Chapter 9 - First Day

When Mia slides back into her seat, Ellie is already there. And a broad-shouldered man in his forties sits beside her.

"Ben, this is my roommate Mia," Ellie announces, squeezing Mia's arm. "Brilliant. Medical student. From Italy. Basically a genius. Please take care of her whenever she comes in."

Mia considers sliding under the table.

Ben laughs and waves off the formality. "Any friend of Ellie's drinks free tonight. Welcome to The Blade, Mia."

“Thank you and really nice to meet you, Ben—”

Suddenly, Mia noticed the energy in the VIP lounge hitting a fever pitch, a chaotic blur of rowdy cheers and the deafening pulse of the music.

Ellie followed her gaze and smirked.

"See? Our hockey gods don't do anything half-hearted, especially not partying. Don't worry, though; most of them are relatively house-trained. Well, except for a select few who treat the club like their personal hunting ground."

Ellie leans in after Ben excuses himself. "Elias has old money, by the way. Like, old old. The Weston family practically built half of Quebec."

"Mm," Mia says, which is a sound that means nothing.

She does not think about the corridor. She does not think about warm hands on bare skin, or a thumb tracing her lower lip, or a heartbeat that wasn't as steady as it looked.

She does not think about any of that.

"By the way, Professor Williams has updates for you tomorrow," Ellie adds, and Mia is genuinely, pathetically grateful for the subject change.

By midnight, the bar is at full volume.

Since Ellie gets pulled back to work by a wave of the crowd, Mia texts her a quiet goodbye, and slips out into the cool Toronto night.

In the VIP section, Elias watches the booth where she'd been sitting. Empty now. He reaches for his glass and finds it already drained.

He should have asked for her number two encounters ago.

He's not a man who hesitates on things he's decided, which means he's going to have to make a point of it next time.

He flags the server without looking away from the empty booth.

There will be a next time.

***

The next Morning.

Mia stands outside the Raiders Medical Center, fingers tightening on the strap of her kit bag.

Professor Williams was held up. She's meeting someone named Dr. Anderson instead.

She pushes through the door.

"You must be Mia!" A woman with a high ponytail looks up from behind a reception desk, already smiling. "I'm Lisa. Admin assistant. Dr. Anderson's on his way—come on, I'll get you started on the paperwork."

"You picked a great day to start, by the way. Home game tonight—Toronto Raiders vs Montreal Rebellion. One of the biggest matchups of the season."

Mia's pen pauses on the form. "Tonight? I'd be working tonight?"

"First day, first game." Lisa slides her a staff badge. "Dr. Anderson said you're straight into the deep end. Welcome to professional hockey."

As Mia, completely in a daze, followed Dr. Anderson through the dimly lit player tunnel, the low rumble from within the rink had already begun to seep through the concrete walls.

"Injury rate in this league sits at seventy-nine percent," he says, not looking up from his clipboard. "Centers take the worst of it—offensive and defensive pressure every shift, multiple high-impact collisions per game."

He glances at her. "That's who you'll be focused on."

They pass a row of player posters lining the hallway. Mia's eyes move across them without stopping—until they do stop.

Elias Weston, mid-shot, visor up, gray-blue eyes sharp and utterly predatory behind the cage of his helmet. The poster is larger than the others.

"Especially him," Anderson says, following her gaze.

His voice shifts, takes on a complicated edge. "Best center in the league right now. Also the most difficult patient we've had in ten years."

He exhales. "Shoulder injury from last playoffs, never properly treated, keeps recurring. There were...additional complications that made it worse. I'll brief you fully later."

He pauses just long enough for Mia to wonder what additional complications means. Then he moves on.

"Standard therapy hasn't held. We're hoping your approach brings something different." He looks at her directly. "He's your primary assignment, Mia."

She absorbs this.

Of course it's him.

The crowd noise swells as they reach the rink level, and whatever she was about to feel, she folds it neatly and sets it aside.

Twenty thousand people and every one of them loud.

"Nervous?" Anderson asks.

"Just adjusting," she says.

Then the Raiders take the ice.

Mia doesn't mean to find him immediately, but she does—number 36, moving through the warmup with a fluid, coiled efficiency that looks different out here than it did at the showcase, different than it did in a bar corridor.

On the ice he's completely in his element, every movement calibrated and certain, his skates carving arcs that make the crowd react before he's even done anything.

This is who he is.

Everything else—the bar, the corridor, the gray-blue eyes in dim lighting—that's the version the world doesn't get to see.

She realizes she's been staring and looks down at her kit.

***

The game opens fast.

Montreal Rebellion comes in physical, and the Raiders match them immediately.

Elias is everywhere—breaking through defensive lines, threading passes that shouldn't be possible, the kind of player who makes the arena hold its breath when he has the puck.

Within five minutes he's scored, a breakaway so clean it earns him a standing ovation, and Mia is on her feet before she registers she's moved.

She sits back down. Reorganizes her medical kit with great focus.

In the celebration cluster at center ice, Elias pulls his visor up and sweeps the arena automatically—and stops when he reaches the medical bench.

His gaze finds her in under two seconds, like he already knew where to look.

Mia doesn't look away fast enough.

He holds it for one beat, unreadable, then gets pulled back into the huddle by Lucas's arm around his neck.

The second period runs harder.

Montreal Rebellion targets Elias, and midway through, their number 14 catches him deliberately with an elbow—right shoulder, direct impact.

Elias goes into the boards. Gets up slower than he should.

Mia is already reading him before Anderson speaks.

The right shoulder drops a fraction, the way it compensates. The range of motion on his next stick-handling sequence is subtly reduced.

"Should we bring him off?" Anderson reaches for the bag.

"He won't come," Mia says. She doesn't know how she's so certain. Anderson gives her a look, then nods slowly.

She's right.

Elias rolls the shoulder once, resets his grip, and skates straight back into play.

The score ties at three all.

The final two minutes stretch into something airless and electric, twenty thousand people collectively forgetting to breathe.

Then Elias pulls a stop-and-go that fakes out three defenders simultaneously—the blades throw up a white spray of ice—and buries the puck in the top corner so precisely it barely makes a sound going in.

"GOOOOOOAL!!!"

The arena detonates.

Mia is standing again. She doesn't remember standing.

Elias is buried at the bottom of the pile, a chaotic mountain of sweaty jerseys and raw adrenaline as his teammates swarm him in a victory huddle.

When he finally fights his way back to his feet, shaking off the crushing weight of the celebration, Mia's medical instincts flare with a sharp, professional sting.

His right shoulder is already beginning to puff, the swelling visible even through the heavy armor of his gear—it looks angry, tight, and unmistakably injured.

Anderson called him difficult.

Is this what he meant? That the man is a walking medical disaster waiting to happen?

It couldn't be his personality...

She still can't quite bring herself to believe the dire warnings.

From her brief interactions, the Raiders seem like a high-spirited, welcoming crew.

Of course...then there's the Elias-sized exception. The man is an absolute force of nature, a tidal wave of charisma and sheer, unadulterated intensity that leaves her breathless every time he's within a ten-foot radius.

But she has a mission, and she isn't about to let a little bit of "intensity" derail her career.

She's here to mend broken bodies, restore peak performance, and keep their season alive.

She just has to do her job and ignore the way the air turns electric whenever he looks her way.

Right.