Chapter 174: [174] "Resting"
"How dare she?"
Juliette pointed a manicured finger at the screen of the television mounted on the living room wall. "She literally told him she was looking for a genuine connection yesterday. And now she is pulling the new guy for a chat on the terrace while her original partner is making her a coffee. That is textbook emotional manipulation."
Luc Beaumont leaned his head back against the plush fabric of the sofa, taking a slow sip from his ceramic mug.
"She’s just exploiting options, Jules," Luc said, his voice entirely deadpan. "The original guy got comfortable. She saw that and made a choice. It’s just good tactics."
Juliette turned her head to glare at him, her green eyes narrowing. She was wearing a pair of his oversized grey sweatpants and a simple black tank top, her dark hair was piled loosely on top of her head secured by a claw clip.
"Do not over-analyze my Love Island for me," she scolded, though the corner of her mouth twitched with a suppressed smile.
"I’m just saying," Luc defended himself, gesturing vaguely with his free hand. "If you don’t track the relationship properly, you concede. He brought this on himself."
Juliette rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the screen, but her hands didn’t stop moving.
Luc’s right leg was stretched out across the sofa, resting heavily across her lap. His knee was encased in a thick compression sleeve that pumped a steady circulation of ice water around the joint. Beneath the high-grade medical fabric, the grade-two contusion he was diagnosed with throbbed.
Every few minutes, Juliette would slip her fingers just beneath the edge of the cooling pad, checking the temperature of his skin and assessing the swelling with the unconscious habit of a seasoned physiotherapist...which she was.
It was a Tuesday. Juliette taking a Tuesday off was essentially an anomaly in the fabric of reality. Since her promotion to the head of league-wide medical affairs, her schedule had been a relentless grinder of board meetings, facility inspections, and arguing... lot’s and lot’s of it.
But the moment Khalil had launched his cleats into Luc’s knee on Sunday, she had cleared her calendar.
She wasn’t here in her official capacity. She was here to make sure Luc didn’t do something stupid.
"Does it hurt when I press here?" she asked, her thumb applying a very firm pressure just below the kneecap.
Luc hissed, his grip tightening on the handle of his mug. "Yes. It feels like someone is driving a nail into the bone."
"Good," Juliette said calmly, easing the pressure but keeping her hand resting warmly on his lower thigh. "Pain means the nerve endings aren’t suppressed by internal bleeding. The swelling is actually down from yesterday. The ice compression is doing its job."
"So, I can jog lightly tomorrow?" Luc asked, pushing his luck.
Juliette didn’t even look away from the television. "If you put your body weight on that joint before Friday, I might just hit your other knee with a hammer so they match. Zero impact means zero impact, Luc."
He let out a long, frustrated exhale, sinking deeper into the cushions.
The apartment was quiet, well except for the manufactured drama of the reality show playing through the surround sound speakers. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, a steady rain was slicking the city streets. It was the perfect environment for a mandated rest day, perfect weather for two, but Luc’s nervous system was struggling to accept the downtime.
He hadn’t missed a meaningful fixture since he first stepped onto the grass for Sporting Club Valois. The idea of the squad traveling for the Cup Quarter-Final tomorrow without him gnawed at him deeply.
"They’ll be fine, you know," Juliette said softly. She didn’t need to look at him to know exactly what was running through his head. She knew his silences even better.
"It’s a knockout round," Luc muttered. "Anything can happen in Cup fixtures. If we can’t find a breakthrough, we go to penalties."
"Did you watch the second half on Sunday after you were subbed off?" she asked, finally turning away from the television to look at him properly. "Max Caster carved through a professional defense like they were training cones. The kid is skilled."
"He hit the post," Luc pointed out, though there was zero malice in his tone.
"He hit the post after beating three grown ass men," she corrected. "And then he set up Idriss for the third goal. And Hugo scored from thirty yards out. Henri has built a team that is more than capable, Luc. You don’t have to carry the entire team on your shoulders every single game."
Luc stared at the liquid in his mug. "Fresko scored twice in stoppage time against Dijon. The gap is only three goals."
"Thirty to twenty-seven," Juliette recited, fully aware of the math. "Fresko is healthy, yes. But if you rush back out there and overcompensate, your hamstring will snap. A grade-two hamstring tear is six weeks on the table. Six weeks means you miss the Phocéen match entirely. It means you hand him the Golden Boot because you couldn’t sit still on a couch for five days."
She traced a light, soothing pattern on the skin just above his knee. "Don’t sacrifice the war because you’re anxious about missing one battle."
Luc closed his eyes. She possessed an infuriating ability to deploy logic that completely dismantled his competitive paranoia.
"I hate it when you use my own tactical mindset against me," he murmured.
"It’s why I stick around," Juliette smiled, leaning back into the sofa cushions.
Before Luc could respond, his phone vibrated violently against the glass surface of the coffee table. The screen lit up, displaying a preview of a text message. Luc leaned forward, intending to grab it, but Juliette was faster. She snatched the device off the table with lightning reflexes, holding it just out of his reach.
"Hey," Luc protested.
"You are on mandated rest," Juliette reminded him, glancing at the caller ID. "It’s Valérie."
"Then I definitely need to read it. She gets annoyed if I leave her hanging."
"I’ll read it to you," Juliette compromised, unlocking the phone with his passcode.