“Yes, sorry. Words much harder right now. Feeling…” He said a few more things in Russian, and I recognized a couple of them as swear words. “He will be okay. You coming to hospital?”
“We’re on our way right now,” I told him. My words were barely a whisper, and I still felt so fucking lightheaded.
I wanted to ask why he sounded so sure Alexio would be okay when there was blood on the ice and he was still fucking unconscious. Not a lot of players died on the ice. But some did. More than none.
More than one.
And I wasn’t ready to lose him.
Vanya ended the call when he got to the hospital and promised to ring me back if there was any news. I took the fact that he didn’t as a good sign as we finally got back into Boston. I hated that we were so fucking far away. I hated my dad a little for this complication, even though this wasn’t actually his fault.
I hated myself for not being there—not that my presence would have prevented any of this.
And when we pulled up to the curb at St. Mary’s, I hated that I couldn’t just run in and know exactly where to go.
Luckily, Tucker was ready to guide me, and he didn’t take even a second’s pause as he got me to the nurse’s station. I stammered out Alexio’s name and felt my stomach clench at the nurse’s pointed silence.
He couldn’t be dead. He could not be dead. He couldn’t?—
“He’s been moved to a room,” she said.
“Can we see him?” I stammered.
“Yes. You’ll take the hallway right there, hang a left, and follow the signs to the elevator. It’ll be up on the third floor, Neuro ICU.”
ICU. Oh fuck.
Oh, fuck.
“Stay with me, bud,” Tucker murmured, pulling me close. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
Or it did. Or it meant the worst possible outcome that wasn’t him dead.
Tucker pressed my hand to his elbow, then began a slower walk this time. My cane dragged along the floor, useless, but Tucker wasn’t going to let me fall. I was able to take a deep breath by the time we reached the elevators, and I pressed my cane tip to the floor as I waited for the ding, resting my chin on the top of the handle.
“I’m catastrophizing.”
“I know. It’s going to be okay.”
I winced. “You don’t know that, Tuck. Neuro ICU…?”
“I’ve been there. Well, not there, but the ICU. And it sounds scarier than it is, okay?”
I’d almost forgotten that Tucker had been through hell and back before I met him. A car accident had robbed him of so much, and god, that must have been terrifying. But he survived. And whatever Alexio was going through, he would too.
“What if he wakes up and doesn’t remember me? What if he wakes up and loses the last five years of his life, and he thinks I’m just some douche bag goalie from the Legends who?—”
“Okay, first of all,” Tucker said, cutting me off just as the elevator dinged. He led me inside, then hit the button. “That shit is from the movies. I mean, maybe it happens. What the fuck do I know. I’m not a doctor. But I don’t think that’s a real thing.”
I wasn’t a doctor either, and yeah, I probably did watch too many rom-coms about that crap. But the thought that it could happen was terrifying. Yeah, I’d do the work all over again to make him fall for me, but god, I wasn’t sure I could cope with the pain.
“The important thing is not to?—”
“If you say not to panic,” I warned him, “I will punch you.”
He took my hand and squeezed as the doors opened, and I stepped out in front of him, my cane finding the ridge and then the tiles of the hospital floor.
“I see some double doors. I think we have to call on the speaker to be let in,” Tucker told me, and for the moment, I let him take the lead.
