Chapter 34
Cade
By the time the doctor cleared Bliss to leave, the hospital room had become less of a medical space and more of a Bennett family hostage situation.
There were too many people in it, too many voices, too much coffee, too much controlled panic disguised as bossiness, and too many protective men to give even a single shit about the hospital’s visiting policy.
Daniel stood near the foot of the bed with discharge papers gripped in one hand like they had personally offended him.
Knox was beside the window with his phone in one hand and his expression locked into cop mode, which meant every inch of him looked calm except for the muscle jumping in his jaw.
Ryker had not sat down once. Kellen leaned against the wall with both arms folded, firefighter hoodie stretched tight across his shoulders, while Emmitt stood near him with that police-academy posture he probably thought made him look controlled and mostly just made him look like a Bennett trying not to combust. Lyon had one hand shoved through his hair and the other on his hip, staring at Bliss like if he looked hard enough, he could physically hold her together.
Aura and Charm stood on the other side of the bed, both of them too composed in ways that told me neither of them was composed at all.
Bliss sat propped against the pillows in the middle of all of it, drowning in an oversized hoodie someone had found for her, hospital blanket tucked around her waist, bruises darkening along her cheek and throat while she looked ready to fight every person in the room with nothing but attitude and a pudding spoon.
“I can go home,” she said for the third time.
“No,” Daniel, Knox, Ryker, Aura, Charm, and I said at once.
Her swollen eyes narrowed carefully, like she had already learned that full-force glaring made everything hurt worse. “That was cult-like.”
“It was family-like,” Charm corrected.
“Same thing with more casseroles,” Bliss muttered.
The nurse, who had been trying to explain the discharge instructions for the last six minutes while the Bennett men silently vibrated around her, gave Bliss a sympathetic smile.
“You need to rest, avoid physical strain, take the medication as directed, and you should not be alone for the next forty-eight hours. With the concussion symptoms, rib injury, and swelling, someone needs to be with you in case anything changes.”
Bliss lifted one hand weakly toward Daniel. “Great. Dad has a couch.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
Before he could answer, I did. “You’re coming to Hockey House.”
Every set of eyes in the room swung toward me.
Bliss stared at me.
I stared back.
“No,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Cade.”
“Pip.”
“No. Absolutely not. Hockey House is not a recovery environment. Hockey House is where brain cells go to die wearing Fury merch.”
“Not this week.”
Her brows lifted, or tried to. “Oh, good. Did the house get a personality transplant while I was being medically dramatic?”
Ryker made a rough sound that might have been a laugh if it had not been dragged through too much rage first.
I kept my eyes on Bliss. “No parties. No extra people. No reckless activity.”
She blinked at me. “You live with Briggs.”
“I’ll contain him.”
“You cannot contain Briggs. Briggs is not a person. He’s a group project.”
“He’ll behave.”
“Has anyone told him that?”
“Rider did.”
“Rider looks like he would calmly watch a building burn if the lighting was good.”
From the corner, Rider’s mouth twitched. He had barely spoken since arriving with Easton, Ryan, and Briggs, but he had been watching the room with that quiet, sharp focus that made him harder to read than most. “Depends on the building.”
Bliss pointed toward him, then winced and lowered her hand immediately. “See? Concerning.”
“It’s the safest place,” I said.
Her face shifted.
Not much. Not enough for anyone who hadn’t spent months memorizing her to catch it. But I caught the way the humor thinned, the way her fingers tightened on the edge of the blanket, the way her eyes flicked toward Aura and Charm before coming back to me.
“I have an apartment,” she said.
“I know.”
“I have a bed there.”
“I know.”
“I have skincare there.”
Charm put a hand to her chest. “That one is actually serious.”
“I’ll get your things.”
“No,” Bliss said quickly. “I can get my own things. I am not some Victorian orphan being relocated for my delicate constitution.”
“You were released with instructions not to be left alone,” Knox said, voice firm but careful. “Nobody said you’re helpless, Bug. They said you’re injured.”
“I hate when people use logic against me.”
“It’s been a hard day for all of us,” Kellen said.
Bliss tried to glare at him too. “Don’t start with me, fire boy.”
Kellen’s mouth tightened like the nickname hurt and saved him at the same time.
Knox pushed away from the window, and the room shifted with him because he had that cop thing down, the kind of authority that made people brace even when he was trying to be gentle.
“Campus security has been updated. They have Luke’s photo, vehicle information, known hangouts, everything.
There’s a warrant out for his arrest now.
Every local department has been notified. State police have the information too.”
Bliss went very still.
The machines kept humming. The hallway noise drifted in under the door. A cart squeaked somewhere outside.
“He has a warrant?” she asked.
Knox nodded. “Yes.”
“For what?”
His eyes softened. “Enough to make sure everyone looking for him understands this isn’t a misunderstanding.”
Her throat worked carefully, and my hand closed tighter around the back of the chair beside me because I wanted to touch her, but I was across the room and there were too many people watching her try not to fall apart.
Knox lowered his voice. “You still need to stay cautious. A warrant doesn’t mean he’s caught. Until he is, we assume he knows people are looking and we assume he may act desperate.”
“That is a very comforting sentence,” Bliss whispered.
“I’m not saying it to scare you.”
“Too late. Already sprinkled that on the trauma cupcake.”
Aura reached for her hand. Bliss took it immediately.
Daniel looked at me, then at Knox, then back at Bliss. “Bug, I want you where there are people. People I trust. Luke is too comfortable in our neighborhood, and a shitload of aggressive hockey players protecting you will make sleeping less of a nightmare if I know you’re there.”
“I can stay with you.”
“You can’t,” Daniel said, and the way his voice pulled rough told me how much he wanted to say yes. “Bug, my house is the first place he’d expect you to be after yours, and it’s easier to hide in plain sight.”
Bliss’s face crumpled for half a second before she forced it smooth again.
Fuck.
Daniel saw it too, and it hurt him. I watched it land, watched the guilt try to claw up his throat. But he swallowed it down because this was not about what any of us wanted. It was about what kept her safest.
“My house has shifts,” I said. “Guys coming and going. Cameras. Teammates. Coach already knows we have a personal safety issue around the house for a few days. He doesn’t know details, and he won’t ask. But nobody gets inside without someone seeing.”
“And you have practice,” Bliss said, latching onto the argument like it might save her. “Morning and night. Opening game is Friday, Cade. You cannot babysit me between two-a-days and captain things and whatever emotionally repressed locker-room rituals you all do with tape.”
“I’m not babysitting you.”
“That is exactly what this sounds like.”
“It’s keeping you alive!”
The room went quiet.
Bliss’s eyes met mine, and I hated that I had said it that bluntly almost as much as I knew it needed to be said.
Her voice came out smaller. “Cade.”
“No one is treating you like you can’t make decisions,” I said, forcing my tone lower, steadier. “You’re still you. Bossy, impossible, overdressed for hospital discharge, weirdly attached to pudding in a concussed state.”
“I feel your judgment.”
“I know.” My mouth tugged despite everything. “But for forty-eight hours, you don’t get to be alone. That’s not my rule. That’s the doctor’s. And if it has to be someone, it’s me.”
Her mouth trembled once before she pressed it flat. “That was very arrogant.”
“I’m comfortable with the label.”
“You would be.”
Aura looked at Charm.
Charm looked at Aura.
Something passed between them, silent and fast.
Then Aura straightened. “We’ll come too.”
Bliss’s head turned carefully. “What?”
“We’ll stay at Hockey House,” Charm said immediately, voice bright in a way that rang just slightly too polished. “Obviously. You cannot be expected to recover in a house full of men without civilized supervision.”
Aura nodded. “And I have no faith any of them know what toner is.”
Briggs, who had been uncharacteristically silent near the door, lifted a hand. “I know what toner is.”
Charm stared at him. “Printer toner does not count, Lawson.”
He lowered his hand. “Then I withdraw.”
Bliss looked between her friends, suspicion fighting exhaustion across her bruised face. “You don’t have to do that.”
“We know,” Aura said.
“I mean it. I’m not dragging you into a hockey house hostage situation because I got my ass kicked by a wannabe horror-movie villain with control issues.”
Charm’s eyes shone, but her smile stayed firm. “Baby, we have been dragging each other into questionable locations since middle school. This is not our first hostile environment.”
“Hockey House is hostile,” Bliss said, pointing weakly. “Thank you for acknowledging that.”
“It smells like boy and poor choices,” Aura said. “But it has bodies, cameras, locks, and a future NHL player who looks like he hasn’t slept since the Industrial Revolution.”
I looked at her.
Aura looked back, unimpressed.
Fair.
Bliss tried to laugh and immediately regretted it, her hand pressing carefully to her ribs as pain flashed across her face.
Every man in the room moved half an inch.
She noticed.