The Unforgiving Minute Read Online Free PDF Page A

punishment, but he couldn’t stop the groans that it drew from him as Tim worked his magic.
    He did, however, manage to control them when he saw the next player requiring attention walk into the treatment room. Wet with sweat from his match, Josh Andrews was a sight to behold. The hair at the nape of his neck was clinging to his skin in a way that made Ryan wish he could do the same, while his strong arms glistened and the V at the neck of his T-shirt showed just enough smooth, wet torso to tease cruelly.
    Mesmerized by the sight in front of him, Ryan watched as Josh spoke to one of the physios. The physio ushered him across the room, bringing him just yards away from Ryan to where the instruments of torture that haunted Ryan’s nightmares lurked in silent menace. Of all the training he did, of all the many exhausting and varied ways that Stefan came up with to torment him, the one thing that Ryan had never gotten used to, and couldn’t conceive he ever would, was the ice bath. Whenever he had to have one, he tended to let the entire world know just how wretched an invention it was for the full first minute of his immersion, and quite possibly for every minute thereafter, until the blessed point at which numbness took over. Josh Andrews, of course, climbed into one without so much as a murmur. It figured he would be as good at that as he was at everything else.
    “How do you do that?” Ryan demanded of him before his brain caught up with his mouth.
    Josh’s eyes jumped to him. He looked surprised, as if he hadn’t noticed anyone else was in the room.
    “I mean, seriously, how are you not screaming like a girl right now? Or not so much a girl as a very male, manly tennis player,” he rushed on, realizing how mad Elena would be if she heard him and also that he might have just insulted Josh Andrews. “That stuff is cold. I always think they’re going to pull me out and find I’ve turned into a giant ice pop.”
    Josh’s eyebrows gradually climbed up his forehead until the point where Ryan finally, blessedly, managed to stop talking and Josh’s lips twitched. “I can’t say that’s ever worried me before now. Hey, Mikey?” He directed this at the physio who was timing him. “Am I in danger of turning into frozen goods in here?”
    “I’ve never lost a client to Popsicle yet, Mr. Andrews.”
    “Well, I feel so much better for knowing that,” Josh said, before the laughter in his blue eyes disappeared so fast Ryan thought he might have imagined it. One of Josh’s ever-present army had walked in the door. The man was in his midfifties, with his dark hair graying at the temples, and Ryan recognized him as Roger Andrews, Josh’s father, who accompanied Josh to every single tournament. He’d been a player on the Tour himself, winning a few titles but never any of the big ones. Josh’s career had completely eclipsed his.
    “No problems with the ligament out there, I take it?” Roger Andrews’s deep voice was positive, as though he was making a statement rather than asking a question.
    Josh nodded slightly in Ryan’s direction and his reply was quiet, as if not wanting to be overheard. Roger Andrews too dropped his voice as they spoke, which made sense; they wouldn’t want any other players to know if Josh was having problems again with the knee that had put him out of commission all of last year.
    “There you go, Mr. Betancourt.” Tim straightened, flexing his hands. His magical, wonderful, totally marriable hands.
    “You sure you won’t rethink Bali?”
    “No chance.”
    Ryan pouted. “Can I at least stay here a while and bask in the blissful results of your work?”
    “You’ve got the couch till I need it next,” Tim said, and Ryan relaxed back with a sigh. He so did not want to get up right now. Partly because it felt as if everything was loose and perfect and he imagined this would be how it felt to be on really good drugs, but it had also occurred to him that if Josh had got in to the ice