58. Future FIXED! #2
“No, you don’t, and that’s what worries me. Fuck, you can’t tell anyone about this. About your involvement—” With rough hands, he drags them through his hair. “Aside from your friends. Are they trustworthy?”
“Of course!” I press my lips together. “I knew what I was doing—”
“No, you didn’t, dammit.” His jaw works. “Fuck. Fuck!”
“Rod!” Mom chides. “Is now really the time for this?”
He sucks in a sharp breath through his nose, seems to deliberate with himself for a moment, stares at his shoes, rubs the back of his neck, and then deigns to meet my eye again. “You planned it?”
“I did.”
Right down to the soundtrack.
“Why?”
“Because I had to fix my own college career, and how better to prove to you what I can do than leading by example?”
When Mom releases a nervous giggle, I don’t break eye contact with Dad.
I’m fighting for my future here, dammit.
His nostrils flare but he grinds out, “Fine, but—”
“Oh! Sorry, I can come back later…”
“Zach!” I cry when I see him hovering awkwardly by the door. I don’t even have time to be elated about Dad’s concession, not with my relief to see him. “What are you doing here?!”
“You think I wasn’t on the next flight when you texted me, gorgeous?” he asks, earning an approving look from Mom that I totally ignore. When he stomps into the room, she even budges out of the way, letting him lean over to press a kiss to my forehead.
Her soft sigh makes me squirm, but Zach isn’t embarrassed. He stares me straight in the eye and demands, “What’s going on? How are you feeling?”
Dad stuns me by taking over and explaining how the next twenty-four hours is going to look. Apparently, he got the full lowdown from my doctor.
When he tells me I’ll be flying home as soon as I’m recovered enough from surgery, I don’t even argue. Just nod. I’m glad. It sucks that my last week in Madrid will be in a hospital room, but that’s what I get for being a klutz.
“Rod? Let’s deal with that paperwork you mentioned before.”
“What?”
“The paperwork!” Mom prods.
Grateful, I shoot her a smile, then once they’ve gone, I exclaim, “I can’t believe you’re here. You have a game tonight!”
“You’re in the hospital, D. What else matters more than that?!”
“You shouldn’t miss a game, Zach. Not for this. I’m fine. You need all the scouting points you can get with the draft so close—”
Cupping my cheeks, he dots kisses to them. “I love you. I’m right where I need to be.”
My heart’s in my throat. “I-I love you too. Thank you for—”
“You never have to thank me for doing the bare minimum,” he chides, tapping me on the nose. “We’ll travel back together, okay?”
“You’re staying the whole time?”
“It’s not what I pictured when I said I’d come take you home,” he says dryly, “but of course I am.”
I squeeze his hand. “Zach?”
“What, baby?”
“Please don’t think that I’m being a bitch, and I’d love to travel home with you, but are you out of your freakin’ mind?!”
Yes, I’m shrieking.
He jerks back in surprise. “Wha—”
“This is the most beautiful gesture imaginable, but you’re in the MIDDLE of the Frozen Four. You can’t stay here. You can’t. You need to win! You need to play hockey, not keep me company. I’ll be fine. Mom and Dad are here and they’re playing nice and I convinced him that I need to change majors—”
“You did? Whoa!”
“Yeah! So, please, reserve a flight right this second so I can stop panicking?”
Zach frowns. “I should be with you. You’re the only thing that matters to me, D.”
“I know, baby.” I kiss his knuckles. “But we’re working on that, aren’t we? And you need to play. You love the game. This is what you were born to do. So, go do it. For me. Please.”
“Are you su—”
“I’m so damn sure that if you give me your damn phone, I’ll reserve the flights my-damn-self!”
His grin peeps out. “You’re crazy. How did I forget that, huh?”
“A few weeks away from me and you forget my most intrinsic character trait?” I cluck my tongue. “I should never leave you again.”
“If you make that a promise, I’ll reserve the flights.”
“Done.”
“Say it.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ll never leave you again.”
“Even if I’m playing for the Stars and we’re on the road.”
My nose scrunches. “That’s so impractical—”
“Ah, ah, ahhh.” He wiggles his phone at me.
Seething, I squint at him. “I’ll travel with you when I can. How about that?”
“I’ll take it.” With a beaming smile that tells me I’m not the only crazy one in this relationship, I watch him buy a flight out tomorrow evening.
And I’m okay with that because he won’t fly until after I wake up post-op. Sure, he’ll be jet-lagged, but I’ve seen him score a hat trick still hungover after a twenty-four-hour binge.
Once that’s done, I can finally relax. Honestly, if he was born for the ice, maybe I was born to fix because the weight off my shoulders is immense. It’s so good to have him here, too. Ugh. This fixing shit does suck sometimes.
“I’m nervous,” I admit, only because I’ve watched him check in.
“About the surgery? You’ll be fine.”
“I’ve never… you know.”
He kisses my knuckles. “I’ll be here waiting for you. Just focus on that.”
Feeling so much better now that Zach and Mom and Dad are here, I sag into the pillows. “It hurts.”
“I know, baby.” He holds out my hand and flattens it to his cheek. “I know. Sounded like a doozy of an argument with your dad. I heard the back half of it.”
“I’m not sure we’ll ever get along, but at least he showed up for me. I didn’t expect that.”
“Why were you arguing in the first place?”
My nose wrinkles. “I told him something.”
“What?”
“That the Pies accepted me—”
His eyes widen. “But I thought they refused your pledge!”
“No. I just didn’t want to be a part of that world. I still don’t.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah. You’d have had to move out in September, and the only place I want you moving into is my bedroom. Permanently.”
Despite the situation, I grace him with a goofy grin. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. Will you?”
“Of course. I’m halfway moved in anyway,” I tease. Then, a thought crosses my mind. “Hailey and Pecan still on the outs?”
He hums. “Yeah, and he’s like a bear with a sore paw too.”
“He’s always been weird about her. I barely know her and that breaks his pattern. Usually, I get sick of his dipshit girlfriends. He’s hardly brought her around, and I think I can count on one hand how many times we’ve hung out.”
“Even before I saw him pining, I figured it was love.”
“Really?!”
“Oh, yeah.”
“He said something to you?”
“Kinda. He showed it, mostly.”
Pondering that, I muse, “I know money’s tight for her. She could move in with us, at a reduced—”
“Ah, fuck, D. You’re not meddling, are you?”
I chuckle. “You watch me make magic happen.”
He groans.
Then, another thought comes to me.
Maybe it’s because of his offer or maybe that acetaminophen is making me delirious—not—but I tug on his fingers. “Zach?”
“What, baby?”
“We should post it.”
“Post what?”
I clear my throat. “You know. The reel. The one that started it all.”
“That’s for us.”
I shake my head and smirk. “Nah. That’s for our haters. This is for us.”
He smirks back at me. “You sure?”
“A hundred percent. That’s our origin story.” I tug on his hand. “This is the rest of it…”
“Did I ever tell you I like the way you think, gorgeous?”
“No, but you can tell me now…”