Puck and Promises

3

Mia POV

I opened the door to the medical ward. Cole laid flat on his back, one arm draped over his eyes.

He was lucky that I had found him when I did. That annoyingly beautiful asshole couldn't even scream for help.

"You really can't do anything without me, can you?" I teased.

Cole didn't move. "Go away, Mia."

"Go away?" I repeated. "I'm the only medical staff on site. You're on my table so you're my problem."

I snapped on the glove. He finally lifted his arm. Those steel blue eyes pinned me with a look that should have come with a warning label. "I didn't ask for you."

"And I didn't ask for my father to hire a fossil with a death wish." I said. A small laugh came out of him. I pulled up a stool. "Let me see the knee."

He didn't move.

"Cole. The knee. Now."

His eyes widened at my tone. No one talked to him like this.

I'd seen the way rookies stammered around him. The way my father's vincent tjght when Cole entered a room.

But I wasn't a rookie. A legendary hockey player with a bad temper didn't scare me.

He groaned and swung his legs over the edge of the bed

Every movement cost him... I could see it in the way he clenched his jaw, gripping the edge of the bed so tight that his knuckles turned white.

I knelt in front of him. Rolled up the leg of his practice pants and my breath caught.

His knee was a roadmap of surgical scars. Six. No, seven

Some looked old, some newer.

The skin around the kneecap was mottled, bruised fresh from today's fall, but underneath that... Years of damage.

"What happened to you?" I whispered.

He shrugged. "None of your business."

I glared at him.

"Hockey happened," he said , voice flat. "Happy now?"

I looked at his leg, then him. I looked at the way his left leg sat slightly crooked, the muscle atrophied compared to the right. At the exhaustion behind his eyes that had nothing to do with sleep.

"You didn't become an assistant coach because you wanted to," I muttered. "You can't play."

I just realized that.

He rolled his eyes. " I became one because your father offered me a job."

"No," I shook my head as the truth slammed into me. My chest tightened. "You took it because you couldn't stay away from ice. Hockey was your life. Oh my God... I... "

"Shut up," his hands curled into fists. "You don't know anything about me."

He didn't want to confront the truth or he just hated that I saw through him. I never knew he went through that. Watching others play, must have been killing him.

And yet, he swallowed the pain and never complained.

Cole grabbed my wrist, his hold firm. His thumb pressed against my pulse point, where my heart was betraying me by racing.

"Stop," he snapped. "Whatever pity party you're throwing for me, stop. I hate pity. I hate people looking at me like I'm broken."

He dropped my wrist and sighed, raking his hands through his hair. "I'm fine."

I opened my mouth to fire back. He wasn't fine and he didn't need to pretend with me. He didn't need to wear a mask around me.

But before I could bring the words out, the TV wall blinked on. Someone in the front office must have patched through the feed.

A press conference.

My father stood on a podium, a big smile on his face. My hands paused on Cole's knee. Beside him, Harrison Cole, the team owner.

And between them....

My hands shook.

Marcus Webb. Clean-shaven. Perfect black hair. That smile I used to dream about, the one that curved just slightly to the left, the one he flashed at cameras while his hand was wrapped around my throat behind closed doors.

"We're thrilled to announce the newest addition to our team," my father said. "Marcus Webb is a game-changer. A star. And we believe he's exactly what we need to bring the cup home."

Marcus stepped to the microphone. His voice washed over me like ice water.

No, my father wouldn't do this. He couldn't. He couldn't bring the same man that I complained about to the same vicinity I was. He knew I had been running from Marcus.

He knew that the reason I had done my internship here was because I just couldn't keep running anymore and I was broke.

Yes, he didn't care but this was the worst that he could do to me.

"I'm grateful for the opportunity," Marcus said, eyes glinting with malice. "This is a fresh start. A new family. And I can't wait to get on the ice and prove myself."

No. No. No.

He knew I was here. He had to know. My father had bragged about me to every player who came through. "My daughter, the doctor." Marcus had heard it a hundred times when we were together.

This wasn't a coincidence. My hands were shaking. I pressed them against my thighs to hide it. My breath came too fast. The room felt small. Smaller than the closet last night. Smaller than the car Marcus locked me inside while he screamed about dinner being cold.

"Mia."

Cole's voice, distant at first, like hearing someone call your name from the bottom of a pool.

"Mia, look at me."

I couldn't. The screen was still playing. Marcus was laughing at something my father said. His hand clapped my father's shoulder, friendly. The same hand that had...

"Hey!" Cole's hand cupped my face. Turned my head. Forced me to meet his eyes. "Whatever you're seeing right now, you're not seeing it alone. I'm right here."

I wanted to tell him everything. The bruises. The hospital visits I faked. The restraining order I couldn't afford to enforce because Marcus always found me anyway.

Instead, I pointed at the screen. My voice came out raw.

"That man," I said. "He's my ex.”