Page 75 of Cheap Shot
“Why don’t we head into my office and update our notes?” Parker motions toward his office tucked back in the back corner of the training room. “Beau, can you sit with him for a few minutes and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid? Don’t let him move until we get back.”
“You got it, boss.” Beau uses his other hand to give Parker a mock salute, his eyes never leaving Jensen’s face. “I’ll shout if we need anything, but we won’t.”
I have a feeling that Parker and I aren't just going to his office to compare notes. “That’s not fair. Why does he get away with calling you boss?” I complain, trying to break the tension.
“I’ve told him a million times not to call me that, but I stopped wasting my breath. The first thing you’ll learn around here is they’ll capitalize on any sign of weakness they can.”
“He’s right.” The corner of Beau’s mouth pulls up slightly. “Nothing gives me more joy than getting under Parker’s skin. Well, except doing the same thing to my big brother.”
“Are you in here giving these two a hard time?” Cooper comes gliding into the training room, plopping down on the stool Parker just vacated.
Jensen eyes the two brothers wearily, shifting nervously on the bench. “Never. Parker and Michele here were giving me a clean bill of health. Said I can go back to practice tomorrow.”
“You’re full of shit. What we said was that you’re out for the rest of the week, at least. Keep it up, and I’ll send you to the hospital for a CT scan instead of letting you hang out here for a few hours to check for concussion symptoms.”
The two brothers lock eyes, silently communicating something with each other, before Cooper winks at me. “You are going to be just fine, Michele.”
“You had your doubts?” I question, feeling as if Cooper is talking about something a lot more important than whether I can hold my own in the locker room setting. “I’ve probably spent more time in this locker room than you, Hendrix.”
“Burn.” Beau chuckles, holding his hand up for a high-five, which I return wholeheartedly.
Something tells me that Parker isn’t the only one who knows about my relationship with their coach. Over the last few weeks, I haven’t gone out of my way to keep the fact that I’m the coach’s daughter a secret, but I haven’t said anything else. Dad keeps things completely professional in the locker room, although he’s been avoiding me like the plague since my first day here. Not that I’m complaining. The last thing I need is him breathing down my neck, looking for any small things to pick at and remind me about how I don’t belong here.
“What do you mean?” Jensen asks, his head swiveling between me and Cooper. “Did you play hockey before becoming a physio?”
“No.” I grab all the used gauze and antiseptic wipe wrappers off the table, make sure the area is spotless and ready for the next injury or catastrophe on the ice.
Jensen props himself up on his elbows, his eyes following me as I move around him. “That’s it, just no?”
“Yup,” I say, popping the P at the end for emphasis before striding away from all three men and toward Parker’s office.
Parker laughs loudly. “Let the lady have her secrets. Just lay your ass there and chill out. Let us know if you feel anything off or any concussion symptoms pop up.”
I plop down in the chair closest to the door, Parker right behind me. “What the hell was that?”
Parker pushes the door shut behind him, giving us some privacy before taking a seat behind his desk. “You need to be a little more specific.”
Okay, that’s fair. A lot happened in that few-minute exchange with the three players. I could be talking about any number of things, but I choose to go with the most important one in my opinion. “Beau’s delayed gross motor function. I barely tossed that roll of tape at him. He should’ve had no problem catching it.”
“You noticed that, too?”
“How could I have missed it?” I enter the code into my tablet, immediately searching for Beau’s file, but come up empty. “He doesn’t have a file? How the hell does he not have a file? He’s a professional hockey player, for Christ's sake.”
“Not all our players are going to get injured, Michele.” Parker chuckles, clicking a few buttons on his keyboard before his eyes scan something on his screen. “He hasn’t had so much as a pulled muscle in the last two years.”
Does this man have a superpower I’m not aware of? It’s common knowledge that the repetitive hip rotation, extreme flexibility, and sudden directional changes required of any NHL netminder can lead to hip impingement, labral tears, and groin strains. I have never met one that hasn’t had frequent hip and groin issues, sometimes multiple during a single season, and Beau seems to have avoided all of this for the last two years.
“How is that possible? He’s a netminder. Don’t they pull groin muscles regularly?”
“Beau has been doing this for years. He knows how to take care of his body.” Parker shakes his head, his eyes remaining focused on whatever is on his screen. “Unlike most of the other players, he comes to me before something is a problem so we can manage it with some specialized stretching.”
The urge to call bullshit is strong, but I keep my mouth shut. I know Parker is damn good at his job, if not the best in the world. If he says Beau is good to go, then he is. “That means no concussions or chance of trauma recently.”
I nibble on the tip of my thumb, my mind racing for any reason that his gross motor skills would be so off, and none of them are good. Beau is, for all intents and purposes, a healthy male in his late twenties. If this were a genetic condition, we can assume that any of the scarier conditions would’ve presented before now, but we can’t rule anything out.
“What about Cooper? Is he showing gross motor delays, as well?”
“No. Other than his ACL tear last season, Cooper hasn’t had any major problems either.”
