Page 13 of Tape to Tape
“Marchetti.”
He holds up both hands, still grinning. “Kidding. Mostly. I hear what you’re saying.”
“I need you to actually hear it. Not charm your way past it.”
The grin fades. Not all the way, but enough that I can see him recalibrate. He looks at me and for half a second I see the guy underneath. Serious. Paying attention.
I square the folder on my desk. “Gary Miller brought me in. He put his name on the line for me. This is my first position at this level and I got it because someone believed I was worth the bet. I’m not going to prove him wrong.”
He’s quiet. First time since he walked through my door.
“So that’s it?”
“That’s it. I treat your shoulder. Trainer and player.”
He stands. Rolls the shoulder once, testing it, and I can’t tell if it’s habit or if he’s underlining the word I just used.
“Okay, Brooks.” His eyes hold mine for a beat longer than necessary. A look that says he heard me and he’s respecting the line. Then the grin comes back and he walks out humming whatever he was humming on his way in.
I straighten the treatment table. Wipe it down. Across the hall, Tyler is talking Jensen through a mobility drill, his voice carrying through my open door.
I sit down and open Marchetti’s chart. I work through the protocol, the calendar, aligning his treatment schedule with road trips and game days. Every field in the form has a blank and every blank has an answer I can measure. Three sessions a week, in this room, and try to imagine just how long this season is going to be.
Chapter 4 — TEO
December
The song Brooks sent last night’s been stuck in my head since breakfast and I can’t tell if he sent it because he thought I’d like it or because he knew what it’d do to me. It played through the lobby. It’s playing now as I walk the long hallway toward the treatment room with my bag over my right shoulder, which I still do even when I don’t need to.
The building’s quiet. Most of the guys are already on the ice. Strings of Christmas lights have appeared over the equipment cage, hung by someone who doesn’t care about symmetry, and the lack of symmetry is a feature, now. My love of this facility is irrational and total. Three months in, I’ll defend this place to the death.
Christmas is in five days. My flight out is tomorrow. Nonna’s already texted me a list of things she’s going to make when I land, in a specific order, and I’ll eat all of it. When I’m done, she’ll make me eat more of it and I’ll let her and then have someone wheel me out of her house.
I’m still humming the chorus of that song without meaning to when I turn the corner, and that’s when I hear Brooks laugh.
Not the professional courtesy one. An actual laugh, full throat, the one he uses with the team and then kills the second I walk in. The door’s open and I can see the edge of Brooks’s shoulder angled toward the table. Thompson props himself up on his elbows, saying whatever he says, and Brooks laughs at it. I stop in the hallway with my hand on the wall because I want to hear him do it again.
He doesn’t. But the echo of it’s still in the air when Thompson swings his legs off the table and I come around the corner like I haven’t been standing there listening like a creeper to Brooks’ laugh.
Thompson comes out, bag on his good side.
“Thommo.”
“Marchetti.”
“How’d it go in there?”
“Groin.” He doesn’t slow down. “Don’t die in Jersey while you’re home. Merry whatever.”
“Wait, wait. Where you flying?”
“Orlando. Bass tournament Saturday.”
“Thommo. You got a bass tournament with a groin strain?”
“I’m sitting in a boat.”
“My cousin Tony threw his back out landing a tuna off Long Branch. Hospital, Vicodin, the whole thing. He was in a chair.”
