29. 29

29

Robbie McGuire

I blink, and a haze of color slowly spins into focus. A pair of dark eyes bore into mine, wide and wild, and a heavy hand rests on my chest. I look around and see a sea of green jerseys. I’m surrounded by opposing players. I’m still on the ice. I haven’t been out for long.

Ant is the first person in our team to get to me.

“ Robbie!” he yells over and over until I’m able to make myself focus on him. He’s holding my helmet firmly in both hands and caging me securely so I don’t try to move. “Are you okay, baby?”

In seconds, there are refs, medics, and Vipers all around me.

“Give him some space,” says Luddy as he and Bodie push players back. Ant doesn’t move a muscle.

“I’m fine,” I say. “Let me get up.”

“Don’t even think about it,” warns Ant, a sentiment immediately echoed by at least two medics .

“I said I’m fine! ” I say as they strap me onto a stretcher and again when they cart me off the ice.

Well, that was a shit show. I’ve spent hours in the ER, and they’ve run every possible test they can think of, and of course, I was right. I’m fine.

Like I told them I was.

I’ve been playing hockey for almost twenty years. Believe me, I know a mild concussion when I feel one.

I only just made it onto the plane. I swear to God, if I’d missed our flight, I’d have been bleak.

Bodie and Luddy are sitting across the aisle from me and Josh is sitting next to me. They’re all watching me like a hawk, jumping to their feet if I so much as try to get anything out of the overhead locker.

“Yes, Coach,” I trill, once we land in Seattle, “I have somewhere to go, and no, I won’t be alone. I’m going to my folks’ place for the night. And yes, I’m not driving myself. Luddy is taking me home. My folks will be waiting for me.”

It’s not the first time I’ve said it. More like the tenth .

I know everyone is only trying to look out for me, but I hate this kind of attention, and honestly, I am completely fine. I barely even have a headache.

All I want to do is get home, lie on my new sofa, and watch the end of the game in peace and quiet without a single person asking me if I’m okay or telling me not to do something.

The doorbell rings. It’s a loud, grating sound that reminds me I’ve been meaning to get the bell replaced with one that doesn’t sound like bagpipes being played badly.

I ignore it. I’m exactly where I want to be and where I need to be—on my sofa, buried under a fluffy blanket with an ice pack on my forehead. I’m not moving for any reason, and that’s the end of it.

It rings again.

And again.

I curse and pull myself up by my core, flinching when my ribs remind me I was treated like a human punching bag earlier today. I stomp my feet as I walk, dragging the blanket with me.

I yank the door open and take a quick step back .

I’m not sure who I expected, but if I’d put much thought into it, Bodie would’ve been my prime suspect. Or maybe even Coach because of the way he’s been fussing tonight.

It’s neither of them.

It’s Ant. He’s at my door, wearing a somber expression with fine lines of accusation drawn around the edges. “What are you doing here?” he demands.

“I-I live here.”

He takes me by the shoulders, moves me gently to the side, and lets himself in, dropping an overnight bag on the floor. “I heard you tell Coach you were going to your parents, but I knew, I knew you weren’t going to do it. You were making that face you always make when you’re about to be impossible.”

“I’m fine,” I grind out.

“The hell you are. Now get your ass on the sofa and don’t move unless I say so.”

“I was on the fucking sofa before you rang the fucking doorbell,” I grumble as I walk back to the living room. I’m pissed and unhappy about being bossed around. I’m also smiling so hard that I’m forced to lift the blanket to hide the bottom half of my face.

Ant orders in a too-healthy, high protein, high veg option from a restaurant that only uses organic produce. When it arrives, he serves it to me with a large glass of water and monitors my food and liquid intake with grim determination.

He has me unlock my phone and sends a message to the team from me, telling them I need to take a raincheck on dinner tomorrow night. I’d argue, but I have a feeling it if I don’t do it voluntarily, he’ll confiscate my phone and do it for me.

He lets me watch the game right up to the point where I take the last hit and then he switches the TV off.

“I want to see the end of the game, asshole,” I cry. “That’s the whole reason I’m watching.”

It falls on deaf ears. I’m marched up to bed and watched as I brush my teeth in much the same way he watched me eat my dinner.

“Bed,” he says, pointing a thick finger at me. “No arguments and no funny business. And put some pants on.”

“No funny business? Who the hell agreed to that?” I whine and complain about it, but against my better judgment, I do put some pants on. When I’m dressed, I pull back the covers sullenly and get in.

He ignores me and takes his sweet time getting ready for bed .

“If you were hoping I’d be asleep by the time you got into bed, the joke’s on you,” I say when he finally slides beneath the covers. “I’m not even tired.”

It’s a lie, a white one, but a lie nonetheless. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, and I’m so exhausted it’s a struggle to keep my eyes open.

I clench my teeth against the threatening yawn and snuggle up to Ant, tugging on the quilt and tucking it around his shoulders so he’s nice and warm and no cold air can find us. I nestle my head into the space between his neck and the pillow and let my hand roam down his chest.

“Uh-uh,” he says when I get near his navel. “I meant it. No funny business, Princess. You took a fuck-ton of hits tonight. You got banged up. The last thing in the world you need is to subject yourself to more impact.”

“But I like this kind of impact,” I whine. “This kind of banging is good for me. It helps clear my sinuses.”

“Your sinuses aren’t the problem.” I expect him to admonish me more, given what his mood has been like so far tonight, but he doesn’t. He bites back the bark of a laugh and curls an arm around me. When it’s quiet and dark and the day’s events are starting to fade, he kisses my forehead lightly. “Go to sleep, baby,” he whispers. “I’ll check on you in two hours. ”

“I’m fiiine .”

It’s the last thing I say before I pass out.

He wakes me at two a.m. and makes me answer the usual questions. “What’s your name? What day is it? Do you know where you are?”

“I’m Robbie McGuire, the best Vipers wing in history. It’s Saturday night. I mean…early Sunday morning. And I’m at home, in bed with my boyfriend.”

He lets the boyfriend thing go but that’s as far as he can go. “The best left -wing,” he corrects firmly.

I toss and turn a few times, too hot and too cold because of the pants and the fact Ant isn’t inside me. As much as it pains me to admit, I am a little headache-y and my mind is foggy. I’m moody too. “You shouldn’t have woken me up, you ass. Now I can’t fall back asleep.”

There’s a noticeable sigh. A long hiss of breath accompanied by a slight slump in his shoulders. “Come here,” he says, rolling me onto my back.

“What are you going to do to me?” The smile from before, the one that wraps almost the whole way around my head, is back.

“You’re lucky that piece of shit tried to decapitate you tonight, you know that?” I snort at that. “If he hadn’t, there’s less than no chance you’d have gotten through today without feeling the palm of my hand on your ass. You’ve been bad, Babygirl. High-maintenance and high-strung. You’re being so difficult that you’re making it hard for me to remember why we have pants on.”

I gurgle happily and try to put my arms around him. He pins my wrists to the bed. Gently. He does it so gently that it feels the same way it felt the first time he got me ready for sex.

I love it.

“Close your eyes,” he says. I don’t want to, but he runs his fingertips lightly down my face, over my eyes, forcing them to slide shut reflexively. I want to open them again, and I would, but he keeps kissing my face, which makes it difficult. He kisses my cheeks, then my eyelids, then my lips, then my eyelids again. He has a hand on my chest, palm flat and open, covering as much surface area as possible. He moves it in a big, slow figure-eight, warming my heart.

When I’m so blissed out I couldn’t open my eyes even if I still wanted to, he lies beside me and gently runs his fingers through my hair.

He wakes me at four and again at six. He asks me the same questions each time. At four, I give him the same answers I gave him at two. At six, I leave out the thing about being the best wing the Vipers have ever had because I like the way he reacts to me calling him my boyfriend so fucking much that I can’t wait to hear myself say it.

He likes when I say it. I know he does. I can tell because his breathing hitches right before I say the word and comes out in a rush when he hears it.

“Thank you, Ant,” I murmur when he’s done kissing my eyelids and stroking my chest and has settled next to me to play with my hair. “This is the best concussion I’ve ever had.”