Page 59 of Off-Ice Misconduct (Daddies of the League #8)

THIRD WEEKEND IN JANUARY

Ace

L et’s see. I’ve puked six times, and cried so hard my eyes have dried into raisins. It was a four-hour drive from Spokane back to Seattle, but there weren’t any flights until late the next day, so it was faster to get to the car rental place as soon as they opened and jump onto the highway.

Luke drove. I was too much of a mess.

Yeah, Luke.

Don’t know why it surprised me that he came with, exactly.

It makes sense that Coach wouldn’t be able to leave the team, and I’d have to go on my own.

It’s even believable that I wasn’t in a state to drive and would need someone to do it.

But when Luke was shoving his items into his duffle bag, I was shocked.

“If you think I’m letting you go to the hospital alone, princess, you don’t know me very well.”

I went on autopilot after that, letting him take care of everything. He grabbed me by the hand, and we were out of the hotel before the team was up.

“Try to sleep if you can, baby,” he said.

But I couldn’t. What if these were the last minutes that I was awake while Dad was alive? Might sound stupid, but I would rather be awake, suffocating under all my regrets about our relationship over the past few years, than sleep through them.

We might not make it there in time. East made that fucking clear.

He’s there, of course. Probably can’t wait for my dad to go, so he can cash in on whatever Dad surely left him in the will. They’re not married yet, but I know what Dad’s like. He’ll have changed that thing as soon as they were engaged.

East’s voice, though.

I want to be mad at him, so fucking bad, and he’s the best target for my rage. But his voice. The raw, jagged words that bled through the phone were the definition of heartbreak. They might haunt me for the rest of my fucking life.

Luke pulls over in the hospital parking lot and turns off the car.

“What are you doing?” I croak.

“What does it look like? I’m coming with you.”

“No. I need you to stay here.”

Luke scoffs. “Like hell that’s happening.”

“I’m not ready to tell them about you.”

“No one knows who we are here—I’ll wait in the lobby.”

He’s right. But my insides scream at me. He can’t come with me—he can’t . “I don’t need you in there breathing down my fucking neck while I try to keep it together. Just stay the fuck here.”

My voice isn’t me. It’s a screech. It’s desperate. It’s afraid. My lip trembles as my chest feels like it might cave in. I must look like a wild thing.

Luke takes a heavy breath as if it’s taking all his will to stay still. “I really don’t think?—”

“I don’t even know what the fuck your real job is,” I blurt out.

“Ace—”

“No. This is feral. Batshit. You’re not a professor, everybody knows that, so what is it you do, huh? Bet it’s the mafia. You’re in the mafia, and I just can’t be with someone who … I dunno, does mafia shit.”

“Mafia shit?” Luke raises a brow. “It sounds like you know a lot about mafia goings-on. You’ve done your research on ‘us’, clearly.”

Okay, so the mafia comment was wild. But it doesn’t make my first comment any less true.

“Just stay the fuck here, okay?” My heart’s racing, and I can’t catch up with it.

Luke’s fingers curl around the steering wheel, physically holding himself in place this time. “Fine. I’ll wait.”

He doesn’t say the “for now” but it hangs unspoken in the air. My hands scrabble for the door handle, and I stumble out of the car, running.

Away from Luke.

Why would I ever want to run away from Luke? I don’t have an answer. Nothing makes sense. Nothing makes any fucking sense. Except for running.

So, I run.

And he doesn’t follow.

The sweet hospital stench has my stomach roiling again, bringing all of my most painful memories to the surface.

Mom. Eyes closed forever. Breathing machine. Death’s rattle.

But I push that aside, burying it the fuck down—deep down—which is extra fucking hard when I’m met with a similar scene.

Dad’s hanging onto life, tubes and wires everywhere, brutal bruises all over his face, his eye swollen shut.

There’s an empty chair by his bedside, an abandoned blanket curled in a U-shape on the seat.

I reach for the rock I need, but he’s not there. I made him stay in the car. He’s not supposed to listen to me. Especially when I don’t know up or down. Fuck. I don’t want to need him.

But I do.

Before I can head over to Dad, retching sounds come from the small bathroom within Dad’s private room.

There’s a flush, then water running, then the click of a lock.

East steps out, or at least whatever’s left of the man whose Gram profile I creeped on when I found out he’s the man my dad was forking.

Forking because I refuse to use the words “fucking” and “my dad” in the same sentence.

His eyes are hollow, the darkness setting in underneath.

And it’s all sharper on him, because of his knife-edge features.

His hair’s wrecked, sticking up every which way like he’s run his fingers through it too many times.

He’s wearing a rumpled white button-up shirt, half open, splattered with blood, and a navy blazer that looks a few sizes too big for him with the sleeves rolled up.

East looks like he was run over by a car.

“Hi,” he croaks. “He’s … he’s just out from surgery.” He blinks, fat tears fall, and he sniffles. For a second, he looks so much younger than I know he is—about two years older than I am—and it kinda kills me to see him like this.

“Will he be okay?” My voice scratches out, almost as beaten as his is. I hope the prognosis is better than he looks right now. I’ve seen better squished tomatoes.

East shakes his head. “He … he …”

I get an armful of Easton, his spindly model-man arms wrap around me. Yech , he smells like fucking motor oil and smoke, but then I get the faintest hint of Dad’s cologne.

“Were you in the car with him, East?”

He nods into my chest.

“How the fuck are you fine?” I leave off the “and he’s not” because I can’t say it. He will be fine. He will be fine. He’ll be fucking fine.

“I don’t … I d-on’t know, but I wish it were me instead. I wish it were m-me,” he sobs, in a voice so broken that his insides must be shattered.

It tears at my already frayed nerves.

L-Luke.

If it were Luke, I’d wish it were me instead. I’d wish I could swap places.

That clawing, cloying sensation returns, the one I had I the car, and it all unravels.

That unnamable feeling, the confusion. I’d be East if this happened to Luke, experiencing what it must be like to be buried alive.

But I panicked, making a last-ditch attempt to cut loose and run.

As if emotional distance could keep me away from Luke.

Spoiler—it can’t. It’s too late for me. If anything happened to Luke, I’d toss myself into the fire with him.

I’m not okay enough to be East’s rock. As soon as East the koala bear detaches from me, I’m telling Luke to get his ass in here. But for now, I can’t help myself. Someone needs me. So, I pull it together for a minute.

“Hey now. Would Dad, er, Shae, I guess, want you to talk like that?”

“No. He’d be pretty pissed at me.”

“Good. C’mon, let’s get you back over there, okay?”

“O-okay.”

I get him settled in the chair. He takes Dad’s hand.

“There. Is it warm?”

“Yeah, it’s warm.”

“That’s a good sign,” I lie. Or I dunno, it could be. I’m not a doctor, and I don’t know shit, but he needs to calm down a little. If I have to keep Dad’s fiancé calm for him while he’s fighting for his life, it’s the very least I can do. Sometimes, a few little lies are necessary.

East’s breathing settles into a regular rhythm, but he shivers, teeth shattering. I pull the blanket around him.

“He needs a bit of sugar, or he’s going to go into shock,” a deep voice from the door says. “I brought this for you, but we’ll get another one later.”

Luke. Thank fuck , it’s Luke.

“Not sorry. I couldn’t wait out there. Be mad at me if you want,” Luke says, striding into the room.

Something inside me unclenches. Everything’s still awful, but it feels survivable. Luke’s here. I tried to push him away, and he burst through my bullshit defenses despite me.

“I’m not. I’m glad you came.” I take the bottle of hydration drink from him and pass it to East. “Take little sips, okay?”

I wave Luke closer. East barely notices the giant man, unable to rip his eyes from Dad long enough.

Luke hesitates, but I say fuck it, yanking him to me.

It’s only been a heartbeat, but my world’s changed.

I shouldn’t be pushing Luke away, ever. I need every minute with him, because minutes aren’t guaranteed.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, voice catching as he wraps his arms around me. My insides stop thrashing, and my ocean of turmoil crashes against him where it ends and dies.

“Sorry? I dunno, I liked the idea of being in the mafia. It would be a lot easier to keep eyes on you at all times.” He smirks.

I whack his big shoulder. “I was unhinged. Now, say you forgive me.”

“Nothing to forgive, baby. Push me away all you want; I’m not going anywhere.”

We sit on the bench by the window together, but I don’t leave his arms.

Now, firmly under the protection of my personal impenetrable fortress, I turn my attention back to East. Watching him like this, so devoted and wrecked, it tugs my focus just enough to make me forget, for a second, that there’s still a chance Dad might not make it through another night.

The quiet buzz of machines hums like a dreadful lullaby.

None of us speaks. Not really. East stays curled in the bedside chair, barely blinking, his hand wrapped around Dad’s like it’s the only thing tethering him to the Earth.

Luke sits next to me, one steady hand on my thigh, thumb brushing slow, mindless strokes that keep me from floating off into a panic.

Time’s weird in here. Feels like it’s stopped and sped up at the same time. Nurses come and go. Lights dim. I think someone brings coffee, but it goes untouched.