Chapter 6

I try to force my eyes open, but it’s useless. At first anyway. I feel like I took a bunch of sleeping pills, rendering me useless. It takes me for-fucking-ever, and I hear the faint sound of a beeping machine, but eventually, I pry my eyes open. When I finally keep myself awake, I’m damn near sure I’m still sleeping. Or dead.

Yeah, I’m surely dead. Because why else would I see Paige beside my bed, asleep in the chair, with her legs pulled against her? Her blonde hair is shorter than it was the last time I saw her, but it looks good on her, and her porcelain skin looks so soft that I want to brush my fingers across it, just to remember how it feels to touch my wife.

There’s only one answer. I’m dead, and this must be my version of heaven. Though I have to be honest, I didn’t think I’d actually make it here, but, hey, I’m not going to complain because burning in hell really never sounded that appealing.

My head feels fuzzy, and even though it’s dull, there’s no missing the aches in my body. I open my mouth to say her name, but before it comes out, a young woman in navy-blue scrubs walks into the room. And when she sees me alert, her face instantly lights up, and she rushes to the bedside.

“Mr. Kolburne,” she says with a smile. “You’re awake!”

The excitement in her voice startles Paige, waking her up, and I realize I’m not dead or asleep. This is fucking real. I haven’t seen my wife in a year and a half. I didn’t really want the first time I saw her again to be while I was in a fucking hospital gown, lying in bed, feeling like I’d been run over by a truck. But as always, I can’t look away from her.

The nurse continues to talk, likely explaining why I’m here, but it’s all background noise and muffled because when I look at my wife, I can’t focus on anything but her. Her lips are as red as they ever were, and those freckles sprinkled across her face make me wish I could kiss each and every one.

Her shock is obvious as she stares back at me with her big brown eyes, like a deer caught in headlights. Within seconds, she shoots up from her chair and stands beside the bed.

“He’s awake?” rushes from her lips as she looks from me to the nurse. “When did he wake up?”

“Just now,” she answers Paige delicately.

“Does he know?” Paige blurts out, panic covering her face. “Did you … have you told him what happened?”

“Not yet.” She shakes her head before heading toward me. “Mr. Kolburne, you took a pretty hard hit on the ice. You had a heart attack.”

Even though it’s the nurse telling me what happened, my eyes fly to Paige’s, as if to confirm it, and she bobs her head once weakly, looking at me with pure sympathy, making me feel even more fucking pathetic than I already do.

The nurse takes her stethoscope from around her neck. “I’m going to listen to your ticker, okay?”

“Go for it,” I mumble.

My eyes find their way back to Paige as the nurse slides the cold metal against my chest, moving it around to different places. It hits me that she’s probably here out of obligation, not because she still cares for me. That’s who she is. She’s a people pleaser and an empath to a fault.

“Why are you here?” It comes out sharper than I planned. But, hey, I’m not convinced she’s actually here at all. And if she is, I hate that it took whatever the fuck just happened to me for her to show up.

At first, she looks upset. But quickly, it turns to anger, though she tries to mask it by keeping her cool. She’s my wife though; I know when she’s fucking pissed.

“I’m your emergency contact, apparently,” she says, keeping her voice level. “You probably didn’t feel the need to change that since I’m your wife. You know, since we’re still married on account of … you not signing the papers.”

I narrow my eyes at her. I might be stuck in this bed, yet my cock stirs because she is the sexiest woman on the planet, even when she’s mouthing off.

Especially when she’s mouthing off.

“They must have gotten lost in the mail,” I say, subtly dipping my head to the side. “My bad.” I look around, realizing my mom isn’t here. “Does my mom know what happened?”

My mother has always had a way of making things harder. So, the fact that she isn’t here is sort of a blessing because, fuck, that woman would be panicking. But I also want to make sure she knows I’m okay. If I even am. I guess I should probably find that out.

“I called her right when I got here. She and your brother had seen the news.” Paige bites down on her lip. “I’ve been in contact with them both, filling them in. Your brother couldn’t get a flight in until tomorrow because of a storm, but that wouldn’t work because—”

“He has a game the next night,” I say, finishing her sentence.

She nods slowly. “And your mom so badly wanted to be here when you woke up. But she’s back in Washington, extremely sick with the flu. The last thing you need is to catch that. I promised her that I’d update her as soon as you woke up.”

I take my time studying her face. “And how’d they like talking to you, wifey, after you weren’t at Christmas last year?”

Rolling her eyes, she grinds her teeth, the way she always does when she’s annoyed. “For your information, your mom sent me a gift in the mail. So, yeah, I don’t think she hates me.”

The nurse steps between us, eyeing both of us nervously. “Okay, look, we’re going to need to run some tests on you. In case you don’t remember, when you took that hit on the ice, you had a heart attack. So, while you seem okay, your body went through something incredibly traumatic.”

“And then I can go home?” I say, dead-ass serious. “Because I fucking hate hospitals.”

“We’ll get to that, Mr. Kolburne. Let’s see what the tests tell us and what the doctor thinks, okay?” She glances anxiously at Paige before shifting her gaze back to me. “But I will say this: when we do send you home, it’s imperative you have a support system in place; otherwise, we can’t just send you on your way. You might feel great now, but your body took one hell of a hit. This isn’t going to be an overnight recovery, Mr. Kolburne. And I’m sorry if this comes off as insensitive, but this might not be the best time to … figure out this whole marriage thing.”

“There is no marriage to figure out. Aside from that whole … mess, we were … we are friends,” Paige assures her. “I’m simply here to make sure he gets better.”

“Friends, huh?” I attempt to wink at her, but even my face muscles are weak.

The nurse swallows sharply before giving a curt nod. “Dr. Fusco will be in shortly to talk to you, and I’ll get all of those tests ordered.”

Once she’s gone, I swing my gaze back to Paige, who suddenly looks paler.

“She’s right,” she whispers. “You’re healing. The last thing you need is the stress from … our bullshit.” She inhales sharply and lets it out. Her eyes glaze over, looking like she’s deep in thought. “There must be someone who can stay with you until your mom can get here. Someone who … pisses you off less than I do.”

“That’s pretty much anyone else, sweetheart,” I say lowly. “But I have to know, what would Dexter think of you being here right now?”

That’s right. I saw you hanging out with that fuckstick.

I have no social media of my own—I mean, I do, but I don’t run it or even have access to it, not like I’ve ever wanted to. I knew if I ever did, I’d look her up. And if she was living a happy, full life with the fucking cat she always wanted and a house with a fenced-in yard with fucking Dexter … I didn’t want to see it.

She opens her plump lips to say something back, likely something sassy, but a doctor with white hair walks into the room with two women in scrubs closely behind him.

“Kolt Kolburne, glad to see you’re awake.” He smiles. “Pretty thankful for that, as I didn’t want all of New England coming to the hospital with their pitchforks, ready to fight me.”

I give him a slight nod, but my entire body fucking hurts, and I don’t know why. I’m used to taking hits. Built for it even. This one shouldn’t have been any different.

Well, aside from the heart attack, I suppose.

“Yeah, speaking of the Sharks, this season is really important to us. So, can I get on out of here? I feel good. Real good,” I lie through my teeth. I don’t feel good. I feel like fucking dog shit.

He lets out a small laugh. “Now, I appreciate a man who looks out for his team and all, but even if all your tests come back perfect—and that’s a big if—you still have a recovery process. The muscle around the heart gets damaged when you suffer a heart attack. That’s what you had, Kolt—a heart attack. And unless you want another one, you need to let yourself get better and take it slow.”

My heart begins to race, along with beeping from a monitor, causing the doctor to look at it.

“Calm down, okay?” he says evenly, looking at me over his glasses. “It’s all going to be okay. You need to trust me on that.”

“My team needs me. I can’t just … take time off.” I grind my back teeth together, pushing my head against the pillow. “You don’t get it. Our team is stacked this year. This is our year. I can’t fucking take it easy and watch movies on my couch.”

Anger floods my veins as I watch this season slip away. So many people are counting on me to play my part this season. My team deserves to go all the way, but without one of us, that’ll be challenging.

“Kolt,” Paige says, and I can hear the worry in her tone, “I don’t think—”

“No, I don’t want to hear it. You’ve been gone for a year and a half, Paige. Don’t pretend to care now,” I cut her off. “Hockey is all I have. And without me, the team isn’t whole.”

“I’m not saying you’re going to miss the entire season, son.” He sighs. “Let’s just run the tests, and then we can go from there, all right? There’s no sense in getting wound up until we have all the information.”

I don’t nod or say anything. I simply look away from him and stare out the window.

This season is supposed to be ours. My whole life, I’ve let everyone down. This is the one time I thought I could be a part of something that didn’t fucking fail.

I let my mother down when I couldn’t protect her from my father. And again when I went to live with the Hendrixes because I wanted my brother and me to make it to the pros so badly that I lost sight of anything else.

I let Klay down because I couldn’t shield him from the fucked-up reality that was our family. As his older brother, that was my job, and I blew it.

I disappointed my wife when I couldn’t man up and fucking talk out my shit, so instead, I sabotaged us to the point of no return and forced her to leave me behind.

And now, my team. I’m their top defenseman, and I’m leaving them down a man. They’ll all say it’s fine, and they will mean it too. But they want to win this fucking season, and they’ll resent me. I resent myself.

“We’ll give you a few minutes, and then we’ll be back to get you to run those tests,” I hear the doctor say, but I don’t answer or turn to face him.

Right now, I’m really fucking mad, and whatever comes out of my mouth will make me sound like an even bigger asshole.

Just when I think he’s gone, he says, “I can tell you, as hard as this all is to wake up and hear, if it wasn’t for that chest protector, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.” He pauses. “You would have died instantly, son.”

A whimper comes straight from Paige’s lips before his footsteps disappear. It sounds like the same whimpers I’d hear on those nights when I came home drunk. At first, she’d cry. Sometimes, I’d hold her because I couldn’t fucking stand to see her sad.

When I turn to face her, I see tears in her eyes. And, fuck, seeing that hurts more than taking that dude’s body to my chest. Pain sears through me, but I know this time, it’s not the kind that’ll kill me. It only feels like it will.

She’s so close. I want to tell her to come here and climb into bed with me so I can wrap my arms around her tightly. That won’t fix anything, even though I wish it would.

“What’s wrong, Buttercup?” I rasp. “What are you crying about?”

She shakes her head, turning away from me. “You could have … you could have never woken up. I’m just glad you’re all right, Kolt.” Her voice is weak, and her shoulders sag.

There’s a space between us that was never there before she walked out on me. A space of distrust. And pain. A space that takes up this whole fucking room, suffocating me.

I can’t see it. I can only feel it.

It’s the only thing I can feel right now.

Sighing, I turn away from her again because I can’t fucking stand to see her cry.

“Yeah. Me too.”

“The muscle around the heart is weakened, but we expected that, as it goes with the territory of a myocardial infarction. But the good news is, the heart can—and will—grow strong again.” The doctor speaks to me like I’m a child he doesn’t want to freak out. “But everything else looked okay on the tests. We’re waiting for a few more results to come back, and then we’ll have a game plan. Though I’d still like to keep him another day or two for observation.”

The doctor and I are in the hallway, away from Kolt, who dozed back off, thankfully.

“You sound … nervous or hesitant,” I say, raising my eyebrows. “Is there something I need to know?”

Inhaling a breath, he leans his shoulder on the wall. “You’re a physical therapist, you said, right?”

When I nod, his head bobs as he continues to speak. “You know as well as I do that his heart was temporarily damaged from the heart attack. Despite what Kolt might believe, one cannot simply go into cardiac arrest and then go back to playing hockey the next day. Or in a week.” He shrugs. “Hell, even a month. I don’t have a timeline for this type of injury, unfortunately. But I do know, for the next few weeks, he shouldn’t live alone. He’s weaker than he’s used to. And he’s not completely out of the woods.” His lip turns up. “He also seems like the type of guy who would push himself further than he should.”

“That’s an understatement.” I breathe out a weak laugh. “So, what are you saying, Doc? What do you need from me?”

“I need you to make sure he doesn’t overdo it. At least until his mother or someone else can take over the duty of looking out for him. Then, I’d like to see him back here in a few weeks to repeat all the same tests, and hopefully, we’ll see that everything has improved.”

I let the words sink in. Part of me wants to be the one to stick around and make sure he gets better and rests like he’s supposed to. The other part wants to run away and have someone else care for him because I know living in a house with my husband again is going to be torture on my heart.

“I’ll make sure he comes back,” I say, swallowing. “And if I’m not around, I promise, his mom will make sure he behaves and does what he’s supposed to.”

He looks at me over his glasses, eyeing me suspiciously. “All right. Well, I’ll be making my rounds. For now, let’s let him rest.”

“Sounds good. Thanks,” I say, turning to head back to Kolt’s room.

When I walk into his room, he’s sleeping, surprisingly peacefully, considering how grouchy he’s been—which is fair. He’s been through a lot.

My body aches to curl up beside him. I feel a pull toward the bed, but I fight the urge because his recovery has no room for my selfishness.

Lowering myself into the chair, I pull my phone out and message his mom, his brother, and Logan. Because out of everyone on the team, Kolt is the closest with Logan, and I know he’ll fill the entire team in on how he’s doing.

Logan: I’m stopping by later. Don’t tell him. He’ll be a little bitch and lock the door or some shit.

I chew my lip, glancing up at Kolt again. He’s the type of man who doesn’t ever want anyone to see him at his weakest. He’s always strong for everyone else, never letting himself fall apart. He won’t want his team here. But … the Sharks are family. And if they want to visit him, I’m not going to stop them.

Besides, it might be good for Kolt to see how loved he is. And that however long this recovery process takes, they won’t be upset with him.

Me: I won’t tell him. But if he asks, I knew nothing. He hates me enough already.

Logan: We both know that isn’t true. See you soon.

Curling my feet under me, I close my eyes and drift off to sleep. Imagining that I’m in Kolt’s arms and not this uncomfortable-as-hell chair.