“Wesley.” The male voice at the door interrupts me, and I turn to see one of our assistant coaches standing in the doorway.
“Yeah, Coach?”
“Call came in for you on the main switchboard.” He points to the white phone mounted near the door. “They’re on hold. Line two. Sounds important.”
He ducks away without another word.
I’m not sure why, but my stomach goes rigid. I don’t claim to be a super-intuitive guy. That’s Jamie’s forte, sensing what people are thinking, instinctively knowing what to do in any given situation. But right now, foreboding is crawling up my spine, and for some peculiar reason, my legs wobble like a toddler’s as I walk over to the phone.
I lift the handset to my ear and press the Line Two button with a shaky finger. “Hello?”
“Is this Ryan Wesley?” an unfamiliar voice barks.
“Yes. Who’s this?”
There’s a slight pause. “Shit, this is actually Ryan Wesley? The Toronto center?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?” I can’t stop the sharp bite to my tone. “Who am I speaking to right now?”
“David Danton. Associate coach for the U17 Wildcats. I work with Jamie Canning.”
I find myself leaning forward, bracing one palm against the wall. Why is Jamie’s least-favorite coworker calling me? My heart rate kicks up a notch.
“Canning collapsed about an hour ago,” Danton says, and all the oxygen in my lungs shudders out. “We tried calling you when it happened, but I was on hold. And when the ambulance came, I hung up.”
An hour ago?Ambulance?? Horror clamps around my throat, along with a rush of fear that floods my stomach and brings me dangerously close to hurling all over the pristine white floor.
“Where is he?” I demand. “Is he okay?”
From behind me, I hear a rustling sound. I jump nearly five feet in the air when Blake appears at my side. Concern is etched into his rugged features, but I’m too terrified to pay him much attention.
“We just got to St. Sebastian’s. The ER docs are with him now. Last update we got said he’s still unresponsive.”
Unresponsive?
The handset falls from my suddenly limp fingers. It dangles from its cord, rocking like a pendulum and smacking the wall with each hurried swing. I’m vaguely aware of a big hand grabbing that handset. A gruff voice talking into the phone. I don’t know what the voice is saying. All I can hear is the wild hammering of my pulse in my ears.
Jamie is unresponsive. Unresponsive. What thehelldoes that mean? Why is he unresponsive?
An anguished sound tears out of my throat. I lunge out the door, my vision nothing but a hazy, panicky blur. I don’t even know where I’m going. I just stumble forward in search of the nearest exit.
I need to get to the hospital. Goddamn it, but I don’t even know where St. Sebastian’s is. I think if I tried to punch it into my GPS app right now, I’d break my phone. My hands aren’tdoing so well—they’re tingling and shaking and missing the door handle every time I try to push it open.
“Wesley.” The voice is tinny. Faraway.
I push on the handle again, and the door finally fucking opens.
“Ryan.”
It’s the use of my first name that penetrates the fog of terror that’s surrounding me like a shield. My dad calls me by my first name, and I was conditioned as a child to always stand to attention when I hear those two commanding syllables. I jerk my head up and see Blake running toward me. Even in my current state, I know he shouldn’t be running.
“Your knee,” I manage to croak.
He skids to a stop in front of me. “My knee’s fine. Keeping me off the ice for now, yeah, but it’s not banged up enough to let you get killed in a head-on collision.”
I blink. I honestly don’t know what he’s saying right now.
“I’m driving you to the hospital,” he clarifies.
