14. Wes

Wes

We’re not even halfwaythrough our morning skate when Blake lumbers off the ice and is ushered into the chute by the team doctor. Worry pokes hard at me when I notice he’s favoring his left knee. He’d been icing it in the locker room last night after the game, but he assured me this morning that he was A-OK. Said it was just an old injury acting up and that the precautionary X-rays and ultrasound our techs ran came back clear.

I force myself to concentrate for the duration of practice, but I hope to God that Blake is all right. He hadn’t looked like he was in too much pain when he’d skated off, but you never know. Hockey players are tough motherfuckers. They could have a broken leg with the bone sticking straight through their flesh and still insist they’re fine.

I think the same applies to hockey coaches, because Jamie had brushed off his own malady last night. I came home to find him in our bed with a pillow over his head, groaning that he’d never had a migraine like this before. I felt him tossing and turning all night, but he was gone before I woke up, so I’m assuming he’s migraine-free now. I damn well hope he is. I was really looking forward to hanging out with him yesterday, and I’m determined to make it happen tonight.

The second Coach blows his whistle to signal the end of practice, I head to the locker room to shower and change, then go on a hunt for Blake. I track him down to the physio room. He’s lying on a long metal table, his left leg propped up and an ice pack on his knee.

“What’s the word?” I ask in concern.

Unhappiness clouds his face. “They’re sending me for an MRI.”

Shit. “MCL? ACL?” I pray the answer to that is “neither”, but Blake’s expression goes even more bleak.

“ACL. They don’t think it’s a tear. Worst case, a sprain, but it’ll still keep me out of action for a while. Two weeks, hopefully. Six at the most.”

Double shit. Losing Blake, even for a couple weeks, would be a major hit for the team. He’s one of our best forwards. “I’m sorry, man,” I say quietly.

Blake is quick to flash that careless grin of his, even though we both know he’s bummed out at the prospect of missing any games. “Ah, don’t look so mopey, Wesley. Nothing keeps me down for long, eh? I’ll be back before you know it.”

I raise a brow. “You’d better be. We’re going to need you if we make the playoffs.” For the first time in years, Toronto is actually in playoffs contention. I like to think that’s partly my doing—I’ve now scored at least one goal in the past six games—but I’m trying not to let myself get too cocky. Hockey is a team sport. No “I” in “team” and all that jazz, right?

“When we make the playoffs,” he corrects. “Pessimistic asshole.”

“When we make the playoffs,” I echo, which gets me another broad smile from him. “So take care of that knee, you hear me? Don’t push yourself to get back on the ice sooner than the docs tell you. We can man the fort until you’re ready to—”

“Wesley.” The male voice at the door interrupts me, and I turn to see one of our assistant coaches standing in the doorway.

“Yeah, Coach?”

“Call came in for you on the main switchboard.” He points to the white phone mounted near the door. “They’re on hold. Line two. Sounds important.”

He ducks away without another word.

I’m not sure why, but my stomach goes rigid. I don’t claim to be a super-intuitive guy. That’s Jamie’s forte, sensing what people are thinking, instinctively knowing what to do in any given situation. But right now, foreboding is crawling up my spine, and for some peculiar reason, my legs wobble like a toddler’s as I walk over to the phone.

I lift the handset to my ear and press the Line Two button with a shaky finger. “Hello?”

“Is this Ryan Wesley?” an unfamiliar voice barks.

“Yes. Who’s this?”

There’s a slight pause. “Shit, this is actually Ryan Wesley? The Toronto center?”

“I just said so, didn’t I?” I can’t stop the sharp bite to my tone. “Who am I speaking to right now?”

“David Danton. Associate coach for the U17 Wildcats. I work with Jamie Canning.”

I find myself leaning forward, bracing one palm against the wall. Why is Jamie’s least-favorite coworker calling me? My heart rate kicks up a notch.

“Canning collapsed about an hour ago,” Danton says, and all the oxygen in my lungs shudders out. “We tried calling you when it happened, but I was on hold. And when the ambulance came, I hung up.”

An hour ago? Ambulance?? Horror clamps around my throat, along with a rush of fear that floods my stomach and brings me dangerously close to hurling all over the pristine white floor.

“Where is he?” I demand. “Is he okay?”

From behind me, I hear a rustling sound. I jump nearly five feet in the air when Blake appears at my side. Concern is etched into his rugged features, but I’m too terrified to pay him much attention.

“We just got to St. Sebastian’s. The ER docs are with him now. Last update we got said he’s still unresponsive.”

Unresponsive?

The handset falls from my suddenly limp fingers. It dangles from its cord, rocking like a pendulum and smacking the wall with each hurried swing. I’m vaguely aware of a big hand grabbing that handset. A gruff voice talking into the phone. I don’t know what the voice is saying. All I can hear is the wild hammering of my pulse in my ears.

Jamie is unresponsive. Unresponsive. What the hell does that mean? Why is he unresponsive?

An anguished sound tears out of my throat. I lunge out the door, my vision nothing but a hazy, panicky blur. I don’t even know where I’m going. I just stumble forward in search of the nearest exit.

I need to get to the hospital. Goddamn it, but I don’t even know where St. Sebastian’s is. I think if I tried to punch it into my GPS app right now, I’d break my phone. My hands aren’t doing so well—they’re tingling and shaking and missing the door handle every time I try to push it open.

“Wesley.” The voice is tinny. Faraway.

I push on the handle again, and the door finally fucking opens.

“Ryan.”

It’s the use of my first name that penetrates the fog of terror that’s surrounding me like a shield. My dad calls me by my first name, and I was conditioned as a child to always stand to attention when I hear those two commanding syllables. I jerk my head up and see Blake running toward me. Even in my current state, I know he shouldn’t be running.

“Your knee,” I manage to croak.

He skids to a stop in front of me. “My knee’s fine. Keeping me off the ice for now, yeah, but it’s not banged up enough to let you get killed in a head-on collision.”

I blink. I honestly don’t know what he’s saying right now.

“I’m driving you to the hospital,” he clarifies.

I object weakly. “No—”

“Don’t need my left leg to drive, anyway.” His tone brooks no argument. “And you’re in no condition to drive right now.”

I think he might be right. I’m in no condition to open a goddamn door, let alone operate a motor vehicle. In the back of my mind, an alarm bell goes off. I can’t let Blake come with me to the hospital. He’ll see me with Jamie. He’ll…know.

But… Jamie, damn it. I just need to get to Jamie, and right now Blake is my best chance of reaching the hospital without me mowing down some pedestrians on the way there.

I don’t argue as he claps a big hand on my arm and leads me away from the door. I realize I was about to leave through an emergency exit that leads to a cargo area, which is on the complete opposite end of the parking lot I needed to get to.

Blake redirects me down the hall. Neither of us speaks as we ride the elevator to the underground level. Rather than take my SUV, Blake shoves me into the passenger seat of a black Hummer. He gets behind the wheel and hightails it out of the underground.

“The guy on the phone said J-Bomb was brought in with a high fever and abdominal pain,” Blake reveals in a quiet voice. “He passed out when they got to the ER. Hasn’t come to yet.”

Bile burns my throat. Is this his idea of a pep talk? Now I’m ready to pass out myself, because the thought of Jamie—unconscious, sick, alone—makes my entire world blur at the edges. I can’t even see the road beyond the windshield. Everything is dark and blurry and fading away.

“Wesley,” Blake says sharply.

My head snaps up again.

“Breathe,” he orders.

I inhale slowly, but I’m pretty sure there’s no oxygen in the air. All I’m breathing in is more fear. I don’t know how he does it, but Blake and his monstrous Hummer speed through downtown traffic like there aren’t even any other cars on the road. When we got into this beast of a car, the Nav screen said our destination was twenty-five minutes away. We get there in sixteen.

The moment we burst through the automatic doors of the emergency room, I’m in a panic again. The large waiting room is packed. Faces whiz past my vision as I race to the nurses’ station and slam both hands on the counter.

“Jamie Canning!”

My yell startles the redheaded nurse, who looks at me from behind thick lenses. “I’m sorry?”

“Jamie Canning!” I can’t seem to formulate any other sentence. Just those four, terror-laced syllables, which rumble out for a third time. “Jamie Canning.”

Blake speaks up in a calm voice. “We’re here to see a patient named Jamie Canning. He was admitted about an hour ago?”

“One second, sir. Let me have a look.” Her red-polished fingernails fly over a computer keyboard. Green eyes study the screen, and then she raises her head again and her expression is grim enough to make my heart beat faster. Though I’m pretty sure it stopped beating a while ago.

“He’s been moved to quarantine,” she tells us.

My surroundings begin to sway again. Or maybe it’s my legs. I don’t know how I’m even upright. Blake, I realize. He’s literally holding me up by the back of my jacket.

“Quarantine?” I croak.

“Flu symptoms,” the nurse explains. “There’s a very low likelihood of DSKH-DL finding its way to our hospital—”

“DSK...what?” I burst out.

“The sheep flu,” she clarifies, and Blake’s expression turns to horror. “As I said, it’s unlikely, but we’re taking every precaution. Are you Mr. Canning’s family?”

“Yes,” I say without hesitation. Because I am.

Her eyebrows rise. “You’re his…?”

Shit. I can’t lie and say I’m his brother, because nobody will believe me. And even if I blurt out that I’m his boyfriend in this room full of people, it still won’t help. If Jamie and I aren’t married, they won’t care. “I’m all he’s got in Toronto,” I say instead. “We live together.”

“I see,” she says in a patient voice. “Let me explain how our quarantine works. While the patient waits for his laboratory results, family members or their designated appointees can see him, providing they adhere to our quarantine protocol. That’s all we can do until we decide that other patients and visitors are not at risk.”

“But…”

“Next!”

Just like that she dismisses me. For a moment I just stand there in front of the desk, unwilling to move. How dare she?

Two big hands grasp my upper arms and steer me out of the way. “Come on, Wesley. We gotta regroup.” Blake turns me around and parks me against a wall. His paws land on my shoulders. “Where is Jamie’s family? You have to call them.”

Fuck, I do. I yank my phone out of my pocket.

But Blake yanks it out of my hand. “Don’t terrify them, okay? Just because you’re freaked doesn’t mean they have to be.”

“Right. Fine.” He gives me the phone back and I pull up the Canning section of my contacts list, and it’s not short. But choosing the number for Jamie’s mom’s pottery studio is an easy decision. Be calm, I order myself while I listen to it ring. No panic.

“Canning Ceramics, this is Cindy.”

In spite of my desire to be calm and collected, the warm strength of her voice flips a switch inside me that I didn’t know was there. “Mom?” I croak. Okay—I’ve never called her that. Not once. Don’t know why I did it now.

“Ryan, sweetie, what’s the matter?”

I close my eyes and try to pull myself together. “We have a bit of a situation,” I say carefully. But I can’t possibly fool her, because my voice shakes. “Jamie’s been admitted to the hospital with flu symptoms. Last night he had a headache, and today he passed out at work. That’s what I know so far.”

“Okay, Ryan, take a breath.” Why do people keep saying that? I do it, though, because Cindy told me to. “And now say, ‘It’s going to be okay.’ Say it three times in a row.”

“But…”

“I have six children, Ryan. This is an important step for keeping your sanity. Say it. Right now. Let me hear you.”

“It’s going to be okay,” I wheeze.

“Two more.”

“It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.”

“Good boy. Now tell me where you are.”

I give her a rundown of what the nurse behind the desk told me.

“So you need my permission to see Jamie. How do I reach the right person to provide that?”

“Uh…” Shit.

Someone sticks a piece of paper in my face. It’s Blake, and he’s offered me a card reading Patient Registrar and Permissions, with a phone number.

“Thank you,” I mouth into his face. Then I give Cindy the number.

“Okay, honey,” she says. “I’ll call them immediately. After you get in to see him, you’ll call me, okay? Use my cell phone because I have to go pick up my grandson. Tammy is having her C-section tomorrow.”

“Oh, wow. Okay. I will. I promise.”

“I know, honey. Hang in there. I love you both so much.”

There’s a giant lump in my throat now. “Love you, too. Bye.”

We end our call, and the hospital waiting room comes into focus. It’s loud and full of people, some of whom are staring at Blake and me. One teenage girl nudges her friend and points at us.

If anyone asks me for an autograph right now I’ll probably explode.

Blake moves his big body, positioning himself to get in between the waiting room and me. “Let’s give it ten minutes,” he says. “J-Bomb’s mom needs to get through to whoever, and then maybe your name will show up on the record. Nurse Nazi over there will have to let you in.”

“Right,” I say. My head is still spinning. Jamie can’t have any kind of weird flu. Where would he have gotten it? On the other hand, then why is he so sick? In my panic, it feels like a problem I ought to be able to solve. I’ve never felt so helpless in my whole life.

“He’s gonna be okay,” Blake says, reading my mind. “Healthy guy like that? In a couple of days you’ll be laughing about this.”

But I just keep hearing the words collapsed and unresponsive over and over in my head. What if he had an undiagnosed heart condition? My sophomore year in college one of my classmates died playing intramural basketball. He just collapsed on the gym floor. The ref gave him CPR, but he was just gone.

Fuck. Can’t think about that. “It’s going to be okay,” I repeat, just like Cindy told me to.

“Hey.” Blake gives my shoulder a shake. “Of course it is. Did Canning’s mom make that coffee mug?”

“What?” My head is full of doom, and Blake wants to talk coffee cups?

“I washed the dishes in your pad. The bottom of the mug is inscribed.”

Oh. Fuck me. That mug says Jamie loves you and so do we. Welcome to the Canning clan. And when I look up into Blake’s eyes, I see exactly what I’d been worrying about for months.

He knows.

“Blake,” I start. Bullshitting him is off the table, so I go with evasion. “It’s not a good time to have this conversation.”

“Says you.” Blake’s voice goes to a place I’ve never heard before. He’s actually kind of angry, and I hadn’t even known that was possible. “We’re about sixty seconds away from fending off a bunch of fans who will decide that it isn’t all that rude to approach the hockey players in the emergency room. And they’re gonna ask why we’re here. I got no opinion at all on what you should say to them. But I’m your friend, and you’re supposed to level with your friends.”

That’s probably true, but I’ve got a whole lot riding on my secrecy. Blake has the biggest big mouth I ever met, and I’m not sure he can really appreciate the situation I’m in.

We’re having a stare down and I win it. Because shutting my trap has become something that I’m really good at.

He sighs and looks away. “Fine. Be that way. But if you’re hell-bent on hiding for the rest of your life, at least take off your jacket, man. That thing is like a beacon.”

Because he’s right, I do it, shrugging off the team jacket and shoving it under my arm.

“Ryan Wesley?” the intercom bleats. “Is there a Ryan Wesley here for Mr. Canning?”

Thank Christ. I spin around and boogie back to the desk. The green-eyed nurse points at a guy waiting there in scrubs. “Go with him.”

“I’m Doctor Rigel, infectious diseases.” He holds out a hand to shake.

Shaking hands with someone who works on infectious diseases seems a little sketchy to me, but I do it anyway.

Blake is right behind me, too. “What can you tell us?” he asks in his booming voice.

He leads us down a hall, talking as we go. “Mr. Canning is stable,” he says, and I practically melt with relief. “He arrived dehydrated and with a high fever. He’s getting fluids and an antiviral that fights flu, though we won’t have a lab test back for another twelve hours or so. We need to rule out what the media is calling the sheep flu.”

Blake shudders so hard they can probably measure it on the Richter Scale. “Dude. That cannot be what J-Bomb has. I refuse to believe it.”

“Well…” The doctor rings for an elevator, and we all stop to wait for it. “You’re probably right. But it would be irresponsible in the middle of a health scare to treat this lightly. And his coworkers indicated that he travels around Canada for his job, so we need to be sure.”

My fear comes roaring back. “He’s not used to this climate,” I babble. “He’s always lived on the West Coast.”

Blake gives me a pointed look that suggests I might want to stop talking.

We get onto the elevator. “Good game last night,” the doctor says into the silence.

“Uh, thanks,” Blake says. “You’re gonna let my man Wesley here see Canning, right? There’s a couple of box seats in it for you if you do.”

The doctor’s face goes through several different emotions in rapid succession, from elation to despair and then to irritation. “I would never make a medical protocol decision for hockey tickets.”

“Of course not,” Blake says quickly. “I only mean that if you’re the guy who tells us when J-Bomb can have one visitor, we’d be mighty grateful.”

Dr. Rigel nods slowly. “Mr. Wesley can see the patient after he puts on protective gear.”

“All right,” I agree immediately.

The elevator doors part, and we step off. A sign on the wall reads: Isolation Unit. The doctor brings us into a room straight out of a psychological thriller. It has multiple sides, each side a glass wall into a patient’s room. A couple of these rooms have the shades drawn. But a few of them are open, and the people inside look sicker than a person should look.

And then I spot him.

Jamie is lying on his back in a bed, half his gorgeous face covered by a hospital mask, but I know him at a glance anyway. His brown eyes are closed, and he’s way too still.

My throat closes up at the sight, and all I can do is stare.

I don’t know how long I stand there staring. A few seconds? A minute? Blake grabs my shoulders from behind and squeezes. Hard. That’s when I remember to breathe, sucking in a great blast of air.

He gives me a gentle shake. “Stay loose, Wesley. Come on.”

“Sorry,” I mumble.

Blake shakes his head. “It’s all right. This is as far as I go, but I’m going to call you in a couple of hours, okay? Or text me if you need me. Either way, I’ll pick you up later. We left your car at the rink.”

Shit, we did. I’m not even sure where I am right now. “Thank you,” I say, meeting his gaze. “Really, I…”

He waves it off. “No need. We’ll talk later.”

Blake turns around and disappears toward the elevators.

“Right this way, Mr. Wesley,” the doctor says. “The nurses will help you into the gear.”

Ten minutes later I’m wearing a long disposable gown, gloves, a head covering, goggles, disposable slippers and a face mask. It’s fucking ridiculous.

“These rooms have two doors,” a petite Asian woman—her name tag says Janet Li, R.N.—explains. “You enter this way…” She points at a door off the room with the glass. “And you leave through that far door. All the gear stays in the room just outside the patient’s room. There’s a lot of signage to help you know what to do. Okay?”

“Got it,” I say. I just need to get in there. Screw the signage.

“You’ll go in alone right now, but if you need anything or the patient needs anything, use the intercom button on the wall and someone will assist you immediately.”

“Thank you.”

When she unlocks the door to Jamie’s room for me, I dive through it. There’s a second door behind that one, unlocked.

Then it’s just him and me. Finally. I grab his hand and give it a squeeze. I’m stunned that it’s so hot to the touch. They weren’t kidding about that fever. “Baby,” I choke out. “I’m here.”

He is still.

So I start babbling, because I want him to know it’s me. I tell him everything that happened to me today. Everything. How Blake got injured and I went to find him. How I got the awful phone call. “I was so freaked,” I tell him, though Jamie’s brow remains perfectly smoothed by slumber.

The masks between us are loathsome. I just want to rip the thing off.

Eventually my story winds down. I park my ass on the edge of the bed, hoping that’s okay, and pull his hand into my lap, where I stroke it with my stupid gloved hand.

His eyelashes flicker.

“Canning,” I whisper, squeezing his hand. “Hey. Come on, babe.”

His pale eyelids part, and when I can see his eyes, I finally believe that everything is going to be okay. His eyes widen, but then his brow furrows.

Fuck, he’s scared. I must look like a freak, or at least a stranger. “It’s me,” I say loudly. “Hey, look.” With my free hand I rip off the goggles and then—screw it—the face mask.

His face relaxes, and I smile for the first time in hours. Maybe ever.

“Mr. Wesley! What are you doing?” I turn my head to see the nurse just on the other side of the glass, one hand on her hip, an angry frown on her face. She’s holding a phone to her ear, and her voice booms from a speaker on the wall. “You can’t take off the protective gear!”

I can, though. She’s not going to overpower me. I can take her in a fight. So I shuck off the hair covering, too. Then I get off the bed and stand over Jamie’s head. He’s watching me with wide, trusting eyes.

“Mr. Wesley!” she barks. “Stop it.”

“You don’t understand,” I say, looking at Jamie, not her. He’s the only one who matters. “If he has the sheep flu, I’m already exposed. We share a bed.”

Then, leaning over him, I kiss his forehead. Even if we’re in this chamber of horrors, he still smells like him. And this calms me down. “I love you, baby,” I whisper in his ear. “Don’t worry about a thing.” Jamie’s eyes fall closed. But I kiss him once more, this time on the lips. Just so he knows I’m still here.

When I look up at the window again, the nurse is gone. For now.