Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
AJ
“ M ost people wear clothes in the hospital, you know,” I say, in pain and annoyed at everything about this situation, and apparently deciding that verbally sparring with McCabe is the best way to get out my frustration.
He turns from where he was standing next to the plastic bassinet on wheels that they brought in for Abby when he’d asked if there was somewhere she could sleep.
Taking the few steps across the small ER room, he says, “I hope you know I like it when you’re feisty.” That damn smirk that drives women crazy graces his lips.
I never understood why anyone would go for the whole grumpy, growly bit...but maybe I’m starting to get it?
“Can’t you, like, find some scrubs or something?”
My wrist is in so much pain, and so far, all they’ve given me for it is some ibuprofen. Something about not being able to give me actual narcotics until they know if I’ll need surgery?
Screw surgery—we’re leaving for an away game the day after tomorrow, and there’s no way I’m missing it. Especially not after the way Philadelphia came back in the last minute of tonight’s game to tie it up, and then won in overtime.
Now we’re 0-2 in a series that should have been 1-1, and probably would have been if McCabe had stayed. Not that I blame him for wanting to make sure his daughter was okay. Plus, I’m sure the EMTs wouldn’t have let her go to the hospital without her dad coming along, anyway.
He steps closer to my hospital bed, wearing nothing but the compression shorts he had on under his uniform. I get why he wanted to take his uniform and pads off, especially with how sweaty he was by the end of the game, but he’s dried off now, so couldn’t he at least slip his jersey back on or something?
“Does it bother you seeing me half-dressed? Because you’ve been in the locker room plenty and it never seemed to bother you before.”
I hate the way my stomach flips at his gravelly voice, the way those words seem to reach out and caress my skin, making it prickle with goosebumps.
“Ronan...” I warn, before glancing over at the bassinet. Even though we turned off the overhead lights and he’s playing some sort of white noise app on his phone, I still don’t know how Abby fell back asleep after that fall. I don’t think I’d ever close my eyes again if I was sleeping peacefully on someone’s chest and then found myself upside down.
Thankfully, as I was pushed backward, I was able to hold on to her with one arm and break our fall with the other. The impact on my wrist when the heel of my hand connected with the cement step of the row below us, however, was excruciating. The way my ribs crashed into the tops of the seats and my head collided with the shoulder of the person sitting in the row below is also going to leave some bruises.
It could have been worse, but as my wrist throbs in my lap, I realize it could have been a whole lot better, too.
The important thing is that the doctor already confirmed that Abby was unharmed—a fact her father hasn’t let me forget. He’s been looking at me like I walk on water, like I’m some sort of angel that saved his kid instead of a woman who did what any normal person would do in the situation.
He could have taken her home already, but he refuses to leave until he knows that I’m okay, too. It was much easier to ignore the tension in the room when we were both so focused on Abby. Unfortunately, now that she’s asleep, all his attention is on me.
“Careful, Alessandra ,” he says, practically purring my name like it’s some sort of exotic foreign word as he stares down at me from the side of the bed. “You wouldn’t want someone to overhear you calling me by anything but my last name.”
He’s right. I make sure to maintain the strictest professional boundaries with my players. It’s a hazard of being the only female GM—people always seem to want to put me, and everything I do, under a microscope. So I make sure that my image is as squeaky-clean as possible.
It’s yet another reason why yesterday’s activities in my office can never happen again.
I open my mouth to respond, but he leans forward, planting one hand on the mattress behind my head. With my bed inclined to a sitting position, he’s only partially leaning forward, giving me a good look at those pecs up close.
I don’t understand how a man with such thick almost-black hair on his head, and a perpetual five o’clock shadow even when he’s freshly shaven, has so little body hair. Aside from a smattering of hair across his chest and, I note as my eyes glide down his abdomen, a trail of hair from his belly button down into his compression shorts, the rest of his abdomen is hairless. With my eyes now focused on his crotch, I don’t miss how his dick stirs in those tight-ass shorts.
With a gulp, I glance up quickly, but his eyes are amused when they meet mine, and my cheeks flush when I realize it’s because he knows I was just checking him out.
What the hell is wrong with me? We’re in the hospital because I’m hurt and his daughter was nearly injured too, and like two horny teenagers, we can’t keep our eyes off each other.
“I—” I start to say, intending to respond, but finding that I’ve completely lost track of what we were talking about.
The knock on the open door has both of us turning our heads. I’m expecting to see the doctor, but instead Lauren stands there, holding a big Rebels duffle. It’s too small to be a hockey bag, so I assume it’s some piece of swag she snagged from the marketing offices.
“Hey,” I say quietly, noting how she looks worried that she just interrupted some private moment between the two of us. “Come in. We’re just whispering so we don’t wake Abby. She’s not hurt or anything, just sleeping.” I nod toward the bassinet against the wall.
The grunt McCabe lets out is half-laugh, half-sigh.
“I brought you some clothes,” Lauren tells him, “since you left in your uniform. And some shoes, because Olivia said you left in your socks?”
“Yeah, I took my skates off, but there wasn’t really time to change.”
“Yes, there was.” I roll my eyes. “You could have changed and then driven yourself to the hospital. You didn’t need to come in the ambulance.”
There wasn’t even room for him in the back, especially not with all his pads on, so he sat up front with the driver.
He rolls his eyes right back at me before reaching out for the bag and mumbling his thanks. And when he heads over to the chair next to Abby’s bassinet to rifle through it, Lauren steps up to the bed, taking the seat next to it. “You okay?”
“I’ve been better. I just need the orthopedist to look at the damn X-rays so I can get out of here.”
Lauren glances down where my lower arm rests in my lap, splinted with an ice pack on either side of my wrist. “Do they think it’s broken?”
“Yeah. They also took some X-rays of my ribs to make sure they’re okay. I definitely feel like I pulled some muscles in my back, or bruised it badly or something. But I think it would hurt worse if I broke any ribs,” I explain, then quickly change the subject to what I’m most interested in knowing. “So, what happened after I left? Did they kick those fans out?”
“Yeah, security took them out and had the police waiting for them. It was mayhem for a couple minutes there. It’s a relief you and Abby weren’t more seriously hurt, but I’m sorry about the outcome of the game.”
“Were the guys distracted? Like by me getting hurt, or McCabe rushing off the ice like that?”
“I mean...” Lauren pauses, her eyes flicking over to where McCabe stands, his back to us as he steps into the sweatpants he’s pulled out of the bag. “I’m sure that’s not why they lost.”
I press my lips together and nod, but I know she doesn’t actually believe that any more than I do. Part of the game is tuning out any distractions, but this wasn’t just something that happened in the stands; their captain rushed off the ice and out of the game.
I’m not blaming him—it is what it is. But it’s silly to pretend like there was no impact. I glance back at Lauren. “I guess we’ll never know.”
“We’ll get them in the next game, AJ.” McCabe’s low voice carries across the room.
Just as I’m about to respond, there’s another knock at the door and the doctor’s back, with a clipboard in hand and a nurse following close behind him.
“Well,” he says, “you got lucky.”
My heart soars with hope. Maybe the pain and the swelling will subside and I’ll be good as new!
“You’ve got a distal radial fracture,” he tells me, slapping the X-ray film up to a light box on the wall. Pointing to the lower part, he traces his finger across the image as he says, “What that means is, your radius—this bone that runs along the inside of your lower arm from your wrist to your elbow—was broken in the fall. But the good news is that it’s only a fracture, not a clean break. You won’t need surgery to repair it. We’ll splint it for now, and you’ll need to be very careful with it so you don’t aggravate the injury. When the swelling goes down in a week or so, we’ll put your arm in a cast to let it fully heal.”
Thinking about what my life will be like with my right arm in a cast, I ask, “ That’s getting lucky?”
“Since the alternative would have been a much worse break, and surgery with 6-12 weeks of recovery time...yeah.” The last word is clipped, and I can tell he’s annoyed that I’m not happier about this news. But unlike me, he isn’t thinking about what it’ll be like to live on my own with an unusable right hand—the one I use to do everything. How will I dry my hair? Do my laundry? Shift while I’m driving? Actually, do I know how to do anything one-handed?
“What about her ribs?” McCabe practically growls at the doctor.
“They’re not broken, and the X-rays don’t show bruising on the bones either. You’ll probably get a fair amount of superficial bruising because of the impact, but again, you’re lucky because the fall didn’t damage the bones. Jenn will go over your care plan with you.” He continues, nodding toward the nurse at his side. “And then we’ll get you discharged, and your husband can take you home.”
A laugh bursts out of me as he glances over at McCabe, whose face is an unreadable mask, where he now stands at the foot of the bed. The pain that shoots through my back as I laugh has me wincing, instead. “He’s...not my husband. We just work together.”
The doctor must not be a hockey fan.
“Okay, so who is taking you home and helping you out for the next week or so? You won’t be able to do much of anything without help. Even things as simple as getting dressed will be a challenge, and you’ll need help managing everything. You need to keep your wrist totally immobile until it’s casted—treat it like it’s glass—or you risk worsening the fracture and needing surgery instead.”
“Uh...I can just ask my brother to stay with me, I guess,” I say tentatively.
McCabe presses his lips together, but doesn’t call me out on my lie. He knows that Nicholas can’t stay at my place right now because Nicole’s mom is here and staying with them. Even as much as my brother loves me, he’s not going to risk World War III by leaving Nic and her mom alone. And we’re leaving the day after tomorrow for our away games. There’s no chance in hell I’m not going to those games, and Nicholas can’t come with me, because by then he’ll be staying with Abby.
“Alright. Which of you,” the doctor asks, nodding back and forth between McCabe and Lauren, “is taking her home tonight?”
“I can do it,” McCabe says quickly, and Lauren’s eyes basically pop out of her head as she glances over at me in surprise. “We live near each other.”
I appreciate the way he doesn’t say we live across the hall from each other, since I haven’t mentioned that fact to Lauren yet.
The doctor nods, and as he turns to say something to the nurse, McCabe tells us, “I’m going to Uber back to the arena and get my car, since we’ll need it for Abby’s car seat. Are you two okay here with her until I get back?”
“I brought your car, actually,” Lauren says, pulling her long red hair back into a ponytail. “I hope you don’t mind. Your keys, phone, and wallet are in the side pocket of that bag. Basically, everything that was in your locker. And Abby’s car seat is in the back seat, and her stroller is in the trunk.”
His jaw drops open. “Thanks?”
I’m a little shocked that he doesn’t sound more appreciative, but then he shakes his head and says, “I...I would never have expected someone to do that for me.”
There’s a small tug at my heart when he admits that. I mean, I don’t have a huge network of people in Boston, but I’ve got my brother and Nicole, Lauren and Jameson, and I’m getting closer to Jameson’s sisters, Audrey and Jules. But still, I wouldn’t be shocked if any of them, or anyone I work with, for that matter, stepped up to help me in this situation.
“It was no trouble,” Lauren says with a soft smile. “And it was Colt’s idea, actually. He was going to swing by with your stuff, but he had to hit the bike and shower first, so I offered since I could come right away.”
“So, your discharge plan,” the nurse says, handing me a whole stack of paper as she launches into the aftercare information for managing the pain and swelling. When she finally takes a breath, Lauren excuses herself and says that Jameson is waiting downstairs in his car for her, and they have to get home because their babysitter needs to leave.
McCabe offers to head down with her so he can grab Abby’s car seat, while the nurse gives me some additional information about scheduling a follow-up appointment with the orthopedist and reads me the riot act about not using my right hand to do anything. By the time she’s helped me out of the gown and back into my sweater, McCabe is walking back into my hospital room with an empty baby carrier in his hand.
He says nothing about my lie regarding Nicholas staying with me until I’m seated in the front of his SUV and we’re pulling out of the parking garage. As we turn onto the dark, empty street to head away from the hospital, he says, “Don’t for one second think that I’m letting you stay at your place without someone to help you.”
“Yeah,” I say with a small scoff, “because I have so many other options for people to just move in with me.”
“You have at least one other option.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”
“You’re moving in with me.”
My laughter rings out sharply, filling the silent car, and for a second, I’m afraid I’ll wake Abby where she’s sleeping in her car seat behind me. “Yeah. Sure.”
“You can’t live by yourself,” he says. “Doctor’s orders.”
My entire body tenses at the thought of being in that close proximity to him, even if just for the next few days. “I’ll get a friend to stay with me, then.”
“Fine. Until a friend shows up to stay with you, you can get settled at my place.” He knows he’s calling my bluff, because I literally just told him I didn’t have any options.
I want to ask if he’s always this bossy, but instead I say, “There’s no way I’m staying at your place.”
“Well, there’s no way you’re staying alone. And it feels like it would be a lot easier for you to move into my guest bedroom for a short time than for Abby and me to move in with you. But whatever you prefer.” He says it so casually as he makes the turn into Government Center that I have to wonder if he’s kidding.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Yep, my place is very comfortable,” he says.
“I meant I’ll be fine on my own.”
“Over my dead body.”
“Easily arranged,” I mutter under my breath.
He chuckles, and as I glance over at him, I can’t help but notice how that smile lights up his face. Even though his eyes are trained on the road and I can only see half of it, I can still tell how different he looks. How relaxed. Happy even.
“I’d like to see you pull off this one-handed murder,” he says, and I bite the inside of my lip to stop myself from smiling. It’s better for everyone if I seem unaffected by his charm.
He shouldn’t be this comfortable with me. He shouldn’t be driving me home, joking around with me, or offering to take care of me. He definitely shouldn’t be insisting I move in with him. But somehow, I still like it that he’s doing all of these things.
“I’m not moving in with you.”
“Okay.” He shrugs. “I’ll probably have to take Abby’s crib apart to move it into your place, but it shouldn’t take that long.”
I groan. “You’re not moving in with me.”
“So you’ll stay with me. Perfect.”