But Elias, he looks at me like I just tore the sky open. His face folds slow, like glass shattering in a dream. Confusion crumples into horror. Disbelief twists into something jagged and raw. “You what?” His voice is small, like it already knows the answerand doesn’t want to believe it. “But—” he tries again, then stops. “But I can’t skate without you.”
And God, that look. Wide-eyed and wrecked. Like I took something he didn’t know he needed until it was already gone.
I lift my hand, slow, shaking, everything in me aching—and cup his jaw. He leans in. Desperate. Like maybe if I touch him long enough, it won’t be true. Like I can anchor him here, in this moment, before the world finishes falling apart. “You’re gonna have to, baby,” I rasp, voice worn thin but steady. “You’re ready.”
“No, I’m not,” he whispers, blinking fast, lashes soaked again. “I’m not ready if you’re not there.”
“You’re the best center I’ve ever seen,” I mutter, trying to grin through the pain. “You think I bled for you on that ice just for you to quit when I’m gone?”
Elias doesn’t answer. He leans into my hand, sniffling, curls shaking, nose pink and lips trembling.
And then the door opens again, and a nurse steps in, clipboard in hand, scrubs spotless, expression neutral but watchful. “Good to see you awake, Mr. Kade,” she says, her tone calm and professional, not unkind but distant in that practiced way nurses have, like she’s walked into a thousand rooms like this one and knows how to keep herself far enough away from the wreckage. She taps something into the tablet resting in her arm. Then she glances up, pen poised, voice even. “How’s the pain? Scale from one to ten?”
Elias turns to look at me immediately, eyes wide, worry sharpening behind his lashes. His whole body shifts slightly, tension crawling up his spine, the kind that makes you think someone’s about to bolt or beg. He’s watching my face like the answer is going to break him.
I grit my teeth, jaw locking tight against the throb in my chest, the low burn in my leg, the ache everywhere else. The pain’s worse than I want to admit. Sharp and deep, humming undermy skin. But Elias is already unraveling, and I won’t be the thing that pushes him further.
“Five,” I say smoothly, too smoothly, my voice steady even though my whole body wants to flinch. It’s a lie and we all know it, but I sell it anyway, flat and even.
The nurse’s eyes flick up. Just once. She doesn’t call me on it, but it’s clear she doesn’t buy a goddamn second of what I said. Her expression doesn’t change, but the slow, deliberate nod she gives me is loaded. “Mhm,” she murmurs. “Crank it up for you.”
Before I can protest, before the words even form properly in my throat, she’s already at the IV line, pressing something into the port with clinical ease. There’s no room for argument. No pause.
And then it hits. The burn comes first, fast, hot enough to draw a gasp from my lungs. It tears through the vein like fire. But it’s gone as quickly as it comes, swallowed by the second wave.
Warmth.
The morphine slides in like silk laced with heat and thunder. My body softens immediately, sinking into the mattress, pain dulled to a quiet buzz under my skin. Elias watches me, wide-eyed.
“Better?” she asks, still tapping at her tablet, not even sparing me a glance as she says it, as if she already knows the answer.
I nod once, slow and heavy. It’s the only movement I can manage.
Elias still hasn’t let go of my hand. His grip hasn’t loosened, not even a fraction. His fingers are laced with mine. He’s watching me like the world depends on it, lashes low, worry clinging to every part of his body.
The drugs hit hard. Heat spreads through my limbs in a slow, syrupy crawl, softening everything it touches. My muscles unwind without permission, going loose and boneless until mybody barely feels like mine at all. The pain dulls into something distant, wrapped in cotton and fog, muffled.
I sink deeper into the bed, pulled down. The edges of the room blur at the corners, colors fading to greyscale while the warmth stays—cloying and relentless. My eyelids flutter. Everything’s soft. Everything’s floating.
And then it happens—the switch, the shift—just like Elias on mango daiquiris, flirty and unhinged and unfiltered, with no warning and no brakes, as I turn my head toward him, my neck slow to follow and every movement molasses-slick, my eyes half-lidded and dark beneath heavy lashes while my mouth curves slow and lazy, like it forgot how to behave.
“You’re so pretty when you cry,” I murmur, rough as hell but relaxed. “Makes me wanna wreck you again. Right here. Hospital be damned.”
Elias goes scarlet in an instant.
Shane lets out a strangled wheeze from his wheelchair.
“Jesus CHRIST,” Mats mutters. “He’s high.”
“Higher than me after that green shot,” Shane whispers.
The nurse stiffens beside the bed but doesn’t even blink. “Right,” she says blandly, adjusting something on the monitor. “Looks like the painkillers are definitely working.”
“They’re working,” I grin lazily. “Everything’s warm. Especially—” I turn to Elias, flicking my eyes down to where our hands are still locked, “—my pup.”
Elias makes a noise that’s somewhere between a whimper and a squeak. His hand tightens in mine like he’s trying to keep me anchored, or shut me up through sheer grip strength alone. “I hate this,” he mutters into his shoulder.
“No, you don’t,” I slur, beaming up at him. “You love me. You were sobbing. Like a good little—”
