Page 169 of Pucking Sweet

Great idea. I’ll get right on that.

62

Istep into the lobby of the Jacksonville General Hospital ICU, and head over to the nurse’s station. The Leafs game is finally over. We won, and I don’t even fucking care. Lukas is hurt. I had to watch him get wheeled away on a stretcher, leaving behind a pool of blood on the ice.

I tried to find Poppy before I left, but she went missing, and now she’s not answering her damn phone. I pray to god she beat me here.

Something’s off between them. Lukas hasn’t come over for the past two nights. He made a lame excuse about needing to focus for the game, but I don’t buy it. I swear, if he’s about to sabotage what we have, I’m gonna finish what that Leafs player fucking started.

“Hey, I’m looking for Lukas Novikov,” I say at the nurse.

“Are you next of kin?”

“I’m his emergency contact. If you check his file, I should be listed. Colton Morrow.”

She taps a few keys on her keyboard, glancing at the screen over her sparkle-framed readers. “He’s in room 2D. Have you spoken to the doctor yet?”

“No, I literally just got here.”

“You can go in. If he’s asleep, please let him rest.”

“Thank you,” I say, already on the move down the hall.

I find the right room and step through the open door. Lukas is dressed in a hospital gown, blankets pulled up to his chest. All his hockey gear is piled in clear plastic bags on the floor. I can see the blood-stained jersey they probably had to cut off him. There are no bandages on his face to let the wound breathe. A row of stitches trails along the bottom of his cheek from the edge of his jaw up into his hairline by his ear.

My stomach twists in a knot. “Jesus, Nov.”

“Hey,” he mutters.

“You’re awake?”

“Barely.”

This room is quiet as a tomb. The only sound is the slow beep of his heart rate monitor. It’s a jarring change coming from the screaming of sixteen thousand fans. He’s got a pulse monitor on his finger, the tip glowing red. An IV sticks out of his arm, leading up to a double bag of fluids and antibiotics. As I step closer, I see that it’s not bruising or discoloration on his cheek, it’s just Betadine. I sink down into the chair by his bedside, taking his hand in mine. “So, how many stitches is that?”

“One hundred and twenty,” he replies, eyes closed.

I squeeze his hand. “Well, I think that’s a record. You may even have Frankenstein beat, bud.”

He smiles, but it turns into a wince as it pulls on his stitches.

“How long are they gonna keep you caged in here?”

“Just overnight. They’d let me go now, but they want at least one more round of IV fluids in me. Turns out I was dehydrated and possibly low on iron.”

“Well, we’ll just get you some vitamins. I can swing by the store on the way home.”

“Was Poppy here? Did I miss it?”

I glance around the room, looking for any sign. Knowing her, she’d bring him a basket packed with slippers and a toothbrush and homemade snickerdoodle cookies. “I don’t think so…things were pretty crazy after the game, bud. She had those Finnish scouts here—”

“It’s fine. She probably won’t come.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because she’s mad at me.”

I sigh. “Why is she mad at you? What did you do?”