Chapter 17 #2
“Yeah. I heard from Caleb.” Casey pretty much knew all. She was a good listener. “He’s stuck in the country for a bit, so he’s coming down to stay with me.”
“Oh, that will be nice for him. Being stuck in the village with an injury sucks so hard and trying to get a hotel now is insane.”
“Right? I’m just glad this is a broken foot in a boot and on crutches and not something worse. And that he’s talking to me.”
“That’s a bonus since he’ll be in your room,” she said drily. “Eat up. Back to work in twenty.”
He groaned, because honestly, all he really wanted to do was go wait for Caleb and make sure he was all right. Hell, Hawk wanted to go get Caleb and fucking carry his ass down the mountain.
The day crawled by, the two games he worked were pretty much blowouts, one ending 5-1, the other 6-2. Even his co-announcer, Bob, heaved a relieved sigh when they were done with shit.
He met back up with Casey, her eyes just as glazed over as his, and she punched his arm. “I guess seeing if you want supper is pointless.”
“Yeah.” He gave her a wry smile. “I’m getting room service for supper with Caleb, assuming he made it to the room.” Which made him pull out his phone to see if there was a message from Caleb.
There was a
In the room
but that was it. He would bet Caleb was sound asleep.
Cursing the intense traffic, he made it back to the hotel and danced from foot to foot impatiently as he took the elevator to his floor.
Sure enough, when he opened the door and headed into the dimly lit room, Caleb lay sprawled on the bed on his back like a starfish, his injured foot propped on a pillow, the boot huge.
His gut clenched with sympathy, and he tiptoed over to stare down at Caleb. He looked pale, with dark circles under his closed eyes, and lines of pain carved around his mouth.
Tugging his tie off, Hawk moved toward the bathroom. He wanted get the grossness of the day taken care of before Caleb woke up. He washed up, then brushed his teeth because God knew he probably had coffee breath. He’d been sucking it down for hours.
By the time he got out of the bathroom, Caleb was lying on his side, his head propped up on his hand, smiling at him. God, he looked exhausted and hurting, but he was there and it was fucking amazing.
“Hey, baby, how are you feeling?” Hawk wandered over to the bed. He had changed into a pair of sweats and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and he was way more comfortable.
“My ankle is throbbing. My foot hurts, but all in all I feel pretty damn good.” Caleb jerked his chin toward the nightstand where the gold medal was just sort of lying casually, waiting for Hawk to look at it.
“Congratulations. I didn’t tell you that before and I should have. That’s an amazing accomplishment.” He planted a hand on the bed and bent down to give Caleb a kiss. Caleb hummed, the sound completely appreciative, and put his free hand up into Hawk’s hair to hold him there.
It was a little awkward having to bend over like that, but it was worth it. He wasn’t ready to crawl into bed yet though; they needed to get some food. He was starving.
Reluctantly, Hawk straightened up after one more little nip to Caleb’s lower lip, and he tugged his shirt down. “So what are we gonna eat? We should order food first before we get all snuggly.”
“We probably should.” Caleb laughed, waving his hand. “And I need to take a pill. I’m not taking anything hardcore, just Tylenol, but it’s been enough time. The doc said the first day I could do every four hours and then shut it down to every twelve after that.”
“Yeah, gotta be easy on the old liver, huh?” He grabbed the room service menu because this place had a full-service restaurant.
Hawk sat on the edge of the bed so he could share the menu with Caleb, and they decided on some polenta and then some chicken breasts along with a salad.
Hawk loved how everything in Italy had a place in the progression of the menu and how they could also get most everything a la carte.
“You want anything for your sweet tooth?” Hawk asked.
Caleb yawned, his jaw popping. “Nah, let’s do that in the morning. I’ll send you down to the breakfast buffet, and you can bring me a selection of goodies.”
“You got it.” Hawk called down and ordered for them and then scooted back on the bed, so he leaned against the headboard. Caleb immediately rolled a bit in order to put his head on Hawk’s leg, high up on his thigh, Caleb’s hand landing on his knee.
“So, are you mad at me?”
He looked down and met Caleb’s worried, green gaze, then reached over to run his finger over Caleb’s cheekbone.
“I wasn’t mad at you to begin with, baby.
I was worried and that made me sharp, and I apologize for that.
You’re an adult, and you’re an elite athlete; you know your body, and you can make your own damn decisions. ”
Caleb patted his leg, finger stroking around his battered kneecap. “Sounds like you’re still a little pissed off.”
“It was a long day, worrying about whether you were going to make it down and if you needed help. I’m glad you’re here.
” Hawk carded his fingers through Caleb’s hair, which was getting a little long.
Enough to curl around his fingers and cling.
He didn’t mind that. It was kind of great, silky and yet a little springy, a tiny bit of curl coming out at the ends.
“Yeah, I was a little worried about me too, but it’ll be all right.
As soon as the swelling goes down I’ll go back to Vail.
We’ll set up a surgery. It won’t be fun, but it will happen, and then I’ll announce my retirement.
I don’t want to do it here because I don’t want to bring down anybody or make it weird.
” Caleb’s cheeks had gone a little pink, and he couldn’t quite meet Hawk’s gaze anymore.
“Hey, if anybody knows about surgery and recovery, I do. You know I’ve got a couple weeks off once I get back. I set it up that way so I wouldn’t have to deal with the jet lag and work at the same time.” He held his breath, waiting for Caleb to do the math on that statement.
Caleb did meet his gaze then, chewing his lower lip for a second. “You would help me out when I get home?”
“If you wanted me to, I don’t know where you go for your medical stuff, but if you had to go to Denver, I’ve got a condo there, and then once you’ve had the surgery and stuff, you could stay with me.
” Hawk shrugged diffidently, trying to make it casual.
“I mean I don’t know what your family would want to do. ”
“Dude, my family is going to be so pissed. Nobody really supports my snowboarding career.” Caleb shook his head and let out a gusty sigh. “I had an uncle who paid for all my shit when I was a kid. Snowboarding is expensive, you know?’’
Scoffing, Hawk kept petting, running his fingers through Caleb’s hair, which made Caleb hum and close his eyes, leaning into the touch. “Yeah, hockey’s pretty expensive when you’re a kid too. There’s a lot of gear. I was lucky my parents scrimped and saved to give me what I needed.”
“Anyway, my folks are in Colorado,” Caleb murmured. “But I wouldn’t count on them to help with my recovery.”
“Okay well if you want me to, I’ll help.
Like I said I have two weeks off when I get home and then honestly my job is pretty much tied to the hockey schedule.
When the team is away I’m podcasting from home, so I have plenty of time.
” His heart kicked into a harder, faster beat because he was basically offering to let Caleb move in with him for a while.
He wasn’t sure if that was wise, but it felt right, so he was going to go with it.
And he knew he had said the absolute correct thing when Caleb gave him a beaming grin. “That would rock. That would so shred, babe.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. Do you have anybody in Vail who could bring a load of your stuff to Denver, or are we going to have to go do that?
” It wasn’t a bad drive even in winter as long as there wasn’t bad weather at either end of Eisenhower Tunnel.
He wanted to make sure they needed to make the trip because it would be pretty uncomfortable for Caleb even in Hawk’s big SUV.
“My buddy Travis is there, and he’s a good guy.
He would do it for me.” Caleb moved to kiss his leg.
That gave him some pervy thoughts, but he really knew he couldn’t act on them.
Caleb would be way too sore for a good long while, and they had food coming.
“If you think you could put up with him for a couple days, he’ll want to stay and hang out, maybe play video games or something. ”
“I can hack it.” Hawk knew sports people, whether it was snowboarders or hockey players or whatever. He could handle it.
“This means a lot to me, Hawk. I know it seems like we haven’t known each other long enough for this.” Caleb was drawing patterns on his leg from his upper thigh down to his shin.
“Shit, baby, we’ve known each other for eight years, and I’ve thought about you almost every day. It’ll be okay.”
Caleb buried his face against Hawk’s lap. “I’ve thought about you all the damn time, too, so I’m happy to have this.”
Caleb dozed after that until the knock on the door came, telling them room service had arrived.
Hawk went through the motions of setting up the food, getting Caleb his pills and a big bottle of water, and then making sure Caleb was sitting up comfortably with his foot propped up on a pillow.
This was probably going to be his life for the next six to eight weeks, and he was there for it.
Somehow being able to help Caleb out while he recovered made him feel ten feet tall and bulletproof.
He wished he’d had somebody there to help him like that when he’d blown out his knee.
His team had made sure he was okay, but there had been no one to snuggle with and tell him it would all okay.
Now all they had to do was get through the gold medal hockey game, and they could go home.