CHAPTER 49
Xavier
The quiet after everyone leaves only serves to compound these feelings swirling in my chest. Exhaustion tugs at every part of Artemis’s body. His limbs are heavy, his breathing is heavy, and he couldn’t keep his eyes open on the couch, so I announced it was bedtime and sent everyone home.
We’ve brushed our teeth. He’s kicked off his clothes, and he got as far as sliding off the edge of the bed onto the floor by accident. He missed his mark completely. He’s like an overtired toddler right now—and if I wasn’t drowning in anxiety, I’d laugh.
But panic has been living under my skin since I woke up in the hospital, quiet and relentless.
He blinks up at me with tired eyes. “Are you sore?”
I shake my head. “I took some meds.”
He nods. “I saw. But are you sore? Do you need anything?” He rubs the back of his neck. I love the way his hair falls in front of his face. He tongues the underside of his surgery scar, it’s not something I’ve noticed him doing before, and I can’t tell if it’s because of the level of stress he’s under orthe fact he’s exhausted.
Either way, that’s adorable too.
When I first saw this man on the ice, the farthest thing from my mind was that he was adorable, and now, it’s all I see when I look at him.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I cant my head to one side, playing dumb because it’s easier than speaking the truth. “Talk about what?”
He looks at me like we’ve just watched someone run naked through his apartment, and we aren’t going to mention it. “Any of it.”
I shake my head, not ready to give voice to the anxieties clawing their way up inside my chest. What the hell do I do if hockey is taken off the table? Even temporarily?
Because if hockey disappears, everything shifts… Draft prospects. Futures that people have already decided belong to me. I’m not just afraid of losing the game—I’m afraid of not being enough for the man lying exhausted on the floor in front of me, or my mom, or my brother’s legacy.
This domestic haze with Artemis is intoxicating—but I can’t recover here. I can’t pretend this is real life when my real one feels like it’s now hanging by a thread. I need to go home, to school, keep up my GPA, even if I can’t play for a while.
Without a word, he heaves himself off the floor and makes it onto the bed this time. He pats the mattress next to him, and I hesitate. He’s too tired for me to be able to distract him from conversation with sex, and I’m not entirely sure even his tiredness can outweigh his stubbornness.
“Just let it happen.” He smirks at me. “The more you fight it the more it’ll hurt.”
I make my way toward him. “What exactly are we talking about here, Sugar Britches?”
“The conversation you don’t want to have,Duende.”
It’s my turn to scrub at the back of my neck with my palm.
“Say it out loud. If you keep it trapped in your head, it wins.” He’s frustratingly logical.
“Says the man who only a few hours ago would have sooner died than asked for help.”
He frowns. “Don’t be like me.”
“Ah ha. Do as I say, not as I do.”
He nods sagely. “Exactly.”
“It’s ridiculous.”
“Sometimes fear is ridiculous.”
“Easy to be rational when it’s not your fucking fear.”
“Stop wasting time, and get your ass into bed, Xavi.”
