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“Woah, slow down with the twenty questions, my guy.” I pushed past him, stepping into the quaint little entryway dotted with photos of his daughter. “Wow, I didn’t know you could smile,” I said, picking up a pale green frame and taking in the very grouchy man looking unabashedly happy while throwing his daughter in the air, but it was plucked from my hand before I got to commit the image to memory.
Large hands wrapped around my upper arms, gentle but firm, and the hot man-bear of a coach ducked down to meet my gaze. “What the hell is going on, Graciella?”
Right. Focus.
“You’re going to want to sit down for this.”
FORTY-EIGHT
DALTON
THIS IS WHY YOU CUT OUT TOXIC PEOPLE.
The world came into focus slowly, like the static clearing on a broken TV screen.
My head pounded, and the soft hum of machines mixed with the muffled sound of someone talking nearby. Blinking against the harsh fluorescent lights, I tried to sit up, but a sharp pain in my side forced me to stay down.
“Dalton,” came a familiar voice, smooth but cold. My father.
I turned my head, my eyes meeting his. He sat in a chair beside the hospital bed, his hands clasped in his lap, his suit impeccable, as always.
“You’re awake,” he said, offering a thin smile. “Good. The doctors have been monitoring you closely. They’re pleased with your progress.”
“What happened?” My voice was rough, barely above a whisper. I tried to piece together the fragments of memory. The game. The hit. The sharp pain in my chest. Surgery.
“You’re back in Dallas,” he said, as if that explained everything. “I had you flown here privately. I thought it best for you to recover somewhere familiar, where you’ll have the best care.”
Dallas. My mind raced. The last thing I remembered was being in San Jose. And Ari…
Ari.
“Where’s Ari?” I croaked, my throat dry. “She was there…”
My father sighed, leaning forward, his expression calculated, sympathetic. “Dalton, about Ariella. She’s not here. She left.”
His words felt like a punch to the gut.
Something wasn’t right.
“What do you mean she left? When will she be back?” How could she not be here when I woke up? I reached for my phone. There were a bunch of missed calls and texts from numbers I had saved, some texts from one I didn’t, but nothing from her.
“She had plans, Dalton,” my father said in a careful tone, as if he were breaking bad news to a child. “Plans to take a position with the San Jose Stars. She accepted the offer before you were even out of surgery. I suspect that was her plan all along.”
“No,” I said immediately, shaking my head. “She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t just leave.”
“I know this is difficult to hear,” he continued. “But it’s for the best. You need to focus on your recovery, your career. You don’t need distractions.”
“She wouldn’t—”
Doubt crept in despite my protest. Would she? The way she looked at me, the way she cared. It wasn’t fake. It couldn’t be.
But then why wasn’t she here?
“Son, I know you cared for her, but relationships like that are fleeting.” His words hit like a punch in the gut, they were not nearly as hard of a hit as when he handed over a white sheet of paper with Ari’s signature. “She’s ambitious, and I don’t blame her for that. But you can’t let someone else's priorities get in the way of your future.”
I turned my face away, staring at the sterile ceiling. My chest ached, but not from the injury. It was a deeper, raw pain. Ari wasn’t just anyone—she was everything.
“I thought she loved me,” I whispered, the admission slipping out before I could stop it.
