Ares

Hospital beds suck.

Always too short and too soft.

And I’m all alone.

People all around me—nurses, doctors, Thrusters admin—and my phone’s about dinged itself to death, but everything feels empty.

I’m out. Months. No hockey.

And it’s because I made the same mistake Murphy did.

Thought Felicity couldn’t handle herself.

Thought she needed a hero.

Saw her slug him after I was already moving. Couldn’t stop. Tried to twist like I would on a skate, but all it did was knock me down.

Twist my ankle.

Again.

Take me out.

For months.

“Ares?” Gracie knocks on the door.

She eyes my cast, winces, and creeps closer. Loki’s with her, on a leash. “Hey. We brought you cookies.”

Frey follows.

He doesn’t look at my cast.

Isn’t smiling.

Not like him. Grim doesn’t fit him. He’s always smiling.

Not now though. Because he knows.

He knows I’m not part of his line the rest of the season. And he knows how much that fucking sucks.

No.

Not sucks.

Sucks isn’t enough.

Loki leaps on the bed. The doctors and nurses and staff have their little freak-out. I glare at all of them.

Want to go home.

Fuck.

I don’t know where home is.

Got traded in late September. Bummed a room off Frey because he offered and we were both the new guys on the team. Helped watch out for Gracie too.

Got an apartment. Rented it a while ago, when I knew Gracie and Manning were tight, before Murphy asked me to watch Felicity. But it’s not home.

Gammy’s house isn’t home either.

It’s where I sleep.

Where Felicity’s hiding.

Hiding from doing what she’s supposed to do with her life.

Hiding from idiots like me and her brother.

“Good drugs?” Frey asks.

I lift a shoulder.

Don’t feel the pain. It’ll come, but it’s not there now.

I’m just numb.

Numb and alone and confused.

Didn’t want to hit anybody in the team suite when that asshole propositioned her, or later in the tunnel when that reporter touched her. Don’t fight off the ice. Don’t fight much on the ice, because Z’s the only dude in my class.

Don’t have to fight. Don’t want to fight.

But I would’ve killed her ex.

And she’d already taken care of him.

More voices.

“That’s enough visitors,” one of the nurses says.

“Go on and try to kick me out.”

I dig my palms into my eyes. My sister’s back.

Must’ve hopped a plane.

I get a brief surge of hope that Joey brought them. That she brought Z too, but he’s not here.

“We’ll go,” Gracie says. She squeezes my hand. “Text us if you need anything. You’ll be back on the ice before you know it.”

No, I won’t.

And even if I am, it’s not enough.

I don’t want to be just a hockey player anymore. I want to be—

I want to be who Felicity thought I was.

Something cold presses my face. A phone.

“Talk,” Ambrosia orders.

“Ares?” Z says in my ear. Tinny. Too far away. “Fuck, man.”

I pop open one eye, take Ambrosia’s phone, and point to the door. “Out.”

Ambrosia bristles. “I’m not—”

Chase clamps a hand over her mouth. “Need anything?” he asks me.

Yeah.

I need something.

I need to know Felicity’s okay.

And then I need to know how I’m going to get over her.

See a lot. Know a lot.

That look she gave me when they were putting me in the ambulance?

This is my fault. You’re hurt because of me. I’m tired of people hurting because of me. Go, Ares. Get better. Get back on the ice. You’ve always known who you are. I won’t take that from you.

I can’t tell her she’s wrong. She’s not right. But she’s not wrong.

And I don’t know where the line between right and wrong is.

Chase and Frey share a look. They both nod.

I glare at the nurses and doctors until they leave too.

Finish off with the two coaching staff who are waiting for me to be released.

They leave the door open.

Chase pulls it shut for me. Me and Loki.

A man and his monkey.

Always thought it would be a dog, but a monkey fits better.

I’m not normal either.

“Ares?” Z says. “You there, man?”

I draw a shuddering breath. “I’m out.”

“Couple months of vacation. You heal, you hit the PT like a beast, you’re gonna be back and better than ever.”

He’s shaking.

Can feel it.

Doesn’t matter if he’s in his dinky-ass apartment in New York, at some hotel for an away series, or if he’s sitting two feet from me. He can feel my ankle hurting as much as I felt his heart crack when he thought Joey was done with him.

He knows.

He knows I lost more than a season.

Probably felt my heart crack too.

Because I’m not good enough either.

Murphy’s not wrong.

“Can’t just be a puckhead forever,” I grit out.

“Everybody gets hurt. You’re not out. You got another decade, at least.”

And then what?

Bodyguard detail for a pop princess?

Sweeping floors in a school back home in Wishberry Lake?

Join the circus as the strongman?

Not much different from what the Thrusters management wants from me. You don’t have to say much, Ares. Just enough to make them want more. You’re already a legend on the ice. We know you’ve got it in you to be a legend off the ice too.

“You can do any fucking thing you want,” Z says. “You hear me? Any. Fucking. Thing. You. Want.”

I swallow.

I know what I want.

But I can’t have it.

Have her.

I’m just one more in a long string of guys with more muscles than brains. Hit first, ask questions later.

What she always goes for.

What she always walks away from, because it’s not what she needs.

Not what feeds her soul.

Not the way she feeds mine.

“Saw him touch her. Wanted to kill him,” I admit to Zeus.

Didn’t give her a chance to finish him on her own.

She could’ve too. Got a perfect hit to his nose before I crushed him. Crowd was there. Cops close enough to come running.

I lost my head.

I lost my fucking head.

I might not be a smart mother pucker, but I don’t lose my head.

Ever.

“Women make us fucking insane,” Z says. “Ouch. Dude. I wasn’t talking about—okay, yeah, I was talking about you.”

I grunt a hey for Joey. She’s keeping Z in line. Been good for him.

He’s happy.

Happier than he’s ever been.

Deserves it. He’s a good guy under all the bluster.

Scuffles carry through the phone.

I almost hang up. Z’s got a life. Something to live for off the ice.

But he always did.

He didn’t zip himself up like I did to keep people from getting close enough to disappoint. He put himself out there. Owns his mouth. Owns his fuck-ups.

Me?

I don’t fuck up.

Don’t go outside the box far enough to fuck up.

Until now.

“Sorry, Ares,” Joey says on the phone. She’s softer than the world gives her credit for. “Say the word, and I’ll knock Zeus out and get him on a plane to Copper Valley in a heartbeat.”

I growl.

Z’s not taking time off just because I have a busted ankle. He’s the best fucking defender in the league. His team needs him.

“He said you’d say that,” Joey says. “You know you’re more important than hockey, right?”

I squeeze my eyes shut again. “Hockey’s my life.”

“If Zeus needed a kidney, but donating one meant you’d never play hockey again, what would you do?”

I growl over the hiccup in my chest, because fuck.

No question.

More scuffling on the phone. “You’re getting on the plane with Ambrosia and Chase,” Zeus orders. “Get your ass up here to New York. Need some bro time.”

Time away.

Distance.

Perspective.

I look at my phone again.

Keeps dinging.

But I keep going back to the message from Felicity.

I’m sorry, Ares. This is my fault. I’m so sorry.

Not her fault.

Not her fault.

Not her fault.

I can’t make myself reply.

Don’t know what to say.

I never know what to say.

Not when it matters.