Fighting For Light: A Dark Sports Romance (The Coldwell Brothers)

43. Kai

It’s the day of the championship. This is our time to solidify our place on top to close the season out. My mind isn’t as scrambled today as it was last night. I was able to get my head straight for the race earlier today, and we all placed in the top four. Then we had to go straight into freestyle. It doesn’t happen often to have two back-to-back like this, but this is a city that runs on entertainment. It doesn’t matter if I’m tired.

Cordi has stood off to the side for most of the night, giving me space, or maybe she’s giving herself space from me. I glance at her before stooping down to check my chain and rear sprocket. When I stand, she’s not there, and I spin around looking for her. She’s standing not even five feet from me, and I release a breath. You are off your game, buddy.

“Are you doing okay?” she asks. I nod and hesitate to touch her. It feels like there are miles between us.

She decides for me and steps into my chest, resting her cheek on my heart. Her arms come around my waist, and it pulls barbs out of my lungs, letting me breathe a little easier. “I’m better now,” I rasp and kiss the top of her head.

“I love you. You’re going to do great tonight, okay?” I nod and rub her back. My hand goes up and down my number on her back. I like that she wants to wear my jersey, although I almost told her not to tonight purely out of an abundance of caution.

“Thanks, gem,” I kiss the top of her head. She nods against me and takes a step back. I grab her hand before she steps away, lifting her knuckles to my lips. She smiles softly, and I wink, letting her go.

“Go get ’em, daredevil.” Then she saunters off with her dad. Before we go out to warm up, I take a pee break and then get to it.

I’m called up and stare at Cordi with her hands on her camera, holding it up, ready to take a shot. I pull my eyes away from her and take a deep breath, ready for my first jump. There are days like today when I’m glad for a helmet because I have to put extra work into clearing my mind to drown out all the other sounds and distractions. I envision the speed of the bike, the exact place I’m going to leap into the air, then I cut it off and let muscle memory do the rest.

In a breath, I’m landing on the other side, finishing a cordova and hitting the brakes until I catch speed again, coming in at a curve and leap again into a bundy, one of the most complicated tricks in freestyle. No thoughts, only movement. My mind is blissfully silent, and I’m free. Then, right as I come back onto the bike to land, something is wrong. My brake doesn’t squeeze like it’s supposed to. It doesn’t have the familiar tension it always does.

My brakes aren’t working.

As I land, I’m going to have to either turn or lay the bike on its side to slow down. I’ll lose points, and it will set us back majorly, taking away the title. My back tire hits the dirt, and instead of hitting the brakes that I know aren’t going to work, I finish the landing and hit the gas, fishtailing in the process, trying to control the bike into another turn that this jump wasn’t meant for and lose speed. I’ve landed properly. That’s where the judging and the point system end. Hopefully, they will assume I’m being boastful for my last jump instead of trying to figure out how not to die.

There is no way for me not to hurt myself to stop this bike that no longer has brakes and has a ton of momentum. I can’t ride in a circle until the bike slows to a stop because there is no direct circle without obstacles. There is another jump, a ramp, or a wall. I have to pick. The daredevil takes over, and I throttle up another ramp and do a jump, anyway. I land, and because this landing jump isn’t so steep, I flip the bike on its side. Pain shoots up my hip, and I feel a crack somewhere. I slide, kicking up dirt all over, and let the bike slide faster and further from me instead of getting in the way of it crushing me. There’s a dip in the dirt I didn’t see before. I’m thrown into it and roll down the hill, hitting the protective wall with a grunt. Thank God for helmets.

I lay there, trying to get my bearings as adrenaline pumps through my veins. I can’t feel a thing. I’m able to take a full breath, so that’s good. Eventually, I lift myself up with my arms. My boots probably saved my ankles and feet. I lift one leg, then the other. As I stand, a bullet of pain shoots through my side and hip. I might be able to breathe, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t just break a rib.

By the time I’m on my feet, the paramedic team is looking at me and asking if I’m okay. My helmet is still on, so everything is muffled. My wife runs as fast as she can towards me across the dirt with her dad, and there’s nothing but fear in her eyes.

I’m able to get my helmet off, and the paramedics keep asking me questions. But the pounding in my heart and the blood rushing in my ears muffles all the sounds. All I can focus on is Cordelia throwing herself into my arms. I grunt in pain and stumble back, which makes her sob more.

“I’m okay, I’ll live. It’s okay, baby.”

Cordelia sobs, completely beside herself.

“What happened! Why did you do that other jump?” Reece asks.

I grimace, holding my side, and the paramedics seem to take that as their cue to start poking me. “The brake disk just…I don’t know.” I glance at my bike on its side, ten feet away from me. A tingle of fear runs down my spine and grows spears into my stomach. I don’t know how it’s possible, but anything is these days.

I checked my bike. I always do because mechanical things fail. That’s why you check before you go because if something goes wrong with that bike, your chances of dying skyrocket. He looks at me seriously, then glances at Cordelia. “Let’s get you off the dirt and to the hospital. If you broke a rib, it could puncture an organ.”

Cordi grips on to me as we slowly walk off the dirt, and then she stops. Her skin has gone ghostly white. “Cordi? Baby? What’s wrong?” She looks up at me, and I didn’t think it was possible to be more terrified, but right now, I am.

“Something is wrong,” she says, holding her stomach. Her jeans have a wet spot, but I don’t think she peed herself.

“Reece!” I yell. He spins around and runs to Cordi, jumping into action. He scoops up my wife, and I ignore every bite of pain in my body as I run after him to the ambulance. They already had it ready because of me, but Reece gets her in, and I hop in after him.

“Take us to the hospital, now!” I yell at the paramedics. They don’t argue and load up behind us. Cordelia sits on the stretcher, taking deep breaths with her eyes closed as she rubs her stomach. I keep her other hand in mine while her lips move, but I can barely hear her speak. She’s praying.

The ambulance rolls to a stop, and the paramedics jump into action, helping her out and into a wheelchair. They roll her away before I can get out. “Sir, we need to get you checked out!” the paramedic says. I ignore him and plow through, limping through the doors. A nurse comes up to me, trying to stop me.

“Where is my wife?” I ask her, gritting my teeth. She makes a face, and then a doctor comes in.

“Sir, we were told you had a—“

“Where is my wife!” I yell, limping past the swinging doors.

The doctor comes up to my side, and he says, “Sir, please. We will take you to her, but you could—“

I grab his neck and push him up against the wall, feeling his rapid pulse beneath my fingers. Adrenaline is sizzling through my veins, and the pain is nonexistent. “If I wanted you to examine me, I would have asked. This is the last time I will ask you or anyone else. Where. Is. My. Wife?” He gasps for air with wide eyes and points down the hall. I limp as quickly as I can to her. She’s sitting in a hospital bed with large, fearful eyes while other doctors poke and prod at her.

“Kai,” she cries. I hobble into the room and grab her hand.

“I’m here, baby, I’m here.”

Tears stream down her face as they ask her all kinds of questions, and at some point, an older nurse who made me nervous forced me into a wheelchair at Cordelia’s bedside. They took a blood sample from her and placed electrodes all over her body. Machines beep from all of them, and I’m trying to take deep breaths to keep her calm, but even that’s hard to do.

He’s okay, there is no other option, he has to be. The moment they tell me he is, I’m calling the personal family doctor to come to us. I don’t care if I have to buy him a trailer so he’s with us twenty four-seven. I will make it happen.

The nurses and doctor finally leave her room. She takes a deep breath and looks at me. I don’t know what to say, so I look at the ring on her nervously ringing hands. There’s nothing to say that will encompass the way I’m feeling right now, and I’m sure it doesn’t even touch how she’s feeling.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

I blink a few times, taken aback. “Am I okay? Are you okay?”

She shrugs. “Kai, you need to go get checked out. I’d go with you if I could.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I snap. Her eyes soften, looking like the ocean when the sun rises.

“I’m not either,” she says quietly. Those four words hold so much weight I can’t keep looking at her. I don’t feel like I’m strong enough to hold them.

“I don’t want to leave you,” I mutter.

She rubs her stomach. “Look at me,” she commands. I lift my eyes from her stomach to her face. “I need you, Kai, so that means you have to be okay. In order for you to do that, you need to go see the doctor. I don’t…I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I need my best friend, my husband, with me. I’m okay right now, so please…” she says, trailing off and waving her hand towards the door.

“Fine,” I grumble and force myself to stand. The adrenaline has stopped pumping through my body like a can of NOS to an engine, and I’m really starting to feel it. I limp out of the room for the doctor whose neck I was about to snap.

***

I broke a rib again and bruised my hip to match the small hairline fracture on it. I’m lucky that was our last ride for a few months because the doctor told me not to do any riding under any circumstances, or it could be career-ending. In between X-rays and MRIs, Reece said we ended up placing first as a team. Everyone else rode clean and executed well, with high scores. Before the accident, I completed my ride, and they judged only that. The aftermath wasn’t included in our score. There is a bright side to all of this chaos, but most of all, I’m grateful that I will live to see this baby born and ride another day. I just have to heal.

Once I get to Cordi’s room, I find Reece sitting on the couch. He stands as I sit in the chair at her side.

“What did they say?” he asks.

I explain what the doctor said, and he nods, pacing back and forth.

“Well, it’s good we’re in the off-season now. Did they mention healing time?”

“Yeah, I can’t jump until the rib is healed, which can take months, and the hip fracture will take a little while. I need to let the bruising heal, and then I will have to get another X-ray in about three weeks.”

He stops by Cordi’s bed and rubs her shoulder.

“Did the doctors come back about what happened?” I ask.

Cordi shakes her head. “They said they needed to finish the blood tests, and then they will do a physical exam.”

I nod, and she stares at me with teary eyes. Reece seems to catch on.

“I’m going to go grab a cup of coffee. Do you need anything?” he asks us. I shake my head, and Cordi does the same, her eyes still locked on me. He slips out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

I slowly stand and step closer to her bed. I want to crawl in with her, but it’s probably not a good idea for her to shift around too much, so I lean over and pull her into my arms. She bursts into tears, and I hold her tightly, wishing there was something I could do. Her sobs wrench my heart from my chest, making my eyes burn. “It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be fine. This little guy is a fighter. Whatever it is, it will be okay.”

“You don’t know that,” she mutters as she takes a shaky breath. There’s a knock at the door, and a doctor walks in before I can respond. Cordi sits up, and I grab her hand to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Hi, Mom and Dad. So, let’s take a deep breath. Everything is okay. You didn’t have a placental rupturing or start labor, either. I don’t mean to be crass, but you peed yourself. The pains you were having aren’t totally normal, but I’ve seen it in a lot of first-time moms because they are muscular. The baby likely hit your bladder. A lot is happening in your body as the baby grows and changes. Sometimes, it’s going to feel uncomfortable. That being said, the bloodwork came back totally clean. However, you were dehydrated, so that’s why we have you on an IV drip. You need to focus on sleep and proper nutrition. I want to do a physical exam before you go, but I’m prescribing you bedrest for a couple weeks, and you should be good to go. I’ll grab the nurse to do an ultrasound, too.”

“Thank you,” I tell the doctor. She nods and leaves the room. Cordelia bursts into tears again, and I pull her back in a hug. “See, gem? Everything is going to be fine. We just need to feed you better and get you more water. That’s an easy fix.”

“You make me sound like a farm animal,” she says between tears. I pin my lips together, trying not to laugh, but then she smiles and starts laughing, which only makes me laugh. The weight we’ve been carrying around for a few days lifts, and I’m grateful.

“I mean, you do produce milk,” I quip. She gasps and slaps me on the chest. “Ow, gem!” I grumble though she didn’t hit me anywhere close to my ribs.

She gasps, and her eyes widen. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, oh my gosh,” she says as tears well in her eyes.

I grab her, shaking my head. “Hey, hey, I’m joking. You didn’t hurt me. It’s okay, babe.”

“You’re an ass,” she grumbles.

“But you love me,” I mumble into her hair. She tilts her head back, searching my eyes.

“I really do,” she rasps. “I’m sorry, Kai, I’m sorry about the other night. I’m sorry I was questioning everything. I knew something was wrong when you kept going after your last jump. I could feel it. I thought I might lose you and—“

“It’s okay, gem. Bruised, but not broken. Everything is going to be alright,” I sigh and hug her again.

“Thank God,” she says into my chest. I hum and rub her back as the nurse and Reece return. We explain what the doctor says, and Reece sighs with relief. “Um, Dad? Sorry, can you leave again? They have to…”

“Oh yeah, sure. I’ll be right outside,” he mutters and hurries back out the door.

“I don’t know if me or Dad is more nervous for this baby. I think you’re the only one who isn’t.”

I chuckle and shake my head. “I don’t know about that. I mean, you’re the one who has to do the hard work. I’m your cheerleader, and that requires minimal practice on my part.”

“Alrighty, let’s get this done and get you out of here,” the nurse says. Cordelia nods, and they get her feet up so the nurse can check something in there. Then they do the ultrasound, and I swear my heart threatens to explode when I hear that quick pounding sound.

“Everything looks good. He’s going to be a big boy,” she says. I stare at the screen, tilting my head and asking how they know. “We measure his size from here to here,” she points to the screen. I still don’t see it, but I feel stupid asking questions.

I stare at the screen seeing the small spot on the screen flutter with his heartbeat, and my chest gets tight.

“Kai?” Cordi says.

I lean over and kiss her cheek.

“I can’t wait to meet him,” I rasp.

Cordi smiles so big I can’t help but smile back. I have never been so in love with someone I have never met.