Page 10 of The Head Game

Nice, Gabriel, Nico thought. Quite the silver fox you have there.

The three of them talked about the game for a while, making small talk but when Nico rubbed his temple, Gabriel’s sharp gaze flicked to the motion.

“Are you well?” Gabriel asked, a furrow appearing between his dark brows. “You’ve looked pale all night and you keep squinting like the lights hurt you.”

Nico shook his head, then regretted the motion immediately. It only made the throbbing worse. “A little bit of a headache. Nothing serious.”

He hoped.

“Did you take a hit tonight I didn’t see?”

“No, nothing tonight. This has been going on for a bit.”

Gabriel’s gaze filled with concern. “Have you had many concussions in the past?”

Nico flinched.

Pretty much every guy in the NHL had at least a few in his career. Many had far more than that.

Nico had been luckier than most. He’d had one significant one in juniors that had laid him up for a while and a second, thankfully much less serious, when he was with the Black Bears.

“Two that I know of,” he admitted.

Gabriel hummed thoughtfully. “Will you get it checked out?”

“Sure,” Nico agreed.

“Give me your word?” Gabriel urged.

Nico sighed. “Yeah, I promise. When I’m back in Toronto I’ll talk to the team doc, okay?”

“C’est bon.” Gabriel looked relieved. “You know I worry.”

“I know. I appreciate it.”

Gabriel and a handful of other guys around the league had been working on a big campaign around Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy awareness.

It was a noble cause and Nico supported it but at the end of the day, most of the guys were like Nico.

Unless he had a limb hanging on by a thread, he was going to play through whatever hurt. And if it was the playoffs, he’d skate until he couldn’t stay upright.

Besides, even if it was some sort of CTE diagnosis, what the hell could they do about it?

They could maybe rule out everything else but they couldn’t say for certain it was CTE without dissecting his brain, and well, Nico wasn’t planning on kicking the bucket any time soon.

But now Nico had promised both Dustin and Gabriel that he’d at least talk to Dr. Strickland so he couldn’t go back on his word.

If he tried, they’d probably gang up on him and frog-march him into the team doc’s office.

Didn’t matter that Gabriel was on a different team now. He’d find a way.

Restless, and annoyed by feeling like shit, Nico wandered the party, working his way around the room and catching up with guys he knew, meeting a few he’d never officially been introduced to before.

Nico spent a while draped around Matty because Matty was his cuddle buddy whenever they were drinking.

They both got kinda touch-needy when they drank but Matty was shy about hookups and rarely made the effort to make it happen.

He’d certainly never seemed interested in Nico.

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