Page 5 of Accidentally Fudging the Beast
He makes a noise that's halfway between a laugh and a sigh. "You're good at what you do, Sunshine. Best PT we've ever had. Most people just want to get through the day without pissing off Coach. You actually listen."
I keep kneading, but there's a warmth spreading in my chest that's not from the heating pad stretched across his midback. "Thank you," I say softly. "That means a lot."
He turns, just enough to see my face. "Seriously. I don't trust most people with my body, but I trust you."
My brain helpfully supplies about fifteen different ways to interpret that, most of them X-rated.
I clear my throat. "You're not so bad yourself, Kirk."
He grins at me, and the room suddenly feels a little less like a sweaty sauna and a lot more like Christmas. Huh,maybe that's what I need to get into the spirit. A healthy dose of hockey hunk.
As he turns to place his face back in the hole, I notice that it's a weird shade of pink. Not cute,I'm embarrassedpink like mine. More like,I just ran five laps with an elephant sitting on my chest, pink. His ears are splotchy. His neck is splotchy.
The splotches are…spreading?
He blinks.
And then coughs.
And coughs again.
And I, brilliant, unflappable, trained professional that I am, freeze like someone just threatened to show pages of my middle school diary on a Jumbotron.
My brain is a machine of useless facts and anxiety, but in this moment, it churns up only one very important memory: the player intake paperwork, which I totally skimmed because most of it was boring. Somewhere in that form, Trent had an allergy listed. Something…what was it? Fruit? Tree nuts? Mold spores? No, not that. Something…
Bees.
Trent is allergic to bees and all things associated.
"Shit," I whisper, my heart sinking. "Oh, shit."
I substituted half of the sugar for raw honey.
Trent looks at me, confused, still smiling, but his eyes are a little glazed now. "Whash up?" he says, his voice already goingraspy.
Liz, who has perfect timing only when it involves disaster, pops her head in the room at that exact second. She must see the look on my face because her eyes widen. "Is everything okay?"
"No!" I yell. "I mean, yes! But also no! He's allergic! I just poisoned him. Oh my god, I just poisoned my favorite hockey player."
Liz's face does that thing where all the blood drains out of it. "What? What's he allergic to?"
"Bees and honey," I say, running to the counter for the med kit. "There's honey in the fudge, and the internet said raw was bes–" I break off as Trent coughs again. It's more of a wheeze, really.
Now, as a rule, I don't panic in emergencies. I panic after. Apparently, today is an exception because I'm on the verge of losing my shit.
"Are you feeling okay?" I ask Trent, even though he looks like a lobster having a stroke as he struggles to stand up.
"Feelin' weird," he slurs, and then starts scratching at his arms. Where, of course, angry red hives are springing up at an alarming rate.
"Sit!" I order, shoving him back down on the table. He nearly topples off, so I clamp a hand on his shoulder, trying to keep him in place. "Liz, go find Alex."
"Doc isn't here today, Dani," she informs me, her voice soft.
Of course he isn't. He probably called in with a fake flu to spend the week with his family like a sane person.
"Are you gonna die?" Ryan yells from outside the room, ever so helpfully. "If so, can I have your locker?"
"He isn't going to die," I growl. "Liz, get the EpiPen out of the crash kit. The good one, not one that expired during the Obama administration."
