t's been improved twice over in the retelling. I learn this within ninety seconds of stepping into the training facility, because a wall of a man

e's solving a riddle. "You're t

eam physic

sting it. "On live ice. In front of seventeen thousand people.

o step back fr

is hand out, still grinning. "Remy Bou

n't seem to be a version of this co

earning quickly is simply how Remy Bouchard operates. He doesn't wait for permission to occupy space near you. He just assumes the invitation was implied. "Kane doe

mo

ill talking. "So what's the secret? Is it a stare. Did you do the stare. I'

t. I told him to

t, bu

words,

ng to dominate it. "I like you. I'm going to be your tour guide. You've be

fee in the s

now that Cole Rutherford looks terrifying but he's actually the most normal person on this team, and the two rookies on the third line will ask you medical questions that are actually just t

ot

tion. "Kane's not what people think. Mostly. Sometimes he's exactly what people think. But mostly no

longer than I have before my first physical, and because some part of me doe

ugh the standard battery with each of them, range of motion, cardiovascular baseline, the questions about sleep and soreness that most of them answer with the practiced vagueness of men who've

present in places where decisions get made and saying very little while he's there. He doesn't come into the suite. He stands in the doorway for exactly as long as it takes me to clear a defenseman's s

a short nod, the kind that could mean

ink about later, and go back t

ng or a deliberate choice by someone trying to give both of us the smallest poss

d morning. He doesn't say anything. He sits down on the exam table with the specific economy of motion I'm star

suture line on his cheekbone. "No rednes

t baby

ce one handed this

r, which I take

ld fracture line I make a note to ask about eventually but don't push on today, reflexes, blood pressure. He answers what I ask and no

kes four minutes, which is shorter than I've spent with almost

apping my pen. "Same proto

Stands. Picks

e there's a sentence sitting behind his teeth that he's

e able to contain, and I realize, with a small jolt, that I have been holding my breath. Not dramatically. Just a shallow, unconscious withholding t

esterday's incident still working its way out of my system, that any new physician would feel some vers

self this when I hear

g medical, that much is obvious from the way he's positioned, arms loose,

the receiving end of it, until you understand that three seconds of someone's comp

protocol too cons

omentum, footsteps already receding down the corrid

y clean water arrives when you finally turn off a dripping faucet you'd stopped noticing. Sudden. To

t, and I am not a woman who throws things, not even at men who walk into rooms specifically to d

derably more forceful than the situation requires: Pa

sentence I have ever produced while internally c