Page 170 of Rookie Rules

Finn caught him ten minutes later beside the stick rack, retaping a knob that did not need tape.

"You are murdering that stick," Finn said.

Rowan tore the tape with his teeth. "I need you to do something."

Finn waited without offering a joke.

"If I start closing off the line because something is wrong away from the rink, tell Vale. Do not cover for me."

"Something or someone?"

Rowan pressed the loose edge flat. "Someone. I hurt him."

Finn's eyes flicked toward the room, then back. "Does he need me to know?"

"No."

"Then I don't. What do you need?"

The honest answer scraped on the way out. "A friend who will stop me when I make fear everybody else's problem."

Finn took the stick, checked the tape job, and handed it back. "I can do that. You may hate the delivery."

"Likely."

Neither action guaranteed Luca would return. That had been the point. Rowan made the changes, went to warmup, and expected to live with the result.

Dr. Priya Shah reviewed the images with him an hour later in the medical office at Wolf Den Arena. Owen stood beside the desk with a rehabilitation calendar already open.

"Moderate grade two strain of the right adductor longus," Priya said. "No fracture. No full tendon avulsion. That is the good news."

"The other news?"

"You are out. Likely two to four weeks, but the calendar does not clear you. Strength, pain-free range, skating progression, and functional testing clear you."

Rowan studied the pale disruption in the muscle on screen. A small area. A complete rearrangement of his life.

"Two weeks," he said.

Owen made a note. "I have recorded that the patient enjoys fiction."

Priya continued as if neither had spoken. "Protected weight bearing until you can walk without compensation. Early range within tolerance. No aggressive stretching. No skating because you decide missing it feels emotionally significant."

"When can I start upper body?"

"Today, seated, if Owen supervises."

"Video?"

"Video is not a body part."

"He can do video," Owen translated.

Rowan nodded. Instructions settled into categories: allowed, prohibited, conditional. Normally structure calmed him.

This time every category exposed the absence beyond it. He could attend meetings. He could advise. He could rehabilitate. None answered what happened when leadership continued without his body at the center of it.

Priya closed the scan. "Questions?"