Page 14 of Hard Check

"Favoring that knee like it's royalty." Carver stepped onto the ice in his boots. He moved with surprising confidence despite lacking skates. "You think I can't see it from across the rink?"

I opened my mouth to argue, but the words dissolved as he drew closer. I noticed something in his expression—genuine concern.

His voice was surprisingly low and gentle. "How bad is it?"

I'd prepared for mockery or frustration and armored myself against his typical barbs. His uncharacteristic naked concern left me momentarily defenseless.

"It's nothing." I inhaled sharply, hearing the lie echo in the arena.

Carver raised an eyebrow. "Try again."

I offered a reluctant admission. "It's just different today. Like, a little deeper."

"Different, how?"

I searched for words to describe the sensation. "Not sharp. It's more like pressure. Like something's caught beneath the kneecap."

"And your brilliant solution was to keep putting weight on it for another hour?"

"I need to strengthen—"

Carver cut me off. "You need not to be an idiot. You can't strengthen an injury by aggravating it."

We stared at each other, and I drummed the fingers of my right hand against my stick.

"C'mere." He gestured toward the bench. "Let me see what you've done to yourself."

"It's really not necessary." It was a weak protest. I glided toward the bench, and my knee pulsed with each push of my right blade.

"Sit." Carver's voice was soft but firm.

I eased myself down. Usually crowded with teammates, equipment, and nervous energy, the bench was strangely intimate with only the two of us.

Carver knelt in front of me. It surprised me so much that I pulled back momentarily. After looking me in the eye, he reached toward my right leg.

"May I?"

The question was so considerate, so unlike Carver's reputation. I nodded.

He rolled up the leg of my practice pants, exposing the compression sleeve beneath. After he peeled down the neoprene, my knee appeared swollen, the skin faintly pink around the kneecap.

"You weren't kidding about working through it."

His hands moved with the same precision he used to tape his stick before games as he tested for swelling. I held my breath, hyperaware of each point of contact between us.

"Tender here?" He pressed lightly at the inside edge of the joint.

I winced. "Yeah."

"Here?"

"Not as much."

His brow furrowed as he continued his examination. I studied his face as he worked, seeing new details I'd never noticed. He had faint scar tissue just above his left eyebrow where it had been split open in a game, and his eyelashes were surprisingly long.

He glanced up. "When did it start feeling different?"

"This morning. I woke up, and it felt wrong."

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