Chapter 6 Leander #2
I stare at him, equal parts exasperated and… something else. “You know, if you ever get tired of hockey, you’d make an excellent nurse.”
That earns me a side-eye glare, but his shoulders don’t relax.
He keeps pressing the doctor until she reassures him twice more that this isn’t career-ending, just inconvenient.
When the doctor leaves, the silence settles heavily between us.
Phoenix is still standing by my bed like he’s guarding the perimeter.
I tilt my head at him, smirking despite the ache in my knee. “So, what color minivan are you buying for your new role? I think soccer moms usually go with gray.”
That almost cracks him. His mouth twitches like he’s fighting back a grin, but he refuses to give me the satisfaction.
Instead, he steps closer, lowering his voice so no one outside the curtain can overhear.
“You could’ve been seriously hurt. And Jax—” His jaw flexes hard. “He was taking after me. I’m sorry.”
Guilt shadows his face for a split second, but then it’s gone, replaced by something sharper. I don’t want him to feel like that. It’s not his fault that Jax doesn’t know how to play fair.
I let out a laugh, but it’s softer this time, not cruel. “It’s alright, Locke. What I want to know is since when are you the expert on rehab protocols? You rattled off brace types and elevation like you’ve got a degree in physical therapy.”
Some of the steel in his posture melts away at that.
He drags a hand through his hair, sighing.
“I practically do. Been in and out of hospitals since I was twelve. Concussions, torn shoulder, broken ribs—you name it. You spend enough time strapped to machines, you pick up what works and what’s bullshit. ”
There’s a weight in his voice that makes me pause. It’s not just bragging but experience carved into him.
I raise a brow. “What happened at twelve?”
He shrugs, but the motion is tight, almost reluctant.
“Took a bad hit in juniors. Kid twice my size slammed me into the boards, my collarbone snapped clean. I thought it was the end of the world. Missed the whole season. But the worst part wasn’t the pain.
It was the months of rehab after. Staring at white ceilings, counting reps, learning to breathe through frustration when my body didn’t bounce back the way I wanted. I hated feeling weak. Still do.”
The honesty in his tone stirs something in me, an unexpected flicker of empathy.
I clear my throat. “Guess that makes you my personal injury encyclopedia. Do I get a subscription card or are you my shadow until I’m back on the ice?”
His mouth quirks this time, faint but real. “Both.”
The door slams open so hard it ricochets off the stopper, a violent crack that makes the nurses at the station look up. My stomach knots even before I see him.
“Leander.”
My brother strides toward my bed with fire on his heels. His presence fills the room, making it feel suddenly smaller. He doesn’t even look at Phoenix at first. His gaze hooks on me, scanning me head to toe with a soldier’s efficiency, a brother’s panic.
He takes in the brace on my knee, the slight elevation, the thin blanket the nurses left pulled up too high. His jaw tightens, a twitch of muscle under skin.
“What the hell happened?” he demands, stopping at the end of my bed.
I force my lips into something that resembles a smile. It doesn’t reach my eyes. My throat feels raw, like I’ve swallowed gravel. “It’s nothing, Silas. I just tripped on the ice during drills. Landed wrong, that’s all. Minor.”
His brows knit together. He doesn’t buy it. Of course he doesn’t. Silas has always been able to smell a lie on me, even the small ones. Especially the small ones.
“You tripped,” he repeats slowly, like he’s tasting the word, finding it rotten. His stare pins me. “You expect me to believe that?”
I swallow, shifting slightly on the stiff hospital bed. “It happens. Ice is… slippery.”
I see the corner of Phoenix’s mouth tip into a smile.
“Leander,” Silas starts, sternly. But Phoenix puts a hand out, stopping him.
“I’m Phoenix,” he says, voice cutting through like the crack of a whip. He’s been hovering at my side the whole time, but now he steps forward, planting himself between me and Silas without even realizing it. “Teammate. Captain.”
Silas’s gaze finally snaps to him. He sizes him up the way I’ve seen him do to men at bars who look twice at me, his expression hard and cold. The silence stretches a beat too long before he gives a curt nod, ignoring his hand. “Thanks for bringing him in. You can go now.”
Phoenix doesn’t budge. His body stays angled toward me, a steady wall of heat I can feel even from the bed. He tilts his head, placing his hands in his pockets, calm but unyielding. “I’m not leaving. He’s on my team. My responsibility.”
The word lodges in my chest. Responsibility. The way he says it—like it isn’t just about line changes and practice drills, but something heavier, something personal—makes my pulse jump.
Silas crosses his arms, the motion deliberate, slow. He towers just enough to make the air shift.
“Your responsibility?” His voice is flat but dangerous. “You’re telling me you, some captain, are suddenly responsible for my brother’s well-being?”
Phoenix doesn’t blink, a wolfish grin spreading on his mouth. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
I suck in a breath. The room feels thick, charged. Two forces circling, waiting for the first swing.
“Silas…” I try, my voice catching. “It’s fine. Really. He’s been helpful.”
Silas’s eyes flick back to me, then return to Phoenix. His suspicion sharpens, cutting. “Helpful.” He spits the word like it tastes wrong.
Phoenix’s jaw flexes. He looks at Silas the way he looks at defensemen who try to shove him off the puck—calm, sure, but utterly immovable. “I’m staying until he’s cleared. Then I’ll make sure he gets home. It’s what a captain does.”
Something twists low in me at that because it’s not a lie, not technically, but there’s something more behind it. And I know Silas senses it too.
My brother takes a step closer to Phoenix. Their shoulders almost brush. The energy is bristling, hot, like a match hovering above gasoline.
“You don’t get to decide what happens with my family,” Silas says. His voice is low, controlled, but I can hear the growl underneath. “I do. You’ve done your part. He’s safe now. You can leave.”
“No,” Phoenix says simply. “He’s not just your family. He’s my—” Phoenix stutters for once. “Teammate. That makes him my responsibility.”
Silas tilts his head, studying him with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. He’s trying to see inside Phoenix, to drag out whatever truth lies under his calm surface. And I know what he’ll find—something hungry, something sharp. Something I don’t want him to see, not here.
I push up on my elbows, the hospital bed squeaking. “Silas, please. He’s a friend, not the enemy.”
My brother doesn’t look at me. His stare is locked on Phoenix. “Maybe not. But you don’t get to dictate my trust, Leander.”
Phoenix finally moves, shifting just enough to angle his body toward me. He crouches slightly, meeting my eyes with a steadiness that makes my breath stutter.
“You’ll call me once you’re home, yeah?” His voice is lower now, just for me. Not a suggestion. A demand softened into something intimate.
I nod, unable to stop myself. My throat is too tight to speak.
Silas bristles, shoulders rigid. “He won’t be calling you. He’ll be resting.”
Phoenix stands tall again, a faint smirk ghosting his mouth, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. He looks at Silas one last time, unwavering. “We’ll see.”
Then he squeezes my shoulder—firm, grounding—and finally turns to leave. The air seems to shift with him, tension easing only when the door shuts behind him.
The silence left in his wake is deafening.
Silas exhales sharply, dragging a chair closer to my bed. He sits, elbows on his knees, hands clasped tight. His eyes lock on me, storm-dark. “What the hell was that?”
I look down at my hands, twisting the blanket. “That was… my captain.”
He huffs, sharp and bitter. “That was a man who thinks he owns you.”
I flinch. His words strike too close to the truth. Phoenix’s touch still lingers on my shoulder, hot like a brand.
Silas studies me for a long, heavy beat, suspicion etched into every line of his face. “You don’t see it now, but I do. Men like him? Dangerous. They wrap themselves around you until you can’t tell where you end and they begin. And when they’re done—” His voice cuts off, jaw locking.
I bite the inside of my cheek, heart racing. I want to tell him he’s wrong. That Phoenix is different.
But the words won’t come. Because deep down, I’m not sure he is.
I just know I don’t want him to let go.
The drive home is wrapped in silence thick enough to choke on.
The city blurs past outside the window, streaks of neon and headlights smearing against the glass.
My body aches all over—the brace on my knee heavy, my shoulder stiff from the fall—but it’s nothing compared to the tightness lodged in my chest.
Silas drives like the steering wheel wronged him, hands clamped so tight I half expect the leather to tear. His profile is carved in stone, every line of his face locked.
I know that look. It’s the one that means he’s been biting his tongue too long. It comes sooner than I’d like.
“Is he the guy?” Silas asks, his voice sharp, too loud in the quiet car.
My stomach flips. “What?”
“The captain,” he clarifies, eyes cutting toward me before snapping back to the road. “Phoenix. He’s the one you’ve been thinking about dating, isn’t he?”
The air in the car shifts, suddenly too hot, too heavy. I press my palms flat on my thighs, grounding myself. “I don’t—”
“Don’t lie to me.” Silas’s tone sharpens, the words like steel drawn across stone. “I saw the way you looked at him. The way he looked at you. You don’t look at teammates like that.”
My throat goes dry. He’s not wrong, but the truth feels too dangerous to touch. I stare at the faint glow of the dash, the ticking speedometer. “…Maybe.”
Silas exhales through his nose, a sharp sound that could cut glass. “Jesus, Leander. He’s just like Dad.”
The words lance straight through me. My chest seizes, my whole body rigid. “Don’t.”
“You think I don’t see it?” His voice rises, simmering with barely checked anger. “Men like him—charming when they want something, cruel when they don’t get it. That’s who he is. That’s who Dad was.”
My pulse hammers in my ears. I shake my head hard, eyes burning. “You’re wrong about him.”
Silas doesn’t let up. “I’m not wrong. He’s dangerous, Lee. He’ll tear you apart.”
I want to shout back, to fight him on every word, but my throat locks. Because the truth is tangled somewhere in the shadows I don’t dare drag into the light.
Phoenix is rough. His hands grip hard. His words bite.
His kisses feel like a brand. But afterward, he is careful with me.
He doesn’t leave me shattered. He puts me back together with quiet touches, with patience, with a gentleness that steals my breath.
He waits until I feel whole again before leaving me.
Dad never did that. Dad left nothing but broken pieces.
But I can’t say that to Silas. He wouldn’t understand. Also, I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear about my budding sex life. So I just press the words down, bury them under the weight of my heartbeat, and say the only thing I can.
“You’re wrong,” I repeat, softer this time, but steady. “He’s not like Dad.”
Silas shakes his head, muttering something under his breath, but he doesn’t push further. His silence after feels worse than the arguing, thick and suffocating.
I turn my face back to the window, watching the city streak by in fractured light, and cling to the thought I can’t voice: Phoenix isn’t like him. Not even close.
The rest of the drive is thick with unsaid words. By the time we reach my apartment, I’m half ready to crawl out of my skin.
Silas doesn’t just pull up to drop me off he parks, kills the engine, and unbuckles.
“You don’t have to stay,” I say, though the protest is weak, half-hearted.
“I’m not leaving you alone tonight,” he replies, tone final. “Not when you’re hurt. Not with him circling around you.”
I grit my teeth. Circling. That’s how he sees Phoenix as a predator, waiting. He doesn’t see the steadying hand Phoenix offered at the hospital, the way his voice softened when he told me to call once I was home.
But again, I don’t argue. I just let him shoulder his way inside, filling the space like he always does.
The apartment feels smaller with Silas in it, like the air itself rearranges around him.
He rifles through my kitchen cabinets, finds a blanket in the hall closet, sets his phone on the coffee table—all with the restless efficiency of someone determined to protect me.
I limp to my bedroom, exhaustion dragging at my bones. The moment I lie down, though, my mind refuses to quiet. The shadows on the ceiling shift restlessly, mirroring the churn in my chest.
Through the thin walls, I hear Silas settle on the couch. The rustle of fabric, the creak of cushions, then the slow rhythm of his breathing as it eases into sleep. I wait until it’s steady. Until I’m sure. Then I reach for my phone.
The glow lights up the dark room, bright against my face. My thumb hovers over Phoenix’s name, my pulse leaping at the sight of it. I shouldn’t. If Silas knew…
But I need to.
The line only rings once before he answers. “Lee, hey.”
My eyes close, relief washing through me in a wave so strong it nearly drowns me. Just hearing his voice, rough with sleep, weighted with concern—it steadies me in a way nothing else does.
“I’m home,” I whisper, glancing toward the closed door. “Resting.”
There’s a pause, then a quiet exhale. “Good.”
The silence between us hums, warm and alive, so different from the silence with Silas.
“Hey...” Phoenix says carefully, “I’m sorry about the whole thing with your brother. I just didn’t like the way he was talking to you.”
My heart squeezes from his shaky voice. “Silas can be... a little protective of me. Big brothers, ya know? It’s okay. He was just worried.”
“You sure you’re okay?” Phoenix asks, voice softer now, low like it’s meant only for me.
I swallow, my chest loosening just enough to let the truth slip through. “I will be.”
“I’ll stop by after practice tomorrow. If that’s okay with you.”
“Silas might still be here.”
Phoenix groans, making me laugh. This feels almost easy.
“How about I pick you up on Saturday, then? I’m having a thing at my place with a few people. Come.”
“Um...”
“Say yes, Lee.” His voice is so soft, pleading.
My pulse races. “Yes.”