My brother is home this afternoon, so I do myself a favor and run a bath so I can manage the heat-therapy shit. Stevie left me a short list of things to do today, among which are to take another epsom salts bath, alternate with cold compresses, and keep a detailed record of the exercises I do with my team physiotherapist.

I try to get into the tub on my own, but I can’t do it without causing myself more pain, so I get Nolan to help me. He won’t shut up about how crappy it must be to have a hot chick all over my jock when getting hard feels like someone is stabbing me in the balls with a fiery poker.

The highlight of my shit day occurs when Stevie shows up at my door at seven. She’s holding a piece of the pizza I brought her yesterday in one hand and a rolled-up yoga mat in the other hand. Today she’s wearing a pair of athletic shorts and a tank top. It’s a lot of skin on display. Tanned skin wrapped around toned muscles. She clearly works hard to stay in shape, which I can appreciate, because I have to do the same thing.

She looks me over with pursed lips. “I see we’re out of clothes again.”

“I get hot.”

“I’m sure you do, Billboard Balls.” She flips her hair over her shoulder—it’s now pale blue—as she slips by me.

“What did you call me?”

“It’s what me and the girls call you at work.”

“You talk about me at work?”

“I talk about what an asshole you are, so don’t let that inflate your ego.” She shoots me a look. “Did you take an epsom salts bath and use ice therapy this afternoon like I told you to?”

“Yeah.”

“Great. Now give me a rundown of what you did with your team therapist today. I’m assuming you saw him? Her?” She drops down on my couch and stretches her legs out. Her feet are bare, toenails painted the same shade as her hair.

“Him, and go right ahead and make yourself at home,” I grumble.

She gives me a syrupy smile. “Watch the ’tude, dude, unless you want today’s session to suck more than a sex worker on Saturday night.”

I lower myself into one of the recliners. “Mostly he poked at my legs and did range-of-motion exercises until I was at risk of vomiting.”

She makes a face. “Can you not talk about throwing up while I’m eating?”

“You asked.”

“Not for references to regurgitated food.”

Dicken jumps up on the edge of the couch and headbutts her. Then he jumps onto the cushion beside her, making his broken-squeaky-toy sounds and getting all up in her face, sniffing her pizza. She gives him a scratch under the chin, but he doesn’t stick around. Instead, he jumps off the couch and trots over to his dish to check out the contents.

She pokes at my brother’s insulin kit sitting on the coffee table, her expression shifting to concern. “Are you a diabetic?”

“No, my brother is.” I wish he’d put that stuff away, but it’s always lying somewhere: coffee table, kitchen counter, bathroom. I ended up getting him a spare, which I keep in my medicine cabinet on the not-so-off chance that he can’t find his.

“Type one or two?”

“One.” I don’t love talking about my brother’s health issues, mostly because they seem to stress me out more than they do him.

“Is that why he doesn’t have a license?” Stevie picks an olive off her pizza and pops it in her mouth.

“Pretty much, yeah.” He had a license, but he’s had too many visits to the hospital in the past year for unregulated insulin issues, and they took it away. He has to be clear for a year before he gets it back. His vision isn’t great, either, which is another strike against him.

“That happened to my dad too.”

“Your dad’s a diabetic?”

“Was. He passed away from complications a while back.”

“Shit. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. Me too.” She stuffs the last of her pizza slice into her mouth.

I want to ask her more questions, like what kind of complications and what happened for him to lose his license, but she bounces up off the couch like she has springs in her ass and plasters on a huge, very fake smile. “Enough about that. Let’s get this party started.” She gives me her back as she rolls out the yoga mat.

I stare at her ass and ponder the layers of her personality. She’s sarcastic and bitchy, she’s sweet and helpful, but I think she’s also got some broken pieces she tries to hide behind all the other parts. She’s the younger sister of an NHL player, her dad passed away, and she’s living in her brother’s unused penthouse for reasons I’m unsure of, other than it’s rent-free.

“All right, grumpy pants, let’s see how stiff you are today.”

Lying down on the floor isn’t easy, and Stevie promises to bring her portable massage table tomorrow. She starts off the same way the team physiotherapist did this morning, checking to see how far I can raise and bend my legs and at what point the pain goes from a dull ache to a vicious throb.

It’s pretty miserable, but even though she’s causing me pain, I don’t absolutely hate having her hands on me.

The range-of-motion shit feels horrible, as do the stretches, but it’s nothing compared to when she starts palpating the muscles around the injury site, checking for tightness. She’s good at finding the worst spots and working on them until they loosen up, but I’m tense, and every touch sends violent pain shooting through my groin.