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She was here. Now. Safe in my arms.
“It’s okay to let go,” I said softly. “I’ve got you.”
Her shoulders, her chest, her whole body started to shake. The sobs when they came were so mournful, so painful, I clenched my teeth hard, feeling her heartbreak inside me.
“Why did they do that?” she cried.
“I don’t know, baby.”
“That was the end for me. That was it. Everything I loved. Everything I was.”
It was hard to make out the words. She was crying and hiccupping through it, but I understood.
“No, Liv. That wasn’t everything. That was just a part of you. You’re so much more.”
“I lost everything!”
This, I thought. This was how it was going to feel when hockey was over for me too. In a way like…dying. But Liv was wrong. Not everything was gone the day she fell.
She hadn’t even met me yet.
I wanted to tell her that. I wanted to tell her that this moment, the two of us here in her bed, mattered. That this was important. And the team…the guys who listened to her and the work she did so they could improve.
So important, and it all came after the fall. But how could I say any of that when I knew she was leaving? When I was the one who told her she had to go.
Through her tears I could hear the sound of a doorbell ringing. Then a knock on her apartment door. She sucked in a breath and pulled the blankets over her head.
“No!” she cried. “I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”
I couldn’t imagine who it was. Maybe the neighbor downstairs who heard her crying and wanted to check in on her. Maybe Coach McKay had a name for me and wanted to deliver it in person. That was enough to motivate me away from her body and out of her bed.
I pulled on my jeans and my t-shirt. Whoever it was, wasn’t staying long.
If this was the fucking UPS guy looking for a signature, he picked the wrong damn time.
“This better be-” I pulled open the door only to find a couple on the other side of the door. A dark-haired man with glasses and a silvery-blonde woman with gray eyes. The smiles on their faces froze when they saw me, then slowly melted away.
An oversized teenager stood behind them.
“Holy shit, you’re The Heart,” the kid said, all smiles.
Ohshit.
“You’re Liv’s family?”
Her mother eyed me up and down, taking in my rumpled hair and bare feet. I might as well have been naked under her steely gaze.
Her father cleared his throat.“I’m Miguel and this is my wife Caroline and our son Billy.”
“Dad.”
“Sorry, Bill. We’re here to see our daughter, Mr. Heart. So if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Dad, no. It’s Dillon Le Coeur. He’s team captain.”
Her mom had enough of this and called out over my shoulder. “Olivia! Honey! We’re here.”
“Mommy?”
