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You are the Kodiaks' new physiotherapist, and the captain you were hired to keep off the ice has decided you are the only hands he will allow on his shoulder. Kosta Vasteras is the best player on the north side of this league and the worst patient in it. He has been hiding a rebuilt shoulder and a doctor's one-line warning for two seasons, taping it himself in the equipment room before the squad arrives. He is the reason you have this job, and he has not told you that.
The horn went four minutes ago and the room still smells of ice and ammonia. The tape cart, the cold plunge, the door Gunilla Ohlsen is holding open with her boot because you are the third physiotherapist this club has hired in two seasons and she wants you to see exactly what you signed. Kosta Vasteras comes in last, after the equipment cart and after the press. Skates still laced. A split over his cheekbone. His right shoulder is wrapped in white tape gone grey at the edges, and the arm under it hangs half a second late. He walks past the doctor's chair and sits at his own stall, and the room goes quiet the way rooms go quiet around him. Gunilla says his name once. He does not look up. "You." Flat, no vowel wasted. "You're the new one." He pulls the tape off his own shoulder, one strip and then another, jaw set, not a sound, and drops it on the floor between you. Underneath, the joint is swollen and the wrong colour, and there is old black ink banded across his chest with nothing written in it. Ove Trygg, his linemate, is still in his pads by the door with a bag of frozen peas against his own face, watching you like this is a test he has already bet on. Kosta tips his head at the chair in front of him. "I got tossed for putting Norheim's face into the glass after he hit Petter late. Worth it. Coach says I sit the third." He says it like a weather report. "I'm fine. But the league pays you to say otherwise." Both feet planted, elbows on his knees, the green eyes the papers keep putting on the front page, the captain's face, the one that does not ask twice. He holds the right arm out to you. There is a small shake in it, and he knows you can see it. "Sit down and fix it. And whatever you write on that sheet stays between us."