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God, I wish I could tell him yes so that this wasn’t all for nothing, but Slade getting pulled off the ice on a stretcher left our team distracted with concern for his well-being. At least that's what Tessa told me when she broke the news of the loss.
I shake my head. “No, we lost in overtime.”
His eyes clamp shut at the news.
It’s so hard to be so close and lose at the final buzzer but our team fought hard.
“There will be next year. Everyone just wants you to be ok.”
He opens his eyes finally and nods in understanding.
Nothing can be done now—it’s over for this season.
“Come here,” he says again, leaning his head back against the bed and then opens up the grey-weighted wool blanket outstretched over him.
I do what he asks this time because, truthfully, I’ve been dying to touch him.
Seeing him go down like that and get knocked unconscious scared me more than I ever have been in my life.
I thought I might have missed my chance to tell him how I feel.
I walk up to the bed and crawl in next to him, laying sideways along the edge of him, trying to ensure I don’t disrupt any attached monitors.
He raises his left arm to tuck behind my neck, and I lean forward to let him. I want to be in his arms more than anything, and I’m glad to see he wants that, too.
He gives me a small smile, looking over at me.
It feels good to see him smiling after witnessing that hit.
“I’m not sure if it was a dream or not, but did you ride in the ambulance with me?”
“Yes,” I say. “And your parents were here.”
"Are they still?" he asks, glancing over at the door.
"No. It's past visiting hours. I pulled the short straw, so I had to stay with you," I tease.
He smirks over at me. "Thanks for staying."
"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. But I'm not kidding, I almost had to fight your dad for the spot."
He grunts in annoyance when I mention his father.
“Your dad got a suite in the hotel next door instead of leaving tonight. They'll be back in the morning to check on you.”
“Call them back and tell them to leave,” he says, staring up at the blank screen of the TV.
“They’re worried about you. I know that your dad can be a jerk, but he spent two straight hours calling up every specialist he could track down for sports head injuries and sent copies of all of your scans to every single one of them to get a second, third, fourth, and fifth opinion. He would have chartered an aircraft to fly each one of them out here, but they all assured him that you would be ok after a night in the hospital for observation."
"Still, he can head home now. I'm fine and he can go back to whatever charity function he has this week where he'll pretend we're not related."
The doctor recommended keeping things mellow for a few days while he recovers. The last thing I want to do is stir up issues with his dad, especially when we have so much to discuss about us, but I can't let this issue go without telling him one more thing.
“He secretly watches every televised game in his study; did you know that? Your mom told me tonight. And though he says you’re an embarrassment to him at the country club, she says he always mentions you in conversation, even though he doesn’t know he’s doing it. She said his eyes light up when people ask if his son is Slade Matthews, the Hawkeyes's new starting center and the kid with the wicked slap shot.”
He keeps his eyes on the TV, his jaw clenching for a second.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
