“Oh, yeah. Panther woke up.”
As my brain tried to play catch-up, I stood there gripping the door, because just hearing those three words was like some kind of dream—or a nightmare, if I was still asleep and this wasn’t real.
“He woke up?”
“Yeah.” Gucci nodded, and then shoved open the door to my room and walked inside. “An hour or so ago. They wanted to check him out before they let us all know. Figured we’d want to charge over there and demand to see for ourselves that the golden boy was back in the game.”
Still not believing what I was hearing, I turned to see Gucci walking over to the curtains. He pulled one open and then the other, and as I kicked the door shut behind me, I said, “How… How is he?”
“Pretty banged up.” He pivoted to face me and crossed his arms as he leaned against the window. “Something you’d know if you’d come to see him over the past few days.”
“Don’t start on me again.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what would you call it?”
Gucci rubbed his fingers over his stubble. “Pointing out a fact.”
“Yeah? Well, you can take your fact and shove it up your—”
“Hey, hey.” Gucci raised his hands. “Chill, okay? This is me you’re talking to. I know what this is all about, but you need to get past it, man. You need to get past it and come and see him.”
I ground my back molars together as I forced myself to swallow in a gulp of air. I wished things were that easy, that I could just push aside this anxiety that had a hold on me whenever I pictured Panther rocketing out of his jet and careening toward the Pacific. But it wasn’t that easy, and his horrifying accident had brought forth a crippling memory that I’d been so good at keeping buried.
“I can’t.” The words were clipped and final, but that didn’t seem to mean shit to Gucci. He shoved off the window and strode over to me, then he took hold of my biceps and squeezed them tight.
“Look, I know what happened to Panther a few days ago hit close to home for you more than any of us. But he’s okay, and you need to come and see that with your own two eyes.”
I knew what Gucci was saying was right, but at the same time I couldn’t stop the sheer panic that was making my palms sweat and my pulse race.
“Hey?” Gucci gave me a gentle shake to refocus me. “Why don’t you go take a quick shower, and I’ll wait and head over with you.”
I wanted to tell him no, that I would go over when I was ready. But I had a feeling that if it were left up to me, I would avoid seeing Panther for good.
“Solo?”
“Yeah, okay,” I finally said, and when Gucci let me go, I headed toward the bathroom. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”
I could feel Gucci’s eyes on me as I made my way through to the bathroom, and after I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, I looked at the mirror.
The man looking back at me was a mere shadow of myself. The dark circles under my eyes, the sad shade of my sallow skin. The lack of sleep had gotten to me, and I knew Gucci was right. If I had any hope of finding my way back from this, of being able to focus again on all of the reasons I was here—number one being to win—then I needed to overcome this. I needed to push past the terror, past the fear, and not let old ghosts consume me, because if I did that, they would eat me alive.
It was time to face my demons—and Panther—head-on.
3Panther
“IT’S ABOUT TIME you woke up. The whole ‘I’m unconscious’ bit was getting old, and I didn’t want to be known as the guy who won by beating an invalid.”
At the sound of Solo’s familiar voice, I turned my head on the pillow to see him leaning up against the doorjamb, looking better than anyone had a right to look. In worn jeans that molded to his body like a second skin and a tight t-shirt with the word NAVY printed across it, he looked built, sexy, and exactly as I remembered him. Pity the same couldn’t be said about me.
He pushed off the frame and scanned the empty room as though checking no one else was there. Then he stopped by the bed, looked me over and said, “I gotta say, I much prefer the way you looked the last time I saw you in a bed than this.”
My lips twitched despite myself, and when my cheeks moved in response, a hiss of air left me from the pain it caused.
“Shit.” I reached for my face, but when that hurt just as much, I let out a breath instead. “Hi.”
Solo slipped his hands into his pockets as though needing something to do with them, then gave that crooked smile I knew so well. “Hi. I would say something like ‘fancy meeting you here,’ but…”
