Boldly by Elise Faber
Chapter Eighteen
Hazel
“Um, what?”Marcel asked.
She’d had her session with him yesterday, visualizing exercises, writing down some goals and things to work toward. Mediation and a bit of yoga.
But she’d saved the big guns for today.
Rage room 2.0.
Or at least, it was 2.0 for her.
For Marcel, he was looking around the room—the same one she and Oliver had gone to town on—and his eyes were wide.
“Break something,” she said. “Anything. It’s all here for us to destroy.”
“I—” His mouth opened and closed, his head jerked back, and she got a sick feeling in her stomach. Had she read this completely wrong? “But,” he whispered, picking up a truly ugly olive and turquoise plate from the stack that sat on a table she’d taken her baseball bat to just a few days before. “Why would I want to break this?”
Because it’s ugly as hell.
But she didn’t say that.
Instead, she smiled encouragingly. “Because it’s designed for it. Because sometimes, we need to break things in order to put ourselves back together. Because sometimes, it feels really fucking good to toss a plate instead of beating yourself up because you missed a breakaway.”
His eyes, an amber brown, flared with emotion before shifting away.
Damn.
He wasn’t going to bite.
He was shutting down.
Which was the worst thing he could do. Marcel in his head wasn’t a happy place, not when he rehashed every mistake he made during a game over and over again.
She shouldn’t have mentioned the breakaway.
She might as well have poked the wound inside him that was growing every day because he hadn’t scored in eighteen games with a stick.
And then rubbed salt in it.
How to salvage this? How to—
He launched the plate at the wall.
It shattered, loudly in the quiet space, making her jump and squeak out a breath.
“Shit,” he breathed. “I’m sorry. I—”
She snatched a plate and launched it. It crashed against the wall and broke, not into as many pieces as he’d made his plate break. But it was still in shards on the ground.
Marcel started. “Whoa.”
“What?”
“I just threw a plate.” He stared at her. “You just threw a plate.”
She grinned. “We did.” A beat. “So, how’d it feel?”
“I—”
When he didn’t go on, Hazel just grabbed another plate, shoved it at him. Then snagged one for herself.
“First one to hit that ugly-ass blue teacup on the shelf wins.”
“Wh-what?” he sputtered.
She launched her plate, discus style, at the shelf and teacup. Missed, of course. Because she didn’t have great aim to begin with, but at a target ten feet away? Hopeless.
Marcel, a sniper on the ice when he was on fire, wouldn’t have any trouble.
But he just stared at her.
“That teacup is awful,” she said. “I want it gone.”
She grabbed another plate, threw it. Missed horribly.
Still watching her, he lobbed the plate he held. It flew across the room like a frisbee and, of course (freaking athletes and their good aim), took out the teacup. Both plate and cup exploded into a ton of pieces.
She handed him another plate.
“Where next?” he asked.
Yes!
Hazel just barely resisted the urge to fist pump. Instead, she glanced around the room.
“The mirror.”
He launched it.
It hit the mirror.
Then he asked, “Where next?” again.
She finally breathed easy.
Because they were on.
This was going to work.
It had to.
The next evening,she sat in the owner’s box, staring down at the ice.
Okay, not staring at the ice so much as watching the players on the ice.
Oneplayer.
Marcel.
Who was on a tear.
Thank freaking God!
They’d gone through those plates, and then the ugly teacups, and then a typewriter, several vases, an old Dell computer, several baskets, decorative plates, and the gold-plated mirror.
By the end, Marcel had been going whole hog, and she’d just sat back as he exorcised some pretty serious demons.
It had been glorious.
He’dbeen glorious.
Sweat-damp hair sticking to his forehead, amber eyes gleaming, his damp T-shirt clinging to his muscles. Pru was right. He was beautiful.
Even more so with a hockey helmet, she thought, watching him carry the puck up the ice and hand it off on a really nice pass to Raph, who picked it up and drove toward the net. The guys got an excellent chance on goal that the other team’s goalie unfortunately stopped.
But more important, Marcel looked like himself.
“I don’t know what you did,” Luc murmured, using his clipboard to block his mouth, just in case the cameras were on them and someone got it in their mind to lip read. Which had been known to happen on occasion.
Seriously, though, that was why she loved Luc. He thought of those things and knew that with Marcel starting to relax a bit, his confidence coming back—tonight’s game play being a much-needed bolster to it—that the last thing he needed was some reporter asking a dumb question about why he needed appointments with a sports psychologist.
Hey dumbass, she always wanted to say when Luc or one of the players got a question about her role with the Breakers. They’re athletes, not robots. Which means they’re human, and human shit gets in the way. So, maybe they need to talk to someone to get their head straight every once in a while.
Or need a break before they’re ready to get on the ice.
Especially during a long season with eighty-two games in a physical, dangerous sport.
Oh, and maybe, just maybe, they might not always be mentally on their game.
But fans wanted results. Owners wanted to make money.
So there often wasn’t the space to take care of both sides of the athlete. But as far as Hazel was concerned, her job was as important as Tommy Franklin’s behind the bench.
Both mental and physical working together was key.
And seriously, she was so glad that Luc felt the same way.
“I don’t know what you did,” Luc repeated, “but damn, am I glad you did it.”
Marcel was off the ice, so she turned to her friend. “Just don’t question the line item in my budget for the rage room, and we’ll be all good.”
“Rage room?”
She grinned. “I bought him a punch card. He can drop into Rage whenever he wants to drown out those voices in his head.”
“I don’t know where you get these things,” he said, still holding the clipboard up, “but you’re seriously a miracle worker. First Oliver, now Marcel. I think we need to talk about upping your salary when your contract is up.”
She smiled, buffed her knuckles on her shoulder. “You said it, not me.”
There was a pause on the ice as the TV feed took a commercial break. Luc stood, a grin on his face, and tilted his head to the back of the suite, where they would be out of view of the cameras who might be filming for later.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“All the other sessions going well?” he asked. “The guys are being receptive and not too difficult?”
“My punching bag is getting a workout,” she admitted with a smile, “but it’s better than last season. The guys are more settled, as you know, since Shelby was traded.”
“I was worried with what happened with Oliver, that they’d regress.”
“They’re not.”
But since her boss had mentioned Oliver twice in as many minutes, she knew that she needed to bring up what she’d intended to discuss at his house on Wednesday. She shouldn’t have put it off in the first place, but the team had been traveling and then she’d been busy with sessions and Marcel and…Oliver. She’d been busy with Oliver.
“Oliver is doing great,” she murmured. “Truly.”
“He is doing great,” Luc said, “but that great is going to end at some point. It’s all going to hit him, and then he’s going to really struggle. He’s happier now that he’s seeing you, that’s for sure. But he’s not going to be great forever.”
“I’ve stopped seeing him as a patient.”
Luc blinked then disappointment slid across his face. “Hazel,” he murmured.
“I want you to remove that requirement from his contract.”
“I can’t do that.” Luc shook his head. “I know what it’s like, know how it feels to have the career ripped away from you, how gutting that can be, how much it can fuck with his life. I got a job with the team right afterward, but my head was fucked for too long.” Another shake. “I don’t want Oliver to fuck around for a decade, struggling when he can talk to someone.”
She squeezed his shoulder. “The part you’re missing is that talking to someone has to be a choice.”
Luc frowned. “Has he been blocking you?”
“No,” she said, “if anything, he’s been more honest and open than I ever could have expected. He doesn’t need me in that way. He’s in a good place, Luc, I promise you that.”
“And what if he gets to a not good place?” Luc asked, worry on his face. “I don’t want him there.”
“You care about him,” she said. “That’s a good thing. But all we can do is give him a referral to someone who specializes in this kind of trauma—which is not me, and I’m sorry I promised to take him on. This is over my pay grade, and I can’t help him.” She sighed and admitted the other thing that she needed to tell her boss.
Because if he had an issue with it, she’d…
Something.
Figure out a way to deal, a way to make it work.
Because Oliver was too damned important for it not to.
“I can’t help him as a therapist,” she said and held Luc’s eyes, “because I’m seeing him. As a woman,” she added when Luc’s brows slid together.
It took a second for him to process, probably because despite the naps she and Oliver had arranged for him and Lexi, her boss still had dark, dark circles under his eyes.
“You’re seeing Oliver.” A beat. “As a woman.”
“Yes.” She smiled. “According to him, we’ve been on eight dates.” Eight because the previous night she’d gone over to his place, watched a movie in his bed (with popcorn), they’d fooled around (and let her just say that the man seriously liked her oral skills—not that his were too shabby), and then he’d given her a toothbrush, plugged a charger in for her phone, and had held her all night while she slept.
Glorious.
And easier for him, since he had crutches at his place and a seat in his shower, which made navigating getting ready in the morning a lot smoother.
Not super fun to have to put on a prosthesis for a middle-of-the-night bathroom trip.
Or to skip a shower together because there wasn’t room for him to sit in hers.
So his place. And it had been quiet and easy and it was nice to do nothing after she’d spent the night before dragging him around the aisles of Target, teasing him about boho chic, but really just adding some pops of color to make that gray on gray (and it must be said, gray) space look a little homier.
Because he’d asked her to help him make it that way.
He’d asked. Her.
The trust made her heart full and filled her tummy with all the butterflies and just…God, was it possible to be this happy? She felt like she was constantly floating, always smiling, uncertain why Oliver had chosen her of all people to open up to, but damned glad he had.
No.
She knew why he’d picked her.
The same reason she hadn’t been able to keep him as a client. She couldn’t separate herself from him in the way she needed to in order to keep things strictly professional. Quite simply, he called to her, and she had to answer.
“Eight dates?” Luc asked, his brows so high she was surprised they didn’t disappear into his hairline.
“Well, according to Oliver, we’ve had eight.” She smiled. “By my tally, we haven’t even had one yet. Mostly because he keeps promising me romance in the form of flowers, dinner, and candlelight, and then we end up doing things like going to Target, Rage, and cuddling in his bed watching penguin documentaries.”
Luc grinned. “Sounds like he has his priorities straight.” He tugged a lock of her hair. “When are you doing romance?”
“Tomorrow night. Supposedly.”
His grin widened.
“You’re not mad?” she asked. “Or disappointed? Or worried about coworkers co-mingling?”
Humor on his pretty face. “Not mad. It’s your life, Haze. Definitely not disappointed that two people I care about have realized that they care about each other, and they’re each making the other smile in a way I haven’t seen either of them smile in far too long.” An arm around her shoulders, a squeeze. “And worried about coworkers co-mingling? That would be a bit hypocritical considering I married the Breakers’ general counsel.”
That was a good point.
She smiled at him. “Good.”
He nudged her shoulder. “Good.”
“And you’ll take off the therapy requirement for Oliver?”
A nod. “I trust you. If that’s what you think is best, then I’ll take it off.” He dropped his arm as play resumed on the ice. “But I will be watching closely.”
Of course, he would. Because he was a good guy.
“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
She trailed him back to their seats.
“Haze?” he asked, just as the puck dropped.
“Yeah?”
“I’m happy for you.” Another bump of his shoulder against hers. “Truly, I am.”
Shewashappy. It was an effervescent feeling that bubbled through her tummy, through her veins, danced along her nerve endings and out her fingertips.
Yeah, she didn’t think she’d ever been happier.
Not with Trevor.
Not before.
This was all Oliver.
