."
"Roman..."
"Is there anything else you need to check?" His eyes finally dropped to mine, and they were flat and completely empty of everything that usually lived in them when he looked at me. "Because I'd like to shower now."