Sidelined

POV: Sienna

Wyatt Keller groaned into the vinyl face cradle of the treatment table, letting out a heavy, guttural sound that rattled against the linoleum floor.

He was not in pain. Wyatt made those theatrical noises every single time I dug an elbow into his upper back, convinced that sports therapy was merely an aggressive Swedish massage funded by the Denver Dragons. He had zero shame about it.

"Right there," Wyatt grunted, his voice muffled by the paper sheet. "Do not stop. Oh fuck yeah."

I did not ease the pressure. I kept my face blank and leaned my weight forward, grinding my thumb into the stubborn knot tucked beneath his left shoulder blade.

This closet had become my entire career.

Three weeks ago, I ran the physical therapy department for the best hockey franchise in the state. I commanded the main training floor, managed a full staff, and dictated the recovery protocols for the starting roster. Then Coach Rostov pulled me into his glass-walled office on a Tuesday morning. He had spoken with the measured, delicate tone of a man handling live explosives, explaining that given the recent locker room incident, it would serve everyone best if I stepped away from the primary squad.

Rostov had never spoken Landon’s name aloud. He did not have to.

Someone had caught Landon and me together in the locker room three weeks back, close enough to trigger an immediate disciplinary mess. Someone had gone straight to Rostov. Instead of handing down a formal league investigation that would bench their star forward, management quietly sidelined me.

Now I worked out of the storage annex at the far end of the corridor. The staff called it the cupboard because that was what it had been before someone shoved an adjustable table and a cart of ultrasound gel between the spare towel racks. My daily caseload had shrunk to Wyatt Keller, a twenty-four-year-old right wing who treated every rehab session like an afternoon at a luxury resort.

Wyatt shifted his broad shoulders against the table. "You are quiet today."

"I am working," I said.

"No, you are brooding," Wyatt countered, turning his head sideways on the vinyl cushion. "Usually you lecture me. You do that stiff routine about how my trapezius is overcompensating and how I need to stop leading with my right shoulder."

"Your trapezius is still overcompensating."

"See? That is what I missed." He chuckled, settling his forehead back down. "Did you and Landon get into a fight?"

My thumbs froze for a fraction of a second before muscle memory took over. "Why would you ask that?"

"Because he has been a prick all week," Wyatt said plainly. "Biting everyone's head off during morning skate. Rostov pulled him off the ice yesterday to chew him out, and Landon looked ready to throw hands. The guy is wound tight. Plus, you got banished to the cupboard instead of running the floor, so I figured trouble was brewing in paradise."

"This is my assignment, Wyatt."

"Right, sure." Wyatt let out a dismissive snort. "Whatever you say, Sisi. But Landon hired an outside physio. Did you know that?"

The room seemed to drop three degrees. I paused my hands over his spine. "What did you say?"

"Private sessions," Wyatt muttered, oblivious to the stillness in the room. "Started a few weeks back. I saw the calendar updates on the board in the coaches' lounge. I guess it makes sense. Dating your lead physio probably causes too many headaches with the front office. Conflict of interest, right?"

I forced my hands back into motion, smoothing over the tight muscle band with a measured rhythm. "Who is treating him?"

"Some external therapist from down south. Not one of our team staff," Wyatt said, letting out a long yawn. "Must be miracle work, though. Landon disappears for sessions with her every other day."

Every other day.

The words echoed in my ears, and three weeks of small inconsistencies suddenly lined up with sickening accuracy. Landon coming home two hours after practice wrapped. Landon smelling like unfamiliar eucalyptus body wash when he walked through our apartment door, claiming the rink showers had been backed up. Landon keeping his phone face-down on the counter, angling the screen away the instant I entered the living room.

I had written it all off as lingering stress from the locker room fallout. I had told myself my mind was playing tricks on me because of the demotion.

"What is her name?" I asked, keeping my tone light and indifferent.

Wyatt thought about it for a second. "Paige. Paige something. Why, do you know her?"

The breath caught in my throat. "No. I do not."

"Must be good," Wyatt murmured, drifting into comfortable silence. "Landon does not trust anyone with his groin strain."

I spent the final ten minutes of the session moving through the motions. I stretched Wyatt’s hamstrings, packed away the resistance bands, and handed him a cold bottle of water. He thanked me, pulled his practice jersey over his head, and shuffled out into the hall toward the team lounge.

The moment the door clicked shut behind him, the fake composure drained out of me.

I stripped the paper from the treatment table, threw it into the bin, and stripped off my latex gloves. My hands shook so hard I could barely grasp the handle of my supply cart. Wyatt’s words kept circling through my thoughts, louder with every breath. Private sessions. Every other day. Paige.

Treatment Room Four sat at the opposite end of the hallway, isolated behind the heavy fire doors of the secondary medical wing. It was an older room, rarely booked unless an outside specialist came in to handle specific post-op rehabilitation.

I left the cupboard and walked down the quiet corridor. The distant clatter of pucks hitting the rink boards echoed through the concrete walls, but down here, the air was dead and cool. I told myself I was being paranoid. I told myself Landon was simply getting dry needling done on his hip flexor by an independent contractor. I told myself I would open the door, apologize for interrupting a medical appointment, and feel foolish for ever doubting him.

I reached Treatment Room Four.

The door was closed, but the latch had not caught; a thin crack of yellow light sliced across the floor. Low music seeped through the gap, an R&B track humming from a phone speaker inside.

I reached out, pressed my palm against the cool brass handle, and pushed the door open.

The scene burned into my retinas before my mind could assemble the pieces.

The treatment table had been shoved against the far wall. A woman with long dark hair sat on the edge of the vinyl, her back propped against the elevated backrest, her practice leggings stripped down past her knees. Her thighs were spread wide, bare and glistening under the harsh fluorescent tubes.

Landon was on his knees between her legs.

His broad back blocked the center of the frame, his team hoodie bunched at his shoulders. His head was buried directly between her thighs, his tongue working against her wet folds while she gripped his blond hair in both fists. Landon was eating her pussy with a ravenous, desperate hunger, groaning against her skin as he drove his face deeper into her crotch.

"Oh yeah, fuck," the woman whimpered, her hips rolling up off the vinyl to meet his mouth. "Eat me hard."

Landon did not hesitate. He buried his mouth deeper, his hands gripping her bare buttocks to yank her down against his face.

The breath tore out of my chest in a strangled gasp. "Oh my God."

Landon froze.

His head snapped up, his mouth slick and wet, his eyes wide and disoriented.

The dark-haired woman gasped, yanking her knees together as she looked toward the open doorway. Terror flooded her face the second she saw me standing there. She scrambled backward across the table, knocking over a bottle of massage oil that hit the linoleum with a dull thud. Without uttering a single syllable, she yanked her leggings up over her hips, snatched her canvas bag from the rolling stool, and bolted toward the exit.

She shoved past my shoulder, ducking her head, and sprinted down the empty hallway.

The heavy latch clicked shut behind her, leaving the two of us locked inside the suffocating space. The phone on the metal counter continued to play its slow, indifferent rhythm.

Landon stayed on his knees for a beat, wiping the back of his hand across his glistening lips.

A terrible, hollow silence spread through my chest, freezing every nerve ending until I could barely feel my feet against the floor. I had spent two years sharing a bed with this man. I had made his meals, taped his wrists before every home game, and held his head against my chest when he tore his meniscus last winter. Just this morning, he had poured my coffee at our kitchen island and kissed my cheek before leaving for the facility.

"Sienna," he began, his voice rough.

"Do not," I cut him off, my voice steady despite the tremor in my chest. "Do not say a word."

He looked away, staring down at the spot on the floor where the woman’s clothes had been lying seconds earlier.

"How long?" I asked.

Landon kept his eyes on the floor. "It does not matter."

"How long, Landon?"

"Two months," he muttered.

The number struck me like a physical blow. Two months. For eight weeks, Landon had looked me in the eye and told me I was losing my mind. He had held my hands on our sofa and told me my work stress was making me paranoid, that I was imagining distance where none existed, that my anxiety was driving a wedge between us.

My lungs burned as the shock turned into pure, blistering rage. "Two months. You sat in our apartment and watched me cry, and you told me I was crazy."

Landon remained silent, rising slowly from the floor.

"You are going to pay for this," I said, step by step closing the distance between us. "I am walking straight upstairs to Coach Rostov's office. I am telling him every single thing that happened in this room. You violated team conduct on facility grounds. You will be suspended, Landon. I do not care if it burns my own career down with you. You are done."

Landon stood at his full height, towering over me.

His face showed no panic. There was no guilt, no remorse, no flicker of shame in his pale blue eyes. Instead, a chilling, calculated pity washed over his features, settling into a look that made my stomach turn completely over.

"You are not going to Rostov," Landon said calmly.

"Watch me," I spat. "I will tell every board member, every player, and every trainer in this complex what kind of pathetic coward you are."

"Sienna," he said, his voice dropping into a flat, steady warning. "Shut up and listen to me."

"Do not tell me to shut up—"

Landon reached out, grabbed his phone off the metal counter, and tapped the screen to kill the music. The silence that filled the room was suffocating.

"I have a press conference scheduled for seven o'clock tonight," Landon said, resting his thumbs on the edge of the device. "The local media will be there. The regional sports networks will be there. I spent the last three days speaking with a national investigative journalist, and her piece is already formatted and ready to go live. All she needs from me is a final green light."

I stopped breathing. The air left my lungs in an icy rush.

Landon stepped forward until he was standing inches from my face, his gaze hard and merciless. "You open your mouth about Paige, and I make that phone call. By tomorrow morning, the entire world will know your darkest secret. Your career will not just be sidelined, Sienna. You will be completely ruined."

The blood drained from my face. My knees trembled under the weight of his words.

"You would not," I whispered, the words trembling on my lips. "You could not do that to me."

Landon held my gaze without blinking. In his eyes, I saw no trace of the partner who had loved me, only the cold, unyielding strategy of a predator who had planned every single move weeks before I ever suspected the board.

"I hold the match, Sienna," he said quietly, his lips curving into a ruthless, hollow smile. "Do not make me burn you to the ground. The choice is yours."

He tucked his phone into his hoodie pocket, brushed past my shoulder, and left the room, the lock clicking into place behind him. I stood frozen in the cold light of the room, realizing with horrifying certainty that I had already lost.