28. Victoria
VICTORIA
I stood to my feet as the crowd went wild. As the puck sank itself into the goal. But my eyes weren’t on the score. They weren’t on the alarm. They weren’t on the flashing red light.
They were on Rhett.
Who didn’t move on the ice.
“No,” I said breathlessly as I tore out of my VIP box. “Rhett, get up.”
I whispered it to myself as I charged down the stairs.
I took them two by two until I pushed out into Caldwell Arena and weaved my way through the crowd.
Some of them cheered. Some of them chanted Jett’s name.
Others downed the rest of their beers, shoving food into their faces by the fistful so that it wouldn’t be wasted.
And yet all I did was charge forward.
“Rhett!” I exclaimed as I leapt over the barrier and onto the ice. “Rhett! Get the fuck up!”
He hadn’t moved an inch. He just lay there as medics rushed out onto the ice.
“Rhett!” I cried out, making my way across the ice.
I slid out of the way of flying punches.
I didn’t even know who the fuck was fighting.
Officials charged toward that side of the rink left and right while I shoved through the cacophony.
I dodged punches. I moved out of the way of skidding bodies.
It was fucking mayhem; one of the best hockey games I’d ever seen.
And Rhett still hadn’t moved.
“Rhett,” I said breathlessly as I got to his side. “Rhett, you’ve got to open your eyes.”
“Ma’am, step back,” one of the paramedics said.
I glowered at him. “Over my dead fucking body. Now, wake him the fuck up. Bust out some smelling salts and do whatever the hell it is you do.”
The paramedic looked at me with a sympathetic expression. “Then stand back and let us work.”
“Mama, come on,” I heard my daughter say as her small hands gripped my arm from behind.
“No,” I said as I yanked out of her grasp. I bent over Rhett and cupped his cheeks. “Rhett, you have to open your eyes. Rhett, please.”
Tears streaked my cheeks. His face faded in and out. Sometimes it was Rhett. But sometimes it was Ryan. I blinked heavily, brushing at my tears. I didn’t care what it did to my makeup. I didn’t care what I looked like.
“Rhett, you have to wake up. Please. You’re scaring me,” I said breathlessly.
“Ma’am, we have to lift him,” one of the paramedics said.
“Come on, Mom, I know where they’re taking him,” Brynn said.
They shouldn’t have had to take him anywhere.
“Rhett!” I bellowed until someone snatched my arm, yanking me up onto my feet and away from Rhett.
“Hey!” Coach bellowed.
But when the person who gripped me whipped me around, I came face to face with Jett’s shoulder. “Come on, Miss Caldwell. You can ride with me to the hospital.”
The fights were broken up, the penalties were divvied out, and the game was called. Our win, fair and square. And yet, I couldn’t enjoy it as I kept eyeing the speed at which Jett drove. Fifty miles an hour. Sixty. Seventy-five, heading down the backroads.
At least someone had a fucking pep in their step.
Everything passed in a blur until I stood in that hospital room.
Rhett was hooked up to all sorts of machines.
Doctors hovered over him with care. And he still hadn’t opened his eyes.
I chewed on my thumbnail, watching Jett as he perched in the corner, his eyes never leaving his friend.
I turned away from the scene and peered out the hospital window.
I gazed down at the crowd gathering around the hospital’s side entrance that sat a few floors beneath the room where we were.
The town gathered. Reporters and newscasters gathered.
And as Colton prepared himself for a press conference, I watched my daughter step up beside him.
I saw her mouth moving with answers. I watched her stand confidently at Colton’s side, not cowering behind him like some girl that had been accosted by the same media that now looked to them for answers.
My daughter was so beautiful, and so strong, and so intelligent.
She flourished at Colton’s side, and even I couldn’t deny that.
I was beautifully astounded by the woman she had grown to be.
“You’re gonna make a wonderful mother someday,” I whispered.
If that’s something the two of them wanted.
“Miss Caldwell?” Jett asked.
I whipped around at the sound of his voice and found a doctor standing next to the lanky string bean of a man.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until I felt the cool air of the hospital whip against my cheeks.
I sniffled and quickly wiped my eyes. Jett grabbed a tissue box and walked over to me, bringing the doctor with him.
He held out the box and I plucked a few from its confines, giving him a thankful look.
He just nodded his head before he sat the tissues down on a chair next to me.
“How is he?” I asked breathlessly.
The doctor looked between the two of us. “Rhett is going to be fine.”
I sighed so heavily that it forced more tears to my eyes. “Yeah? He’s okay? I mean, he hasn’t opened his eyes or anything yet. Does he have a concussion?”
The doctor simply shook his head. “No, he doesn’t.
He didn’t actually hit his head. The full force came down against his neck, so we’ve taken a lot of scans to make sure there are no fractures.
He’s knocked himself out pretty good, but there’s no lasting damage.
No brain swelling. No vertebrae fractures. ”
“Oh, thank fuck,” Jett said breathlessly as he linked his hands and locked them behind his head.
“He’ll need rest for the next week,” the doctor said as his eyes volleyed between the two of us, “no practices, no sprints, no weight room, no games. But outside of taking a decent hit, the bruises that come with it, and the fact that he jammed his neck a bit, he’s fine.”
I should’ve been relieved, but when I looked over at Rhett, he still wasn’t looking at me.
He wasn’t smiling, or smirking, or chuckling, or trying to make a joke out of things.
He just lay there, unmoving, with tubes flowing out of him and wires bunched around him and machines filling the air with endless beeps and hisses.
Then, he grunted.
“Rhett?” I asked.
“Can we get some blue Jell-O in here?” Jett muttered behind me as I quickly clopped to Rhett’s bedside.
I heard the doctor’s voice, but I had no clue what he said.
“Rhett, can you hear me?” I whispered as I perched on the edge of his bed.
He groaned and shifted around, and relief pushed tears to the surface.
“Rhett, honey?” I asked breathlessly as I reached out and smoothed his sweaty hair away from his forehead. “I just need you to open your eyes, okay? Can you do that for me?”
He answered me with a grunt before he slowly peeled one eye open. That’s when I realized they were crusty, and that probably didn’t feel very good.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second,” I said as I looked around.
I didn’t even get up from the bedside before Jett handed me a warm cup of water and a washcloth.
“Thanks,” I muttered as I took it from him.
All he did was give me a chuckle, however, before he moved somewhere behind me. I didn’t know if he left, or if he had taken up residence in a chair. Possibly a corner. All I knew was that Rhett looked at me with that one bloodshot blue eye, and it broke my heart.
“Just hold still, okay?” I asked softly.
I dipped the washcloth into the water and slowly slid it beneath the eye he had already opened.
He tracked my movements, his crystalline orb moving with my face.
I wiped at the crusties, making sure to get the top of his eyelid as well, along the row of impossibly long eyelashes he had that should’ve been illegal on a man.
My God, the man was perfect.
“Here, let me get the other one,” I murmured as I dipped the washcloth back into the warm cup of water.
I swear, the ends of his lips crooked upwards into a grin as I softened the crusties binding his other eye closed.
I wiped his eyes and his face. I rushed it along his chapped lips, allowing the water to dribble a bit into his mouth. It was warm water, sure, but he clearly needed it.
“Jett, can you—”
“Already got it, Miss Caldwell,” he said as he handed me a cup of nugget ice.
The good ice.
“Thanks,” I said as I nodded up at him.
He thumbed over his shoulder. “I’m gonna go tell Coach that he’s awake.”
I just nodded as I turned my attention back to Rhett. “You up for some ice?”
His tongue darted out to lick his lips, but all he did was nod.
I was glad for it, too. He had to conserve his energy so that he could heal.
I plucked a nugget of ice out of the cup and held it up to his lips.
His mouth encircled the tips of my fingers, and the warmth shot goosebumps up my clothed arm.
He chewed it slowly, his eyes fluttering closed.
“Please, keep them open?” I said softly.
He chewed and swallowed before his hoarse voice came forth. “Anything for you, beautiful.”
I just snickered, trying to keep my tears at bay as I fed him another nugget of ice. And another. Watching him slowly chomp on them, allowing the melted water to dribble down the back of his throat.
Then his voice cleared itself enough to speak again. “There any blue Jell-O around here?”
Ah, so that’s why Jett mentioned the stuff. “I think your bestie’s already on it.”
He chuckled. “Ah, gotta love that Jett.”
My lower lip quivered. “You scared the shit out of me, Rhett.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
I drew in a broken breath as I set the glass of ice off to the side. “I saw you out there on that ice not moving and I thought—”
Fucking hell, I didn’t even want to breathe the idea into existence.
But then I felt a warm, comforting grip cover my hand.
“Victoria, look at me,” Rhett said.
I slid my watery eyes over to him. “Yeah?”
He brought my hand to his lips to kiss. “I’m right here. I’m just fine, and I’m right here.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. I think your mind is still running away from you. Say it.”
“What?”
“Say it out loud for me, Victoria.”
I shivered at the way his voice commanded my name. “You’re right here.”
“I’m awake.”
I swallowed hard as my eyes moved over his face. “You’re awake.”
“And I’m fine.”
I drew in a broken breath. “And you’re fine.”
He brought my palm to his lips to kiss. “Good girl.”
“Oh, Rhett,” I said, my voice cracking.
Before I could even catch myself, I dropped my body to his.
My chest hit his with a grunt that fell from his lips, but I swallowed the sound as my mouth covered his.
My head tilted. My lips slanted over his.
And as his thick, heated tongue found its home against mine, his whispered words shivered me to my core.
“It’s gonna take more than a hit on the ice to take me away from you, my Victoria.”
“Well it’s about damn time!” Jett exclaimed from the doorway.
I yelped at the shock of his voice, which startled me so badly that I leapt up from the side of the bed and pressed a hand to my chest.
It only made Rhett chuckle, though.
And the sound only made me smile as I reached down and placed my hand on his shoulder.
“Is that blue Jell-O I see?” Rhett asked.
Jett held three of them up in his hand. “You gonna use your tongue like a man? Or do you need a bitch ass spoon?”
“Just toss the fuckers here and shut up,” Rhett said.
Jett tossed me a wink before he walked over and dropped two of the Jell-O cups into Rhett’s good hand, keeping the third for himself.
As if he physically proved to me that he was all right.
“So does this mean I can go tell Coach to let the press conference know that our center is mackin’ on the bosslady?” Jett asked as he thumbed over his shoulder.
“I will throw this Jell-O at you,” I said.
Jett winked. “Don’t tempt me with a good time.”
And when Rhett growled, one of the blue Jell-O went soaring in Jett’s direction.
Jett stepped out of the way and watched it crash against the wall, splattering the blue gelatin substance all over the painted white cinderblock.
“I ain’t gettin’ you another one,” Jett said playfully.
That’s when I reached into the cup, picking up a few nuggets of ice, and cocked my hand back.
“Oh shit! Run for the hills!” Jett exclaimed.
And as he darted out of the hospital room, Rhett and I fell apart laughing.
I shoved the nugget ice into my mouth and crunched away.