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The relief didn't last long.

Vegas scored again.

Colorado pulled one back with less than two minutes remaining, but it wasn't enough, and the final horn sounded with the scoreboard reading 4-2.

Series tied.

Two games apiece.

I stared at the screen while Vegas celebrated. “If I'd been paying attention, I wouldn't be sitting here.”

Cinder stopped entering something on his tablet and looked at me. “No, you probably wouldn't, and I'm not going to tell you the hit had nothing to do with your concentration because we both know it did. What I'm also not going to let you do is turn that into we lost because of me. There was plenty of hockey played before you got hurt and plenty after.”

I looked back at the screen.

“We're going to Vegas tied instead of up three-one.”

“Which means you're going to Vegas tied. Whatever's been occupying half your brain tonight, deal with it before Game Five. If you can't, you come to me or Kinkaid before you step onto the ice. You got lucky tonight.”

The throbbing in my ribs made arguing difficult, and the knowledge that he was right made it impossible. By the time I'd showered and dressed, moving my left arm had become an exercise in discovering how many ordinary tasks involved a shoulder I'd previously taken for granted. Breathing deeply hurt, bending over was worse, and I'd managed one shoe before deciding the other could go fuck itself.

I was still contemplating whether leaving the arena with one untied sneaker constituted a genuine safety hazard when Max stopped in front of me.

He'd showered and changed, but his hair was still damp, and exhaustion sat heavily around his eyes. His attention dropped to my shoe, then returned to my face before I could warn him not to even think about it.

“You've been staring at that lace for at least thirty seconds, so I'm going to assume you've either forgotten how shoes work or bending over hurts. Considering Cinder hasn't diagnosed you with sudden-onset stupidity, I'm going with the second one.”

“Cinder would argue the stupidity is chronic.”

That got the faintest smile out of him before he crouched and tied the lace.

The gesture was so ridiculously ordinary that it hurt somewhere my ribs couldn't account for.

I'd asked this man for space. I'd spent the last two days deliberately pushing him away because I'd convinced myself that was the only way to protect him, and now he was kneeling at my feet tying my fucking shoe without asking me for anything in return.

When he finished, he stood and picked up my bag.

I held out my good hand. “You can give me that. My ribs are bruised, not my ability to carry luggage.”

Max slung it over his shoulder anyway. “Your shoulder's injured, Cinder said you're not supposed to be alone tonight, and I just spent the better part of the third period wondering whether you were lying unconscious in the medical room. Pick another battle, because you're not winning this one.”

There were at least six different things in that sentence I could've argued with.

Unfortunately, the one that lodged somewhere behind my ribs was the part about him wondering whether I was unconscious.

“I can get myself home. Dante can drive me, or I can call someone to stay if Cinder's that worried.”

“I'm sure you can.” Some of the stubbornness left Max's expression. “But unless there's somebody you'd rather have with you, I'm taking you home and staying until morning. You don't have to talk to me, you don't have to explain anything, and if you still want space tomorrow, I'll give it to you. Tonight I'm asking you to let me make sure you're okay.”

Yesterday I'd hurt him deliberately because hurting him seemed safer than letting my father anywhere near him. I'd expected anger eventually. Questions. Demands for an explanation I couldn't give him.

Instead, Max was offering to sit quietly in my apartment all night and ask for nothing.

“You don't have to do that.”

His expression softened. “I know.”

Two words shouldn't have been capable of dismantling quite that much of my resistance.