I decide to stop at the Starbucks across the street from the hospital and order a bunch of pumpkin spice lattes and a couple mochas, including one for myself with extra whip, and a couple caramel macchiatos and an herbal tea for Zoey, because pregnant women can’t do caffeine. Then I get some pastries too.

I yawn so hard as I wait for them that my jaw feels like it’s going to lock. Exhausted doesn’t even begin to explain how I feel right now. When Dixie didn’t come back to the dinner for almost half an hour I was furious. But then Levi appeared and explained to everyone that Dixie had a family emergency and had to leave. Our eyes connected and he looked so devastated—the same expression he wore when he was standing at the foot of my bed after my accident—and all my fury evaporated. I knew something serious had happened, likely to her dad, and my heart started to break for her.

As soon as I’d fulfilled my duties with the fans and Tom, I went straight to Levi’s hotel room. He explained Mr. Braddock had suddenly contracted severe bilateral pneumonia, and although the doctors in the hospital were trying hard to treat him, they told Mrs. Braddock to prepare the family for the strong possibility he would not be coming home. Dixie and Jude had gone straight to the airport.

“I’m going to go back and be with her,” I announced immediately.

“Elijah, you can’t. Even if you don’t start, we can’t play the game without two goalies. You know that,” Levi reminded me and then his expression softened into sympathy as he grabbed my shoulder. “We have a day between the game tomorrow night and the next game in Michigan. How about you fly back home in between them to check on her. We can make up some family excuse so no one knows what you’re doing.”

“You’d do that for me?” I was in awe. Levi takes his job as captain of this team very seriously, and I never thought he’d lie to the management or coaching staff for anyone, even me.

“You clearly care about her. This isn’t some fling. And if it was Tess, I would want to be there for her too.”

I reached out and pulled him into a bear hug. “Thank you.”

He nodded, and we sat and figured out a story. The next morning over the team breakfast Levi pulled the coach aside and told him we had a family emergency and that one of us needed to head back to California for a day, and he’d like it to be me. The coach was irked but trying not to show it, and Levi seemed to calm him down by reminding him I would only miss the travel day and the one practice in Michigan, and he agreed. It was nothing but a formality to me anyway, because I’d already booked an overnight flight to San Francisco for after the game. I was going whether he let me or not.

Now, although I wasn’t regretting that decision, I was growing nervous. Levi had texted Jude right after the game and their dad was hanging on, fighting hard, but it still seemed like the worst might happen. They were a close family, and I didn’t want to intrude, but I had to be there for Dixie. Maybe I was selfish. Thinking of the pain she must be going through made me ache like it was my own. Holding her, being there for her, felt like the only way to alleviate that. I hope it will give her strength too. I’m about to find out.

I take my Starbucks haul and walk into the hospital. I know from Levi’s text when I got off the plane that Mr. Braddock was holding on and that he was in ICU room 461. I don’t want to barge into his room. I haven’t even met her mom, and I don’t think Jude finding out about us by his dad’s potential deathbed is a fantastic idea, so my plan is to go to the nurses’ station and ask them to ask Dixie to meet me at the waiting area on that floor.

I don’t have to implement it though, because as soon as I get off the elevator, I see her. There’s a glassed-in room to the right with a little plaque saying LOUNGE, and she’s there sandwiched between her two sisters. Dixie’s head rests on Sadie’s shoulder, and her eyes are closed. But Sadie’s aren’t, and she recognizes me even before I come into the room. She smiles at me. “My instincts told me you were a good one. This proves I’m never wrong.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt. I just thought maybe you guys would want some non-hospital food,” I say.

“Starbucks! Oh my God, you’re a keeper,” Winnie blurts out and jumps up to grab a cup out of the tray. “Pumpkin spice, too. If she doesn’t marry you, she’s insane.”

I laugh at that and feel heat ignite my cheeks. Winnie grabs a second cup as Sadie nudges Dixie and her eyes flutter open. Winnie hands her a latte. Blurry-eyed, she starts to reach for it but then she sees me. Our eyes meet, and she looks like she’s seen a ghost. I feel my throat get thick and my chest get tight. Speaking is suddenly hard, but as Sadie stands and takes the coffee tray and bag of treats from me, I tell Dixie, “I wanted to be here in case you needed me.”

She stands and throws herself into my arms. I have never held anyone as tight as I am holding her right now. “What can I do?”

She buries her face in my neck, and against it I hear her say, “You did it.”

“He’s improved slightly,” Sadie tells me as she opens the pastry bag and looks inside. “They changed his meds and he’s breathing better.”

“They won’t let more than two of us in at a time, so we take shifts,” Winnie explains, reaching into the pastry bag and pulling out a chocolate croissant. “This shift is Jude and Mom. Mom tends to stay through several shifts. She doesn’t want to leave him.”

I nod and run my hand over the back of Dixie’s head, through her tangled hair. She’s still in the clothes she was wearing at the restaurant, and I’m betting she hasn’t been home yet at all. “When you go in for your shift, give me the keys to your place, and I’ll grab you some new clothes.”

She nods shakily and gives me a wobbly smile. “I’m sorry. I’m a mess.”

“Don’t be sorry.” I kiss her forehead.

She looks up at me with the most savagely broken expression I’ve ever seen. She wipes at her eyes, where tears are hovering. “I don’t want you to see this side of me.”

I cup her face in my hands and dip my head so only she can hear. “Sweet Dixie. I want to see every side of you.”

I hear footsteps behind us and turn my head to see Jude walk into the room. He stops abruptly at the sight of me. Then walks slowly around me and sees Dixie in my arms. She notices him and quickly steps out of our embrace. Jude looks like shit. He has bags under his eyes and emanates exhaustion. I can only hope that means he can’t find the strength to freak out about this.

“He’s awake,” Jude says to his sisters. “And actually kind of chatty, so you should all get in there. Nurse said we could crowd the place for fifteen minutes.”

Winnie and Sadie jump up and beeline for the door. Dixie pauses and turns to stand in front of Jude. Jude gives her a small smile. “Go see Dad. I’m sure I’ll find something to talk about with my goalie.”

Dixie hesitates but leaves, grabbing a latte from the abandoned tray on the chair and following after her sisters. Jude and I are standing there in the middle of the room staring at each other. I walk over and pick up the tray of coffee. “Mocha? Pumpkin spice? I brought an herbal tea for Zoey too.”

“I sent her home to rest,” he replies and reaches for a mocha. “I’ll bring my mom the herbal tea, though, when Dixie comes back.”

I nod, and as he moves to a chair and sits down, I do too. He sips the mocha. “Thanks for this. And thanks for being here for Dixie. Not sure how you managed that, because Coach hates when we take time away.”

“Levi told him I needed to deal with a family thing,” I explain and try to lean back and not look so nervous. Talking around the real topic here is stressing me out. “We won last night, so that might make Coach feel better about it.”

“You didn’t just win. You got a shut-out,” Jude remarks. “Your first in the NHL. It’s a big deal.”

I nod. It is a big deal, especially with the way I’ve been playing since I got here. “Things are back on track for me, and a big reason why is your sister,” I tell him. “Dixie’s brutal honesty about my issues helped me face them.”

He grins at that. “She’s nothing if not brutally honest.” He pauses and sips more of his mocha and then sighs. “Which is why it’s hard for me to know she’s lying about you to everyone and she’s going to have to keep doing it.”

“I get the feeling you knew about this,” I can’t help but say, because although I didn’t expect him to punch me or anything, I expected a lot more shock and dismay than he’s showing.

He shrugs his broad shoulders. “I had a feeling. But I was hoping I was wrong.”

Ouch.

“This is serious to me,” I tell him, trying to curb whatever doubt he has. “I don’t know how it can work, but I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.”

“It can’t work,” Jude replies quietly and with pure empathy on his face. “Not without carnage. That’s why I was hoping I was wrong.”

“I can request a trade. If I’m not on the team, she’s not violating anything.”

Jude nods at that but once again doesn’t look impressed. “Because a long-distance relationship is so much better than a secret one? The closest NHL teams are Seattle and San Diego, and their goalies aren’t going anywhere. You could end up somewhere on the East Coast, and you’ll both be miserable, and she’ll end up quitting to move to wherever you are anyway.”

I frown. It’s not that I hadn’t thought of that. I’d just ignored it. Now I have to face it and the other problem with my plan. “I wouldn’t want her to leave her family anyway.”

Jude stares at the lid on his mocha for almost a minute, and when he looks up something about his expression has changed. He’s not guarded, and his forehead isn’t creased with dismay like it seemed to be before. His eyes hold something warmer now, acceptance and even approval. He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “She’s dealing with a lot right now, and change and chaos are the type of things that scare her the most. More pressure will push her away.”

“And I’m working through PTSD and fighting for a real contract in this league,” I assure him, meeting his eye so he knows I mean it. “The timing is a bitch.”

“Timing is everything,” Jude replies, and then he pauses and shrugs. “Until it’s nothing.”

“What does that even mean?” I’m baffled. This is the guy whose greatest depth of knowledge used to be knowing which condoms felt the least like condoms.

“It means maybe it’s not the right time for you two,” he explains. “But maybe the fact that being together will fuck everything up means it is the perfect time. Maybe things need to get fucked up. I’ve never felt Dixie was really one hundred percent happy with the Thunder. She seemed to be trying to prove a point and impress our dad, which she loves to do. But I think there’s more she needs from a career.”

I wonder if he’s right. I feel bad that I kind of hope he is. “Well, she has to come to that revelation on her own, I guess. Just don’t tell anyone about this, okay? Me and her.”

“Dude, you don’t have to tell me not to rat out my sister.” Jude laughs. “Just do me a favor and figure out your own shit so that when she gets out of her own way, you’ll be ready for her and I won’t have to kick your ass or anything.”

I smile at that. “I’m working on it.”

Jude smiles. “Good. Oh, and fair warning, this whole family tends to overshare and say things they shouldn’t, so I hope you can handle it. That summer Levi lived with us there were more than a few times someone said something that you could tell made him want to die of embarrassment.”

“I’d rather have a family that’s over-the-top than one that’s emotionally constipated like mine,” I reply, and Jude nods. He knows what Levi and I grew up with and how we both still struggle with our parents’ uptight, judgmental personalities.

I stand up and stretch a little bit. “I’m guessing you have a spare key to Dixie’s place? I wanted to swing by and get her some fresh clothes so she doesn’t have to leave here.”

Jude stands up too and pulls his keys out of his pocket. He hands them to me, holding up a silver one. “It’s this one.”

“Thanks.” I take them and put them in my own pocket. “Levi wants you to call him when you can. He’s worried. And tell Dixie I’ll be back in a flash and to text me if she wants anything specific.”

He nods and I head out the door.