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Alone, I tried to focus. What was I going to say to him? Had he really thought I wasn’t going to come tonight?
One thing was for certain, neither one of us was moving on with our lives. Whatever happened to us back in Maine, it still had control over both of us.
Maybe that was all that needed to be said.
We weren’t quite done with one another.
Dillon’s season was over. Recovery time for a surgery like this was twelve weeks in a cast, followed by several months of intense physical therapy to get the leg and ankle back to full mobility. I knew that just from my experience with other skaters’ histories with the injury.
What if he never fully recovered? What if he never got back to the level he was performing at now?
Dillon was thirty-two, which wasn’t ancient in hockey, but a year of recovery meant he wouldn’t be back with his team until he was thirty-three. Was that too old for a comeback?
No, I told myself, firmly. Dillon was a man of tremendous dedication and focus. He hadn’t gotten to where he was without those traits. He would come back from this, it was just going to take time.
The question was, would he let me support him, or would I continue to be his greatest distraction?
The door opened and Wendy stood there, smiling. Not a joyful smile. More like a baring of the teeth. It was a very stressed out and worried smile.
“I told him you were here and he wants to see you,” she said.
As I walked past her in the doorway, Wendy grabbed my hand and sighed. “He’s going to be a complete jerk. He’s my brother and I love him, but he’s hurting. He knows his season is done and he’s going to be an asshole to everyone around him because that’s just how this goes.”
“Right,” I said. “I imagine he’s going to be grumpy.”
“Grumpy is an understatement, but you have to know it’s not personal, Liv. No matter what he says, I know what he’s been going through these last few weeks and that guy cares about you. Deeply.”
“We weren’t even together, Wendy. Not really.”
“If you really believe that,” she said, her blue eyes ice cold. “You better take off that jersey before you go in there.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t going to take off the jersey and I could take whatever he needed to dish out. I’d been where he was right now, I knew exactly what he was going through.
“He’s safe with me,” I said.
I pulled my hand away from hers and went to face Dillon.
The training room was a mess. His gear was everywhere and there were ice packs and tons of bandages.
He was sitting up on a table, cushions behind him. His leg held stationary and elevated by a lift. He wore his compression shirt and shorts, but that was it. He looked like a grumpy god. Honed from stone and steel and hard work.
Quite frankly, he took my breath away. All I wanted to do was crawl onto that treatment table with him.
I cleared my throat and he looked up from his phone. I watched a million emotions cross his face as he eyed me up and down. I waited for a scowl. I waited for him to turn away. To tell me he had to focus everything he had on his recovery.
That he’d been wrong to try and start something with me.
Again.
Instead, it was a full-frontal assault of the Dimples Grande.
“Hey, babe,” he said, like he wasn’t laid up with a potentially career ending injury.
“Hey,” I said, not at all hiding my confusion.
“Look at you, you’re wearing a Bruisers’ jersey,” he said. He lifted his hand and twirled his finger, asking me to turn around.
Slowly, I turned to show him whose jersey I’d chosen.
