His body was getting used to the injections. The effect of the cortisone seemed to be weakening after months of abuse. Fully dressed in his hockey gear and ready to go, Asher opened his locker and retrieved the last of the prescription painkillers that he’d been resisting the urge to take all afternoon. He shook the four pills into his hand and popped them into his mouth, chasing them down his throat with a shot of Gatorade from his water bottle.
Hopefully it would be enough to reach the numbing sensation in his limbs to prevent him limping visibly onto the ice, but not too much to throw off his other senses. He still needed his razor-sharp focus and sensory awareness.
He wasn’t sure when he’d become an expert on pill popping and the dosing effects on his body, but his heavy reliance on the meds was starting to bother him. Before the injury, he barely took anything at all. He rarely needed anything.
But he wasn’t addicted to the shit. Not yet.
After Tuesday’s game, it all ends.
Luckily, the electric energy in the stadium would be enough to get him through his twenty-six minutes of ice time.
Checking his phone a final time, he read a text from Emma, saying she’d arrived and wishing him luck. An emoji at the end of the text blew him a kiss and he grinned. He looked forward to her pregame text. Counted on it on his off days. He was glad she was there tonight. Having her in the stands somehow put him at ease.
Closing the locker, he reached for his helmet and swayed slightly off balance, his shoulder falling against his teammate, lacing up on the bench next to him.
“You drunk, Westmore?” Darius joked.
No. Just probably high as a kite. He felt sweat gather on his lower back beneath his jersey as he forced himself steady. “You’re not?” he retorted.
Darius laughed. “We will be.” He checked the clock on the wall of the locker room. “In two hours and forty-six minutes. Do not let your brother push this game to overtime,” he added.
“Don’t sweat it. Ben’s got a girlfriend now waiting for him at home. He’s not allowed to stay out past eleven,” Asher said, only half joking. Since winning the cup for the Avalanche that spring, Ben had visibly relaxed on the ice. Asher didn’t doubt for a second that his brother’s new, laid-back “there’s more to life than hockey” attitude had to do with the lawyer he was crazy about, the one who’d almost destroyed his life earlier that year. How easily love made his brothers blind to reality.
Sticks before chicks used to be the bro code between the three brothers…one the other two had forgotten. Not Asher. After hockey, when he retired his number, then he’d think about a lifelong commitment. Right now, his focus and heart were in the game.
It wasn’t like his future was a complete mystery. Whenever he allowed himself to think about it, there was always one constant: Emma. He just wished she was still competing, still focused on a professional sporting career. It had made it easy to put off talks of where they were going…but lately it seemed to be playing on her mind.
And he just needed her to wait.
Ten minutes later, as he skated out onto the ice, it didn’t matter that he wore the opposing team’s colors: the fans and his friends and family and neighbors were all on their feet. There was Emma cheering and smiling at him from the seat reserved for her behind the players’ box. Immediately, the tension in his shoulders eased as he winked at her.
The reception whenever he played in Denver was always positive, but that evening the significance of the game was felt throughout the arena. He swallowed hard, raising a quick hand to acknowledge the love, feeding off the energy of their support, but knowing he needed to temper his own excited nerves to get through this game.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine games weren’t enough.
His blades cut across the ice, and he felt the painkillers taking effect. The throbbing sensation in his knee subsided as he made several warm-up laps around the rink. Still slightly off-balance, he shook his head, hoping to knock his equilibrium back into place.
Taking his spot in line with his team as the lights dimmed, he barely heard the words of the anthem, desperate to get this game started.
Desperate to get it over with.
The first period, he played six minutes and was relieved to have to sit out a two-minute penalty for the team’s goalie. Less time on the ice, less chance of injury. He hated his new chickenshit mentality, but he was too close to a professional career goal to throw it away on overeager cockiness.
He’d spent years proving himself in the sport. They could cut him some slack if he played at less than 110 percent tonight.
Coming back for the second period, there was still no score, and the pacing of the play was more intense. The Devils coach could be heard shouting the same sentiments as the Avalanche’s: steal the damn puck, head up—pay fucking attention to the play. The two teams were neck and neck for points in the league so far that season, and the Devils had a very real shot of stealing the Stanley Cup away from the Avalanche. Not that his brother’s team was letting the trophy leave Colorado without a good fight.
Asher’s legs felt heavy as he pushed through his second shift, and his mind was foggy. Skating through a haze, he climbed back over the boards as the lines changed, grateful for the break.
But when the Avalanche sent Ben out on a double shift, his coach gave him the nod. “Westmore, get back out there.”
Shit. He’d been hoping for a few minutes to calm his thundering heart rate and clear his head. Most games, he loved facing off with Ben. He knew his brother’s few weaknesses on the ice better than anyone, and it made for exciting hockey for fans to watch the two of them square off, but tonight, he lacked enthusiasm…and energy. Damn, he was feeling drained, zapped of the adrenaline-induced drive he usually thrived on.
But grabbing his stick, he was back on the ice in seconds, skating toward the puck. A Colorado right wing took a shot and he stole the biscuit, skating back toward the blue line with it. The ice beneath his skates felt far away, and he shifted his gaze to the sidelines, but the advertisements blurred in a colorful psychedelic pattern that made him blink furiously. He struggled to focus and shifted his weight as his balance swayed left.
The puck left his stick and he switched directions, moving on instinct more than anything else, following the player in burgundy and steel blue back toward his net. When the offensive player passed, he intercepted and skated along the back of the net with the puck, looking for someone to pass it off to. A defensive player who longed to play offense, he was usually eager to score any chance he had, but not tonight. Right now, he wanted nothing to do with the puck. He was a liability with it.
He glanced at the time clock, desperate to hear a line change. His shift had to be coming to an end, and as soon as his ass was on the bench, he was heading into the locker room.
Something wasn’t right. Dizziness was making him nauseous, and he could hear his heart beating in his ears, felt it pounding in his chest.
He scanned the ice. Where the hell was Ericksen? Or Taylor? Or any other fucking teammate. He was going to black out, and there was no one to safely take this puck.
The only person he did see was his brother skating at full speed toward him, where Asher still lingered too close to the boards.
Fuck.
The hit took him clean off his feet, and the pain in his knee almost stole his consciousness. The arena lights blinded him from above as the ice below his body spun uncontrollably before his eyes shut.
The last thing he saw was his brother’s cocky grin replaced with a look of concern.
Asshole took me out.
* * *
I’m going to kill Ben.
That was just one of the thoughts racing through Emma’s enraged mind as she paced the Denver hospital waiting room after midnight. Five freaking minutes left in the second period and Ben pulls that shit on his brother?
The Westmores were the closest family she’d ever known, but sometimes she wondered about Ben. He was a nice guy beneath the cocky hockey god attitude, and she knew he loved his family, but his rivalry with Asher was intense, and it seemed almost too convenient that he’d chosen to mess with Asher’s upcoming achievement. He knew as well as she did Asher wasn’t playing at a hundred percent. They’d both noticed and commented on Ash’s apparent injury several times over the last year. Ben couldn’t possibly claim not to have known that a hit that hard could do more serious damage.
One period, several line changes, less than five game-time minutes, and a few days away from the biggest individual achievement of Asher’s career, one they all knew he was desperately striving for, even risking his health to reach.
He’d been so close.
Damn Ben!
She forced a steadying breath as she glanced at him now across the waiting room. Her hands made fists at her sides, and she felt her temper rise to an unhealthy level.
She didn’t need to yell at him. His mother and fiancée were already giving him an earful, and he looked wrecked. He was sitting with his head in his hands, his knees bouncing, worry etched across his forehead as the lips of both women continued to fly. Jackson and Abigail sat across from him, silent, but sending him their own suitably annoyed looks. He was lucky Becky wasn’t there as well; having a baby at home and a husband overseas, she hadn’t been at the game.
The collective sentiment among the group obviously wasn’t lost on the oldest Westmore brother as he continued to hang his head in shame. Everyone thought he was an asshole tonight. Including himself.
Sympathy for him almost crept in, but then the doctor appeared, shaking his head, as he removed a pair of plastic examining gloves.
Emma hurried forward, then stopped. She wasn’t technically family. She had no right to charge ahead first.
“What’s going on? How is he?” Beverly asked, jumping up from her seat and approaching the doctor.
“Surgery. We have him scheduled for tomorrow morning, and then there will be six to ten weeks of recovery,” Dr. Fredrick said.
Emma’s stomach fell to the floor. Asher must be devastated. The urge to push past the doctor and go see him was overwhelming. One game away. She felt like punching something on his behalf. Preferably Ben.
“It’s that bad?” Olivia asked, moving closer, obviously the only one who could find a voice to speak.
The doctor nodded.
“No…it can’t be,” Ben said in typical pro athlete denial. “He was complaining about his knee for months and was still playing. Doc, when you say six to ten weeks of recovery, you really mean like two, right?”
“This isn’t jail. You don’t get a reduced sentence for good behavior.” Dr. Fredrick shook his head, implying how he felt about pro athletes and their stubbornness. “Ten weeks is what he needs to fully recover. Six weeks is being optimistic that he will push himself to get better as soon as he can. And yes, he admits to playing on the injury.” He paused, glancing around at the waiting room, obviously making sure no reporters had made it past the triage desk before continuing. “I pulled his records, and he’s been self-medicating…a lot.”
Emma’s eyes widened. “Like addicted to painkillers a lot?”
The doctor glanced at her. “Who are you?” he asked, not rude, just matter-of-fact.
Who was she? Not his girlfriend, not part of the family…Just a woman so stupidly in love with him that the wind had been knocked from her lungs when she’d seen him go down in a crumpled heap on the ice. A woman who’d seen the hit coming seconds before it happened and who’d felt the impact almost as hard. A woman who wanted to yell and scream or break down in that moment as she understood far too well the feeling of defeat her best friend had to be feeling in a hospital bed just down the hall. “A friend,” she said quietly, knowing a friend would get zero information.
The doctor shrugged. “Hopefully not, or recovery will be that much harder.” He turned his attention back to Beverly, obviously not willing to say more about the sensitive subject in the waiting room. “Anyway, he’s resting and in one hell of a shitty mood, so I’d save your visits for tomorrow after surgery.”
Even Beverly reluctantly agreed that was probably for the best. “Thank you, doctor,” she said, then waited until the doctor disappeared down the hall before turning to Ben. She slapped his arm. Hard. “What did I tell you boys about roughhousing?”
* * *
Every time Asher closed his eyes, the replay of the hit made his pulse race in his veins. Lying in the hospital room bed, well past midnight, too medicated to feel anything but numb, he fought the slumber threatening to take over.
Surgery for a torn ACL in six hours, then six to ten weeks of recovery.
Four hours ago, only twenty-five minutes of hockey and another few days stood between him and the one-thousandth-game milestone. Now there was a three-hour procedure and months of therapy.
He blinked and jumped, his heart rate monitor beeping loudly next to the bed as a sensation of falling made him clutch the bedsheets.
He’d nodded off.
He forced his drooping eyelids open. He didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to lie there, alone in the dark, empty, hollow room, where the only light was a street light streaming through the window, and try to force emotions to the surface. Anger, despair, disappointment—all or any of the things he knew he should be feeling—would hit him like a freight train once the sedative meds wore off.
But they wouldn’t come. Morphine dripping through his IV prevented anything but drowsiness. Comfortably numb was the saying.
He found no comfort in it at all.