Page 185 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter

I step forward and grip his hand. His fingers are cold.

“I’m okay,” he says on an exhale. “Just a few bumps and bruises.”

I choke on a laugh. “You look awful.”

“And you look worried.”

“Because I am.” I tighten my hold. “I am worried.”

“Even seeing me?” He laughs but abruptly stops and groans. “Don’t make me laugh. They say I have a fractured rib.”

My knees go weak. I sink into the chair and lean forward, burying my face in the edge of the bed.

“You shouldn’t have told me to run.”

“Then you’d be in the bed next to me.” He touches my hair. “And how would that make either of us feel, huh?”

The fact that I couldn’t hold my own against someone like that… it doesn’t really make me feel good. The opposite, in fact.

Oliver’s phone buzzes in my coat pocket. I fish it out and scan the text from Penn.

“Penn and Carter are on their way,” I tell him. “I told my dad, too. Left him a message anyway. And I talked to your mom.”

“You talked to my mom?” Shock.

“I don’t know if that was the right thing to do, and I’m sorry if that was overstepping. But I just wanted you to have family—why are you looking at me like that?”

His gaze is intense. Dropped into the middle of an inferno intense. “I just… thank you.” He blinks, and his expression switches to contemplation. Moving on to the next piece of information to digest. “What was your dad talking to you about at the game?”

“He asked if Mom called me.” I glance away. “She didn’t.”

“And he needed your phone?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t really in a position to fight it. If it’s going to help find her, then who am I to argue?”

“Okay.” He shifts. “How about you climb up here with me while we wait for the cavalry to arrive?”

I stare at him.

He frowns. “Will you do it if I say it’ll make me feel better? Or… if I say you seem utterly exhausted?”

I am exhausted. Maybe that’s why I shed the coat and fold it over the back of the chair, carefully toe off my boots, and climb onto the narrow cot with him. He makes room for me, though, and barely grimaces when I settle my head on his chest.

“There,” he breathes. “Much better.”

I curl around him and breathe in his spiced cologne. It clings to him even now, penetrating through the cloying antiseptic smell all hospitals seem to have. But I’m not sure it’s better for him—I’ve got to be hurting him like this. He doesn’t say a word about it. His arm, coming around my back, rests on my shoulder.

Like I might move away? No chance of that happening.

I may as well be superglued here.

I fall asleep. I must, because when I resurface, there are voices drifting over me.

“She’s sleeping,” Oliver whispers. “Just leave her be.”

“Is this the girl who you took to the rage room?” a woman asks. “Abuelita told me about her. She’s pretty.”

Oliver sighs.