And when that happened—when I could finally take a breather—I was going to let him know how just how fucking lucky I felt to be with him. And how much I didn’t want to live without this fragile thing we were building.
“Jonah. Shit, shit,shit.”
I froze at the sheer panic in Tucker’s voice. We were on our way out to the lobby of Shady Meadows when he grabbed my arm, tugging me to a halt.
“Ohhh, shit.”
“Dude, what?” I demanded. I was going to strangle him if he didn’t say literally anything else.
“Alexio.”
My entire body went cold. “What about him?”
“Hold on, I’m…oh Jesus. He took a bad check. He was stretchered off the ice. Vanya just texted me. He’s currently still unconscious.”
For a moment, I thought it was a joke. Because it had to be, right? It had to be a joke. In this game, no matter what kind of hockey any of us played, we all took bad checks. And wild shit did happen. Players had gotten throats slit by wayward skates,and there had been sticks to the face and blows to the head, knees destroyed.
But not Alexio. That didn’t happen to Alexio.
“What are you saying?”
Tucker was quiet for so long I almost reached over and shook him. Then he took my hand. God, it was never a good sign when he took my hand. “I’m texting Amedeo to get the car. We’ll head over to St. Mary’s now.”
My head began to swim, and it took me a second to realize I was dizzy. I nearly tripped over my own feet trying to take a step, and Tucker caught me.
“Hey, bud. Hey, come on. Breathe, okay?”
“Mm.” Breathing? What even was that? I sucked in air, and it felt like it was full of tiny knives, piercing my lungs. “I need to call someone. I need?—”
“Call Vanya,” Tucker said. “He’s still at the arena, but he’ll know more than me, and he’s not playing tonight.”
Right. Vanya was out this game for a nasty sprained ankle. I could do that.
My fingers shook, and my voice trembled so hard it took me three tries to get my phone to understand me, but by the time Tucker was leading me to Amedeo’s car, the call was connecting.
It rang and rang, and my panic got bigger and bigger when he didn’t answer immediately.
“Jonah.”
I dropped into the back seat and let my cane clatter against my shoes as I pressed my forehead to the passenger headrest. “Tell me he’s okay.”
“I don’t know. I’m on my way right now.” I could hear an echo, and I realized he was in the parking garage.
“Tell me what happened.”
“It was accident. Just wrong hit at the wrong time.” He wheezed, and then the call sounded odd as he put me onspeaker, and the engine revved as he started driving. “Back of his head hit the wall, then the ice.”
“Blood?”
“Yes. A lot,” Vanya said.
Oh shit. Oh shiiiiit.
“What was the last update you got?”
“MRI,” Vanya told me. “Still un…un…” He said a word in Russian.
“Unconscious?”
