I stopped short, letting the guys grab a lead on me as I stared at her. “Me?”
“You,” she nodded. “Celebrating twenty years involves looking back at how far the team has come, and what better way to usher in the future than with the face of The Surge’s new era?”
She wasn’t wrong. Out of all the names on the team’s A-list, mine was the brightest. More eyes on me, and that meant more open doors like the Florida Panthers.
“Sounds great,” I said, pushing out my chest just a little. “I mean… I’m the hottest shit, so it makes total sense.”
Holly’s pen tapped against her notebook. “There’s just one slight condition. From management.”
“Should I care, or is it something that could be your problem?”
She gave me a stiff smile, and said, “The only way they’re letting you on that stage is if you fix your attitude. On and off the ice.”
11
Nicole
The trauma unit never slept. It only inhaled and exhaled, a constant mechanical breath made of monitor beeps, rolling gurneys, clipped voices, and the sharp tang of antiseptic that clung to the back of my throat. I’d been on my feet since before sunrise, my coffee long since reduced to a memory and a headache pulsing just behind my eyes.
“Nicole, you’re up for vitals in room one-oh-four,” Parker, the head nurse, called from behind the intake desk. She was multi-tasking, watching Marcie’s fingers fly over the keyboard.
We always had a lot to say about Parker when she wasn’t around, but this place would be chaos if it weren’t for her. The kind of woman who could run any floor through a power outage and an earthquake without spilling her tea.
“I’m on it,” I said, already moving.
I slipped into 104, all muscle memory and routine. Blood pressure cuff. Pulse ox. A calm smile for the middle-aged man grimacing at the ceiling in mild pain. I kept my voice even and friendly, the way you learn to do when the world is in tethers just beyond the curtain.
Outside, a trauma bay curtain ripped open. Someone shouted a blood type and the unit surged, a living thing responding to stimulus.
By the time I stepped back into the hall, recording 104’s numbers into my tablet, I felt like I’d officially reached the point of exhaustion where I was no longer in my body. My feet ached in a dull, distant way, like they belonged to someone else. Double shift. Again. My own fault for swapping nights so I could catch games, but knowing that didn’t make my eyelids feel any less gritty.
“Nicole.”
I stopped.
I knew that voice. Too smooth for a hospital. Too cock-sure.
I turned, already bracing myself, and there he was. Landon Cross. Star winger. Media darling. Human complication.
He stood just inside the trauma unit doors like he’d taken a wrong turn on the way to somewhere shinier, broad shoulders stretching a black jacket that definitely cost more than my monthly grocery bill. He looked awake. Vibrant. Like he hadn’t spent the last sixteen hours sprinting between beds and bodily fluids and other people’s emergencies.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, pulling him out of the way of general foot traffic.
His grin spread, bright and pleased with itself. “Nice to see you too.”
“Landon…” I lowered my voice as a gurney rushed past behind me. “You can’t just show up here.”
“I can,” he said easily. “I did.”
Parker’s gaze flicked up from the desk, and I lifted a hand in a quick, apologetic wave and mouthed,I’ve got it.
Landon leaned as if he were about to share a secret, forget that we were in the middle of the busiest part of the hospital. “I got a lead.”
My exhaustion receded just enough for my heart to trip. I was too tired to care about whether it was his mouth right by my ear, or the promise of this lead.
“What is it?”
“Your holy grail.” He looked smug as he straightened again, hands in his jacket pockets.
