I try and shut out the words and run even faster. I nearly run into the person manning the family room, stopping with only a couple inches left. He raises an eyebrow, looking over me for my arena ID that lets me in. The ID that’s still in the temporary apartment on the other side of the city.
“I don’t have it,” I say, trying to explain in bursts of three or four words while trying to regain my breath. “My fiancé is James. Paxton James.” I hold up my hand with the ring still on it, shining like a beacon.
“Can’t let you in without your ID, ma’am,” he says, clearly not believing me at all.
How many asinine people have tried to fake an engagement to get access to the players? Fuck, too many if it’s impacting me now.
“I know, and I’m an idiot for forgetting it,” I say.
The door opens behind him, and someone mutters a surprised, “Oh!”
“Is everything okay, Frank?”
It’s not someone I recognize. There’s at least two new Omegas that have joined since everything fell apart last month.
Why can’t the person manning the family room be one of the security personnel I actually know? Or the person behind him be Marilyn? She would let me in without my damn arena ID. I shove my hands in the pockets of my jeans to keep from punching the man.Thatwon’t help me get in to see Carys, to make sure she’s okay.
I breathe carefully through my nose. I don’t cry in front of strangers if I can help it. But, fuck, I need to see Carys. I need to seehim. His red hair, his beard, all those damn freckles. I need to feel his hand around mine and smell the warm cypress scent that’s comforted me for years now. The pain through the bond is less now, and it has me fucking terrified.
Is he unconscious? They’d had to bring in a stretcher. Was there an injury to his spine? That fall was awful. I hope the jerk who cross-checked him gets a game misconduct for it.
Resolve shakes through me. I take a step forward, trying to duck around the man. He grabs me without hesitation, his arm a steel band around my waist.
“Ma’am, I won’t tell you again,” he says, irritation in his voice. He plants me back on the other side of the threshold, the large hallway cold. “This area is restricted. You can’t be?—”
A different feminine voice cuts the man off, one I’d recognize in a crowd of thousands. One I’ve heard with those thick tears coating the words before.
“Let her in, Frank. She… she can come in.”
The security guard frowns, deep lines bracketing his thin lips. He turns away from me, focusing on someone in the family room behind him.
“Ms. Wilder, you do not have to be catering to a fan’s desire right now.”
“I-I know. Let her in.” Carys’s voice is shakier this time. My stomach roils at the obvious tears in the words. Frank slowly moves away from the doorway, his hand tightening on the doorknob.
Tears stream down her face, her arms crossed over her stomach as she gasps in air with staccato pants. I rush to her, forgetting everything I couldn’t say yesterday, all of the fears I’ve let strangle the two relationships that have meant the most to me. Her sobs grow hysterical when I wrap my arms around her, burying my head in her shoulder, my own shaking getting worse.
People talk around us, but I don’t listen to them. I can’t. I’m too busy pulling Carys tighter into me, trying to make sure she knows I’m picking her, picking being a pack. She wraps her arms around my waist and crumples against me, her knees giving out.
“I need you both. If… If it’s not too late.” Carys’s arms spasm around my waist, her tears flowing faster. It somehow makes my own vulnerability easier. “I want a pack. With you and him and Rhett.”
She nods against my shoulder.
“Carys? Oh!” Marilyn’s voice stops abruptly. I carefully lift my head and find her a few feet away, a phone in her hand and a call lighting the screen. Marilyn’s eyes are happy but worried. “Billie, so glad you’re back. The doctor’s on the phone for you both.”
PAXTON
My head pounds like I’ve spent the entire night getting blackout drunk. I try to move, to press against my head to dull the pain, but my body’s unresponsive. There’s beeping nearby, and it grates on my nerves. But then there’s the faint smell of peaches. Everything else fades away, the pain and the beeping and the irritation. I try and reach for them, try to take them in my arms. They’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, those peaches. Peaches and orchids, both.
I start crying, panicking at my unresponsive body. This must be a dream of some kind caused by something the EMTs gave me while trying to get my throat patched up on the ice. It makes me long for the peaches even more, the peaches and my Bee and the orchids that go with them.
“Paxton?” It’s Billie’s voice.
I’m snapped from the strange dream, dropping into reality like I’ve been pushed into arctic water entirely naked. I gasp, twisting toward her voice. My eyes are slow to open, but I force them to, desperate to see her, to touch her and kiss her and tell her I still love her. The beeping gets louder, faster. A hand circles my wrist, a soft, careful touch I’ve learned to savor over the last month.
My eyes finally manage to open, and I blink, trying to get the room to focus around me. Billie’s sitting beside me, her hands in her lap. Tears line her lashes just like the last time I saw her, and my stomach drops.
“Bee,” I whisper. “Don’t cry. It breaks my heart when you cry.”
