My Hockey Star Betrayed Me, So I Healed His Greatest Rival

Ethan hated mornings, resistance bands, blueberries, and me.

By the end of our first week, I had documented all four facts.

“Again,” I said as he balanced on his right leg on a foam pad.

Sweat darkened the collar of his shirt. His injured knee shook while he reached toward the marker I held. “You enjoy this.”

“I enjoy correct movement.”

“You moved the marker farther away.”

“You noticed. Your brain is functioning despite the lack of bacon.”

He gave me a murderous look and reached again. His fingertips brushed mine. The contact lasted less than a second, but his balance shifted.

I caught him with both hands at his waist.

His palms landed on my hips.

Neither of us spoke.

Under my hands, his abdominal muscles tightened. His breath warmed my temple. I could feel every hard line of him, all that controlled power held inches from my body.

“Your core is late,” I said.

His thumbs moved once against my hips. “That’s your professional opinion?”

I stepped back. “My professional opinion is that flirting won’t get you out of the last set.”

“I wasn’t flirting.”

“That’s worse. Again.”

He did the set.

I controlled his diet, his sleep schedule, his strength progression, and eventually the number of minutes he was allowed on the ice. He fought me on almost everything, but he never missed a session. The first time he completed a full rotation on the stationary bike, I caught him staring at the screen like it had announced a miracle.

“You’re allowed to be pleased,” I told him.

“It’s just twelve minutes on a bike.”

“It’s twelve minutes you couldn’t do last month.”

He looked away, but the corner of his mouth moved.

Two weeks later, I was reviewing Ethan’s force-plate results when the receptionist called. She said Logan appeared at the Wolves’ training facility.

My stomach tightened before I even reached the lobby.

Logan stood beneath the giant silver wolf emblem in a camel coat and sunglasses, looking like he had arrived for a fashion shoot.

“You blocked me,” he said. “We need to talk.”

“No.”

He removed his sunglasses. There were shadows beneath his eyes. “You took a job with Boston to punish me?”

I almost admired the size of his ego. “Marcus offered me a position. I accepted.”

“They’re our biggest competition.”

“I treat injuries, Logan. I don’t steal playbooks.”

“You’re helping Blackwood come back.” His voice dropped. “Do you know what that does to me? To the Titans?”

“You didn’t care what your interview did to me.”

“That was business.”

“And this is my career.”

He reached for my wrist. Before his fingers closed around it, a larger hand caught his forearm.

Ethan stood beside me in gray training pants, his expression flat and lethal.

“She stepped away,” he said.

Logan pulled free. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“You came into my facility to bother my therapist. That makes it my concern.”

My therapist.

The possessive words sent an inconvenient current down my spine.

Logan’s gaze moved between us. “So that’s what this is?”

“This is you leaving,” I said. “You don’t get to claim me after pretending I didn’t exist.”

His face reddened. “I made one mistake.”

“You made a decision. You came here just because my work might help someone beat you.”

For once, Logan had no polished answer.

Security escorted him out.

When I turned, Ethan was already walking away, favoring his right leg more than he had that morning.

I found him in the darkened video room. He sat in the back row with his knee extended, an ice pack balanced over it.

“You overdid the treadmill,” I said.

He did not look at me. “Go away, Avery.”

I sat beside him instead. “Thank you for stepping in.”

“You didn’t need me.”

“No, but I appreciated it.”

He stared at the blank screen. “Pierce is right about one thing. If you get me back, I’ll be in his way.”

“That’s the job.”

“And if I fail, he’ll enjoy that too.”

There it was—the fear beneath the arrogance.

I took the ice pack from his knee and checked the swelling. “You think you’re not worth the risk.”

His laugh was humorless. “My team built a season around me. I went down in the first game.”

I placed his foot against my thigh and supported his calf. “Your value is not the number of goals you score.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“No. It isn’t.” My fingers moved along the scar, firm enough to assess, gentle enough not to hurt. “I tied my value to someone else’s recovery. When he erased me, I felt like I disappeared too. I won’t let you make the same mistake in reverse.”

His gaze dropped to my hands on his leg.

“What if I’m not the player I was?” he asked.

“Then we build the player you’ll become.”

He looked at me for a long moment. “You really believe that.”

“I don’t waste six a.m. on lost causes.”

After that, something shifted between us.

Ethan started bringing me coffee—black, one sugar, exactly right. He stopped complaining about blueberries. When I demonstrated lateral movement, he watched with an intensity that made my skin warm. Sometimes his hand lingered at my waist while I corrected his stance. Sometimes my fingers stayed wrapped around his thigh a second longer than necessary while checking muscle activation.

Neither of us named it.

I told myself attraction was a neurological event. I had confused proximity and gratitude with love once. I would not do it again with another hockey star.

Then I got sick.

I woke on a Thursday with a fever and tried to go to work anyway. By noon, I was sitting on the rehabilitation-room floor because the walls would not stop moving.

Ethan found me there.

“Avery?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re on the floor.”

“New mobility drill.”

He crouched and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead. His palm moved to my cheek, cool and broad. “You’re burning up.”

“I have three appointments.”

“You have none.”

He lifted me before I could argue—one arm beneath my knees, the other around my back.

“Your knee,” I protested, clutching his shoulders.

“Is strong enough to carry one stubborn woman.”

His chest was solid against me. Each step tightened his arms, drawing me closer. I could smell clean soap and the sharp winter scent of the rink on his skin.

He took me to his townhouse because it was closer than my apartment. He put me in his bed, called the team doctor, filled my prescription, and made soup that tasted suspiciously like it came from a restaurant.

At midnight, I woke to find him asleep in a chair beside me, his long legs stretched out and one hand resting near mine on the mattress.

I moved, and his eyes opened instantly.

“Water?” he asked.

“You stayed.”

“You stayed for Pierce.”

The comparison cut deeper than he intended. He saw it and leaned forward.

“That came out wrong.” His fingers closed gently around mine. “I mean you shouldn’t have had to beg someone to stay. I’m here because I want to be.”

The fever loosened every defense I had.

I touched the rough shadow along his jaw. He went completely still.

“Avery,” he said, my name almost a warning.

I leaned toward him. His gaze dropped to my mouth, and his hand slid behind my neck. For one suspended second, I thought he would kiss me.

Then he pressed his forehead to mine instead.

“When you’re not sick,” he murmured. “When you can decide without a fever.”

My breath caught.

He pulled the blanket higher around me, but his thumb stroked once over my pulse.

It was the most careful refusal I had ever received.

And somehow, it felt more intimate than a kiss.