Chapter 14 Wes
FOURTEEN
WES
We’re not even halfway through our morning skate when Blake lumbers off the ice and is ushered into the chute by the team doctor.
Worry pokes hard at me when I notice he’s favoring his left knee.
He’d been icing it in the locker room last night after the game, but he assured me this morning that he was A-OK.
Said it was just an old injury acting up and that the precautionary X-rays and ultrasound our techs ran came back clear.
I force myself to concentrate for the duration of practice, but I hope to God that Blake is all right.
He hadn’t looked like he was in too much pain when he’d skated off, but you never know.
Hockey players are tough motherfuckers. They could have a broken leg with the bone sticking straight through their flesh and still insist they’re fine.
I think the same applies to hockey coaches, because Jamie had brushed off his own malady last night.
I came home to find him in our bed with a pillow over his head, groaning that he’d never had a migraine like this before.
I felt him tossing and turning all night, but he was gone before I woke up, so I’m assuming he’s migraine-free now.
I damn well hope he is. I was really looking forward to hanging out with him yesterday, and I’m determined to make it happen tonight.
The second Coach blows his whistle to signal the end of practice, I head to the locker room to shower and change, then go on a hunt for Blake. I track him down to the physio room. He’s lying on a long metal table, his left leg propped up and an ice pack on his knee.
“What’s the word?” I ask in concern.
Unhappiness clouds his face. “They’re sending me for an MRI.”
Shit. “MCL? ACL?” I pray the answer to that is “neither”, but Blake’s expression goes even more bleak.
“ACL. They don’t think it’s a tear. Worst case, a sprain, but it’ll still keep me out of action for a while. Two weeks, hopefully. Six at the most.”
Double shit. Losing Blake, even for a couple weeks, would be a major hit for the team. He’s one of our best forwards. “I’m sorry, man,” I say quietly.
Blake is quick to flash that careless grin of his, even though we both know he’s bummed out at the prospect of missing any games. “Ah, don’t look so mopey, Wesley. Nothing keeps me down for long, eh? I’ll be back before you know it.”
I raise a brow. “You’d better be. We’re going to need you if we make the playoffs.
” For the first time in years, Toronto is actually in playoffs contention.
I like to think that’s partly my doing—I’ve now scored at least one goal in the past six games—but I’m trying not to let myself get too cocky.
Hockey is a team sport. No “I” in “team” and all that jazz, right?
“When we make the playoffs,” he corrects. “Pessimistic asshole.”
“When we make the playoffs,” I echo, which gets me another broad smile from him. “So take care of that knee, you hear me? Don’t push yourself to get back on the ice sooner than the docs tell you. We can man the fort until you’re ready to—”
“Wesley.” The male voice at the door interrupts me, and I turn to see one of our assistant coaches standing in the doorway.
“Yeah, Coach?”
“Call came in for you on the main switchboard.” He points to the white phone mounted near the door. “They’re on hold. Line two. Sounds important.”
He ducks away without another word.
I’m not sure why, but my stomach goes rigid.
I don’t claim to be a super-intuitive guy.
That’s Jamie’s forte, sensing what people are thinking, instinctively knowing what to do in any given situation.
But right now, foreboding is crawling up my spine, and for some peculiar reason, my legs wobble like a toddler’s as I walk over to the phone.
I lift the handset to my ear and press the Line Two button with a shaky finger. “Hello?”
“Is this Ryan Wesley?” an unfamiliar voice barks.
“Yes. Who’s this?”
There’s a slight pause. “Shit, this is actually Ryan Wesley? The Toronto center?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?” I can’t stop the sharp bite to my tone. “Who am I speaking to right now?”
“David Danton. Associate coach for the U17 Wildcats. I work with Jamie Canning.”
I find myself leaning forward, bracing one palm against the wall. Why is Jamie’s least-favorite coworker calling me? My heart rate kicks up a notch.
“Canning collapsed about an hour ago,” Danton says, and all the oxygen in my lungs shudders out. “We tried calling you when it happened, but I was on hold. And when the ambulance came, I hung up.”
An hour ago? Ambulance?? Horror clamps around my throat, along with a rush of fear that floods my stomach and brings me dangerously close to hurling all over the pristine white floor.
“Where is he?” I demand. “Is he okay?”
From behind me, I hear a rustling sound. I jump nearly five feet in the air when Blake appears at my side. Concern is etched into his rugged features, but I’m too terrified to pay him much attention.
“We just got to St. Sebastian’s. The ER docs are with him now. Last update we got said he’s still unresponsive.”
Unresponsive?
The handset falls from my suddenly limp fingers.
It dangles from its cord, rocking like a pendulum and smacking the wall with each hurried swing.
I’m vaguely aware of a big hand grabbing that handset.
A gruff voice talking into the phone. I don’t know what the voice is saying.
All I can hear is the wild hammering of my pulse in my ears.
Jamie is unresponsive. Unresponsive. What the hell does that mean? Why is he unresponsive?
An anguished sound tears out of my throat. I lunge out the door, my vision nothing but a hazy, panicky blur. I don’t even know where I’m going. I just stumble forward in search of the nearest exit.
I need to get to the hospital. Goddamn it, but I don’t even know where St. Sebastian’s is. I think if I tried to punch it into my GPS app right now, I’d break my phone. My hands aren’t doing so well—they’re tingling and shaking and missing the door handle every time I try to push it open.
“Wesley.” The voice is tinny. Faraway.
I push on the handle again, and the door finally fucking opens.
“Ryan.”
It’s the use of my first name that penetrates the fog of terror that’s surrounding me like a shield.
My dad calls me by my first name, and I was conditioned as a child to always stand to attention when I hear those two commanding syllables.
I jerk my head up and see Blake running toward me.
Even in my current state, I know he shouldn’t be running.
“Your knee,” I manage to croak.
He skids to a stop in front of me. “My knee’s fine. Keeping me off the ice for now, yeah, but it’s not banged up enough to let you get killed in a head-on collision.”
I blink. I honestly don’t know what he’s saying right now.
“I’m driving you to the hospital,” he clarifies.
I object weakly. “No—”
“Don’t need my left leg to drive, anyway.” His tone brooks no argument. “And you’re in no condition to drive right now.”
I think he might be right. I’m in no condition to open a goddamn door, let alone operate a motor vehicle. In the back of my mind, an alarm bell goes off. I can’t let Blake come with me to the hospital. He’ll see me with Jamie. He’ll…know.
But… Jamie, damn it. I just need to get to Jamie, and right now Blake is my best chance of reaching the hospital without me mowing down some pedestrians on the way there.
I don’t argue as he claps a big hand on my arm and leads me away from the door. I realize I was about to leave through an emergency exit that leads to a cargo area, which is on the complete opposite end of the parking lot I needed to get to.
Blake redirects me down the hall. Neither of us speaks as we ride the elevator to the underground level. Rather than take my SUV, Blake shoves me into the passenger seat of a black Hummer. He gets behind the wheel and hightails it out of the underground.
“The guy on the phone said J-Bomb was brought in with a high fever and abdominal pain,” Blake reveals in a quiet voice. “He passed out when they got to the ER. Hasn’t come to yet.”
Bile burns my throat. Is this his idea of a pep talk? Now I’m ready to pass out myself, because the thought of Jamie—unconscious, sick, alone—makes my entire world blur at the edges. I can’t even see the road beyond the windshield. Everything is dark and blurry and fading away.
“Wesley,” Blake says sharply.
My head snaps up again.
“Breathe,” he orders.
I inhale slowly, but I’m pretty sure there’s no oxygen in the air.
All I’m breathing in is more fear. I don’t know how he does it, but Blake and his monstrous Hummer speed through downtown traffic like there aren’t even any other cars on the road.
When we got into this beast of a car, the Nav screen said our destination was twenty-five minutes away. We get there in sixteen.
The moment we burst through the automatic doors of the emergency room, I’m in a panic again. The large waiting room is packed. Faces whiz past my vision as I race to the nurses’ station and slam both hands on the counter.
“Jamie Canning!”
My yell startles the redheaded nurse, who looks at me from behind thick lenses. “I’m sorry?”
“Jamie Canning!” I can’t seem to formulate any other sentence. Just those four, terror-laced syllables, which rumble out for a third time. “Jamie Canning.”
Blake speaks up in a calm voice. “We’re here to see a patient named Jamie Canning. He was admitted about an hour ago?”
“One second, sir. Let me have a look.” Her red-polished fingernails fly over a computer keyboard. Green eyes study the screen, and then she raises her head again and her expression is grim enough to make my heart beat faster. Though I’m pretty sure it stopped beating a while ago.
“He’s been moved to quarantine,” she tells us.
My surroundings begin to sway again. Or maybe it’s my legs. I don’t know how I’m even upright. Blake, I realize. He’s literally holding me up by the back of my jacket.