Page 24

STEFANOS

T he last name I expect to see flashing up on my phone is Alexei.

Ever since the kiss, he’s been weird and distant with me, so I’ve tried to stay out of his way. But even before that, he never called me. We saw enough of each other at home.

“Hello?” I ask, expecting to discover I’ve been butt-dialed.

“Hey, sorry for calling you like this.”

His voice sounds weird. Like his mouth has been stuffed with cotton wool.

“I’ve got a concussion.”

“Oh my god, are you okay? Where are you?”

“I’m in the hospital, they’re letting me go, but… I need someone to watch me overnight, otherwise they won’t discharge me. I could ask one of my teammates but-”

“No, of course I will, I’m here anyway right?”

“Right, that’s what I thought.”

It’s quiet on the line and I guess he’s waiting for me to make the next move.

“So do you want me to come and get you or-”

He sounds sheepish when he answers. “Alice is here actually, she’s gonna give me a ride.”

Did Alice tell him to call me? Or did he make that decision himself?

When he hangs up, I remind myself that he’s concussed and he needs his roommate to watch him and make sure he doesn’t die, or whatever you need to do with someone who has a concussion. It doesn’t mean anything.

Then I worry I’m not up to the job of watching someone with a serious medical issue.

What if I fall asleep and he passes out and dies?

I’ll have to set an alarm and put my phone on super loud so that doesn’t happen.

I’m not going to let anything happen to Alexei on my watch.

He’s protected me enough since I moved in here. Now it’s my turn to pay him back.

I tidy up a little and make a sort of sitting-up bed on the couch with some cushions and a pillow from my room.

The second I hear his key turning in the door, my insides turn to mush and I have to rearrange my face into something less creepy.

“Hey!” I say, too loudly by the way he winces.

Alice looks like she’s trying to hold him up, but luckily he doesn’t need her to because she’s doing a terrible job of it. It doesn’t help that he’s probably a whole foot taller than her.

“Thanks Alice.” He says as she guides him inside and over to the couch.

“No problem. Stef, the doctor said to keep an eye on him and check him every three hours throughout the night and ask him questions like who the president is.”

“Won’t that stress him out?”

He snorts and my heartrate steadies itself a little. Okay, so he’s not so badly hurt he can’t laugh.

“That wasn’t a joke.”

Alice sighs. “It doesn’t have to be who the president is, it can be anything.”

“Okay, sorry.”

She smiles and shakes her head. “Just take care of him. You’re good at that.”

“Okay,” I blush. “I can do that.”

When I’ve shown Alice out, I come back in to find Alexei propping himself up on my little pillow fort.

“Is this for me?” He asks when he catches me looking.

“Yeah, is it comfortable enough?”

“Yeah, I’m really tired though, I wish I could sleep.”

Shit. Did Alice say he couldn’t go to sleep right away? Do I have to actually wake him up every three hours or just check he’s still breathing?

“Do you think you could try and stay awake for a little bit? I really don’t want you to die… on my watch.”

He snorts again, picking the clicker up and pointing it at the TV. “Why aren’t you watching one of those house flipping shows?”

He seems kinda drunk. Is that how people with a concussion act? I’ll have to covertly Google it while we watch TV.

“Put whatever you want on. Do you want me to make you something to eat?”

He makes a face. Okay, no food then.

“How about some tea? Can you have herbal tea? I think I have lemon, or peppermint somewhere.”

“Stef.” He looks up at me finally. His eye is bloodshot and there’s dried blood in his hair.

I don’t even recognize the feeling that shoots through me at the sight of him hurt like this.

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I couldn’t feel any more strongly than if it were Ari sitting there all cut and hurt like this.

“Stef?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m fine, come and sit down, you’re making me nervous.”

“Okay, sorry.” I make a move to the couch.

“Don’t apologize, I appreciate you doing this.”

“I don’t mind.” I take a seat next to him, giving him some space. “But for the record, why didn’t you want to stay with one of your teammates?”

He shrugs. “I want my own bed at some point, and they all live with big groups of guys, so they don’t have the room.”

He’s turned over half-way through an episode of one of my lesser favored house flipping shows. While he watches, I Google the symptoms of a concussion and what to do and what not to do.

“Alexei!” I snatch the clicker off him and turn the TV off.

“Hey, I was watching that.”

“You’re not supposed to watch TV.”

He rolls his eyes and then winces.

“Do you have a headache?”

“Yeah, but they gave me painkillers at the hospital. I’m fine. Can I have that back?”

I ignore him. “Are the lights too bright in here?”

“You don’t even have the lights on. Stop bugging.” He pouts. It would be funny seeing him acting all petulant like a little kid if he wasn’t so obviously hurt right now. Should they have even let him leave the hospital like this?

“Hey, I am not bugging!”

“Yes you are.” He smirks. He really is not acting like himself.

He rests his head against my pillow and closes his eyes.

“Alexei?”

“What?”

“Please don’t fall asleep.”

He takes a deep breath before opening his eyes. I can see by the way he has to prize them open that it’s an effort for him.

“We could talk instead. Nothing strenuous. I won’t make you think too much.”

“Good. And don’t ask me who the president is, it’ll stress me out.”

I slap his arm before realizing I probably shouldn’t be hitting someone who’s injured.

“Fuck, you’re a terrible nurse.” But he’s still grinning. The grin fades, his mood changing in an instant, and he says. “We lost 2-6.”

“I’m sorry, that sucks.”

He swallows, loudly, his throat sounding dry. “We suck. I suck.”

“You do not suck.”

“I do. I used to be good you know, like really good.”

God, I want to hug him right now, but I don’t think he’d want me to. “You still are.”

He ignores me. “I had an agent, I was gonna be drafted, probably first or second round. Boston C and Michigan had scouts out for all my junior games and wanted to give me a scholarship – full ride. They were fighting over me. Then I got injured.”

I don’t know what to say. He’s looking very intensely into the couch cushions and biting his lip like he’s trying not to cry.

“Alexei?”

“Yeah?” he raises just his eyes to me. That bloodshot one makes my heart ache.

“You deserve not to be hurt.”

He just blinks at me.

“I know you love hockey. But if all it does is hurt you and make you feel like shit, then you deserve to do something with your life that makes you feel good.”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Telling me I deserve shit.”

“But you do.”

His eyes water and a tear falls from the bloodshot eye. He wipes it and sniffles. Another one leaks out before he can stop it and I reach out and wipe it away for him with my thumb.

He grabs my hand and keeps it held against his face, letting himself cry.

His shoulders chugging as he sobs. As much as it breaks my heart seeing him like this, I know he needs it, so I just sit with him while he cries it out.

My hand getting wetter by the seconds where he has it pressed against his face.

When he’s calmed down, he turns his face enough to kiss the palm of my hand. The sensation of his lips against my skin sets butterflies flapping in my stomach.

“Sorry,” he says, his voice thick with tears.

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“I do. I shouldn’t have kissed you and then freaked out.”

My heart starts pounding in my ears.

“I’m gay,” he says.

Say the right thing. It was a big thing for him to come out to you like this. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.” He says it so matter-of-factly. “It’s never gonna be okay. Not with my dad.”

“There’s nothing you can do about that.”

He takes a stuttering breath and drops my hand. “I know.”

“You have a right to not have to hide.”

“I just need to get a job, help him out, then one day…” he trails off.

And what if you meet someone before then? I want to ask, but the words get stuck in my throat.

He sniffles up the last of the tears. “Sorry, it’s the concussion, it can make you act weird. Mood swings.”

“Yeah right, it said that online.” I go along with him. But I don’t think that was about the concussion. I think that’s been building inside him for years.

He wipes his face and collects himself. I want to say something, ask him more questions, but he’s tired and concussed, and maybe now isn’t the time. He lifts his arms above his head and yawns. “I’m gonna take a nap, you can wake me up in an hour if you want. Ask me who the president was in 2016.”

“Okay.”

I set an alarm on my phone when he goes to bed and turn the TV back on, keeping the volume low so it doesn’t disturb him. Torn between wanting to protect him and bundle him up, and hurting over how much I want him.

While he’s napping, I cook some of Alice’s mom’s beef and radish soup for him to try when he wakes up. It always makes me feel better when I’m sad or sick. Maybe it’ll do the same for him?

I fall asleep and wake up with the alarm beeping on my phone.

“Shit!”

I jump up, knowing it’s okay, but still worrying about Alexei.

Even though he told me to wake him up, I still feel weird about going into his room while he’s in bed. Or going into his room at all.

Since I moved in, I haven’t even seen inside here. He always keeps the door closed.

It’s dark, but the light from the street light creeps around the drapes the way it does in my room, illuminating bookshelves and a desk, Alexei’s unmoving form under the comforter.