Page 23 of Offside

"Half an inch down." I kept my shoulders level for him.

He adjusted, and the knot fired pain across my upper back.

"There," I groaned. "Hold that spot."

Bishop set his other thumb beside the first. His hands were much larger than mine. He could brace the shoulder with the heel of one hand and hold the pressure with the other without forcing the joint forward.

"Too much?" His pressure stayed steady while he waited.

"No. Hold it." I counted because that gave the sensation a boundary. One. The muscle tightened against him. Two. Three. His breathing stayed even behind me. He didn't dig harder when the knot refused to release. He waited.

Four. Five. Six.

I knew those hands. I'd watched them close around sticks and water bottles, seen the tape around his wrists and the small cuts across his knuckles. On the ice, they so often directed bodies by force.

Here, they did exactly the opposite. Seven. Eight. The muscle began to give. Nine. Ten. My head lowered before I could stop it. The relief moved down my back and left heat in its place.

Eleven. Bishop's thumbs remained steady. Twelve.

My phone rang on the training-room counter.

His hands came off me at once; cold air reached the place they'd been. Neither of us moved toward the phone. It rang again.

The screen lit the dark training-room doorway. A Denver number I hadn't saved, but I recognized it.

Karin.

The call ended before I reached it. No voicemail appeared.

When I turned back, Bishop had stepped to the other side of the corridor. He wasn't apologizing. He wasn't pretending, either.

"Better?" he asked.

I rolled the shoulder once. The knot had loosened. "Yes. You found it quickly." I struggled to find my voice.

"You've spent long enough showing me where people hold tension."

He'd touched me as himself. I'd allowed it—as myself.

Bishop picked up his keys from the equipment cart where he'd set them. "Good night, Pryce. See you tomorrow." He left through the players' door.

I stood alone in the corridor and put my left hand over the place his thumbs had been. The knot was gone.

The problem wasn't.

9

Bishop

Nashville went on the power play with one minute forty-two left and the score three-two. Hayes sat in the box for hooking. He'd stopped a clean look from the slot and bought us two minutes we didn't have to enjoy.

Reeves sent Luca, Eriksson, Garrett, and me over the boards. "Middle first," Garrett said as we took the draw.

Nashville had six skaters on the ice with their goalie pulled. Two men at the points, three across the middle, one below the goal line. They wanted our box to turn toward the puck until a seam opened behind it.

Luca lost the draw. Their right defenseman caught it at the blue line and moved it across before Eriksson could close. I tracked the forward at the side of the net. His stick stayed flat behind my skates, waiting for the pass through the crease.

The point shot never came. Their defenseman sent the puck down the wall instead, and I got my stick into the lane and deflected it behind the net.