AllFreeNovel
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“I’m not going to do anything, Dad.” I hold up his water pitcher. “I’m just going to grab you some ice.”
“Lu can grab ice when she stops by next.”
“I don’t want you to wait that long.”
“I can use my call button.” He’s really pulling out the big guns. He must have read the tension in my body and the murder in my eyes. And he must like Erik enough to spare him the Quinn special.
“It’ll just take a second,” I lie through my teeth and then I bolt for the door, leaving both the room and the pitcher behind.
It doesn’t take long to find Erik. He’s standing in the center of the friends and family lounge, jacket pushed back with his hands fisted on his hips. He’s staring down at his fancy dress shoes and frowning as though he’s upset. Or maybe he’s hallucinating and a tiny dancing pineapple is doing the Macarena on his toes. He probably hadn’t expected me at the hospital this early. I typically get out of school around three or three thirty, but there had been a special assembly this afternoon, and I’d ducked out early to see my dad and prepare for my date. With Erik. He probably thought he’d be in and out before I knew he’d been here. What does he want anyway?
The lounge doesn’t have a door that I can slam, but Erik looks up the minute I storm inside. Is it unfortunate that he looks like he’d stepped off the pages of a magazine while I’m wearing a pair of paint-splattered overalls? Yes, yes, it is, but I will not let that get in the way of what I want to say to him. He drops his hands, letting his arms hang at his sides, palms up. His face is that blank mask again, his eyes dull.
“Quinn,” One hand lifts, reaching for me, before he pulls it back. Good idea, buddy. In my current mood, I’m liable to chew it off.
“Don’t” I say and cross my arms over my chest. My anger takes center stage. “Why are you here?”
Erik looks around the room like he’s thinking about answering me literally. Like I’m asking why he’d ducked into the lounge instead of why he was in the hospital at all, schmoozing my dad—my dad!—when I wasn’t there. Ultimately, he says nothing, doesn’t even look me in the eye. It feels like an admission of goddamn guilt.
“Why the fuck are you here, Erik? This is creepy, stalker-level shit.” The words are bubbling up, pouring out of me like acid, but I can’t stop them. Not even when he flinches, as if I’ve physically assaulted him.
“I—”
“I purposefully didn’t share this info. I didn’t share my dad’s name or that he has fucking cancer, Erik. We barely know each other and some things you don’t blast on a billboard for a random guy you decide to suck off in his hotel room.”
He flinches again, his face condensing into a frown.
“How did you find us?” The anger is bleeding out of me like I’m a freaking sieve. Pouring out as hurt rushes in to take its place. “I trusted you,” I say, no matter how ridiculous that sounds. I’ve known this man for less than twenty-four hours. Trusting him with my body is not the same as trusting him with my family, but I was going to get there. This feels likes the ultimate betrayal. Like what I was willing to share wasn’t enough. He had to reach in and yank out the private pieces I’d hidden away.
Erik grunts like he’s been hit in the chest with a two by four or a pillowcase full of bricks. He says my name again, his voice low and laced with hurt. He pushes a shaky hand through his hair, mussing the neat strands into disarray. He takes a step toward me, then another, stopping only when I throw my hand up like a traffic guard and ward him off.
“I’m an idiot,” I admit. “I knew you for maybe all of three damn hours before I followed you back to your hotel room like a dumb puppy. I thought you were safe because I felt some sort of fucking connection to you. How ridiculous is that? How ridiculous am I?”
“You’re not,” He says and steps forward again, ignoring my hands. This time I step back.
“I may not have men beating down my door,” I say, “But I know better than to put myself in a dangerous spot. I let my guard down because I thought we had—something—” I blush, feeling stupid all over again. I hate that I’m still attracted to this man, miserable that I react to his closeness.
“Wedo, Quinn—”
“So I didn’t protect me and mine. Stalking someone, finding their personal information and using it without their consent, is not okay Erik. I think you need to leave now.” My voice cracks on the last sentence. It feels wrong on my tongue even as I know I have to be firm with my boundaries. If he’d just waited for me to make the plans to introduce them… just because it had been a tentative future plan doesn’t change the fact that this feels like a betrayal. One that sits in my stomach like a metal anchor. The worst part is that my dad hadn’t known. He’d probably been so thrilled to meet the brother of his favorite player that he hadn’t questioned why Erik was there or what he was up to.
“I can’t leave,” Erik says, and okay, that’s surprising. I tell myself it isn’t romantic at all that he won’t leave. I know it’s weird that he’s here, but I’d been sure that he wasn’t dangerous. Once confronted, I was sure he’d back off. The phone to the nurses’ station is just a few feet to my left. I’m painfully aware that he’s bigger than me and that we’re all alone, but if I call for help, I’ll go down in history as the girl who booted a Varg.
“I know this looks less than ideal, Quinn, but your father found me. I didn’t even know he was your dad until right before you got there.”
That seems like a tall tale. I’m my dad’s twin with longer hair and boobs. And just because he hadn’t found my dad directly, didn’t mean he hadn’t shown up at the hospital hoping to get some information on him. Maybe Dad just found him first, but what reason could Erik have for being at the hospital at all?
“Right,” I scoff. “Like you have some other reason for being here and he just found you and conned you back to his room without telling you who he was? After seeing us sit together for all of last night.”
“Yes.” Erik steps closer again and I forget to step back, because that sounded like something Dad would do. “I promise, Quinn.”
He isn’t getting angry. He isn’t raising his voice. He’s crowding me, but I still have a means of escape. He isn’t letting me ignore him as he tells me…
But if he’s telling the truth… If this was all some big coincidence…
“Why are you here?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper. From nerves, from embarrassment, I don’t know, but I can barely breathe as I wait for his response.
“For work,” he says, and then he reminds me about everything. He tells me about his job, and the kids he works with. About his brother’s involvement with this hospital. How Vic often shows up in his pads and jersey and hands out signed pucks and merch while taking photos with any mini fan who wants one. He tells me about the meetings he’s been sitting through over the last few days. About how he’d frantically sourced some caffeine and run into a patient who seemed to recognize him, not as Vic but as Erik. About how that patient asked him for help and then wanted to chat. And the worst part is that I one hundred and thirty thousand percent know he’s telling me the truth because he told me a good amount of this last night. My anger vaporizes like mist.
