Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
BILLIE
It takes me way too long to get from the upper level of the arena into the employee hallways.
I have to dodge two different people who are supposed to be checking credentials but are too busy trying to figure out what’s happening on the ice.
Pain radiates out from the center of my chest, the fear gone entirely.
“Yeah, they got him onto the stretcher now,” someone’s saying behind me. “Looked real nasty. Gonna take a bit for them to resurface the ice. Can’t continue play with that much blood in the crease.”
I try and shut out the words and run even faster. I nearly run into the person manning the family room, stopping with only a couple inches left. He raises an eyebrow, looking over me for my arena ID that lets me in. The ID that’s still in the temporary apartment on the other side of the city.
“I don’t have it,” I say, trying to explain in bursts of three or four words while trying to regain my breath. “My fiancé is James. Paxton James.” I hold up my hand with the ring still on it, shining like a beacon.
“Can’t let you in without your ID, ma’am,” he says, clearly not believing me at all.
How many asinine people have tried to fake an engagement to get access to the players? Fuck, too many if it’s impacting me now.
“I know, and I’m an idiot for forgetting it,” I say.
The door opens behind him, and someone mutters a surprised, “Oh!”
“Is everything okay, Frank?”
It’s not someone I recognize. There’s at least two new Omegas that have joined since everything fell apart last month.
Why can’t the person manning the family room be one of the security personnel I actually know?
Or the person behind him be Marilyn? She would let me in without my damn arena ID.
I shove my hands in the pockets of my jeans to keep from punching the man.
That won’t help me get in to see Carys, to make sure she’s okay.
I breathe carefully through my nose. I don’t cry in front of strangers if I can help it.
But, fuck, I need to see Carys. I need to see him.
His red hair, his beard, all those damn freckles.
I need to feel his hand around mine and smell the warm cypress scent that’s comforted me for years now.
The pain through the bond is less now, and it has me fucking terrified.
Is he unconscious? They’d had to bring in a stretcher. Was there an injury to his spine? That fall was awful. I hope the jerk who cross-checked him gets a game misconduct for it.
Resolve shakes through me. I take a step forward, trying to duck around the man. He grabs me without hesitation, his arm a steel band around my waist.
“Ma’am, I won’t tell you again,” he says, irritation in his voice. He plants me back on the other side of the threshold, the large hallway cold. “This area is restricted. You can’t be—”
A different feminine voice cuts the man off, one I’d recognize in a crowd of thousands. One I’ve heard with those thick tears coating the words before.
“Let her in, Frank. She… she can come in.”
The security guard frowns, deep lines bracketing his thin lips. He turns away from me, focusing on someone in the family room behind him.
“Ms. Wilder, you do not have to be catering to a fan’s desire right now.”
“I-I know. Let her in.” Carys’s voice is shakier this time. My stomach roils at the obvious tears in the words. Frank slowly moves away from the doorway, his hand tightening on the doorknob.
Tears stream down her face, her arms crossed over her stomach as she gasps in air with staccato pants.
I rush to her, forgetting everything I couldn’t say yesterday, all of the fears I’ve let strangle the two relationships that have meant the most to me.
Her sobs grow hysterical when I wrap my arms around her, burying my head in her shoulder, my own shaking getting worse.
People talk around us, but I don’t listen to them. I can’t. I’m too busy pulling Carys tighter into me, trying to make sure she knows I’m picking her, picking being a pack. She wraps her arms around my waist and crumples against me, her knees giving out.
“I need you both. If… If it’s not too late.” Carys’s arms spasm around my waist, her tears flowing faster. It somehow makes my own vulnerability easier. “I want a pack. With you and him and Rhett.”
She nods against my shoulder.
“Carys? Oh!” Marilyn’s voice stops abruptly. I carefully lift my head and find her a few feet away, a phone in her hand and a call lighting the screen. Marilyn’s eyes are happy but worried. “Billie, so glad you’re back. The doctor’s on the phone for you both.”
PAXTON
My head pounds like I’ve spent the entire night getting blackout drunk.
I try to move, to press against my head to dull the pain, but my body’s unresponsive.
There’s beeping nearby, and it grates on my nerves.
But then there’s the faint smell of peaches.
Everything else fades away, the pain and the beeping and the irritation.
I try and reach for them, try to take them in my arms. They’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, those peaches. Peaches and orchids, both.
I start crying, panicking at my unresponsive body. This must be a dream of some kind caused by something the EMTs gave me while trying to get my throat patched up on the ice. It makes me long for the peaches even more, the peaches and my Bee and the orchids that go with them.
“Paxton?” It’s Billie’s voice.
I’m snapped from the strange dream, dropping into reality like I’ve been pushed into arctic water entirely naked.
I gasp, twisting toward her voice. My eyes are slow to open, but I force them to, desperate to see her, to touch her and kiss her and tell her I still love her.
The beeping gets louder, faster. A hand circles my wrist, a soft, careful touch I’ve learned to savor over the last month.
My eyes finally manage to open, and I blink, trying to get the room to focus around me. Billie’s sitting beside me, her hands in her lap. Tears line her lashes just like the last time I saw her, and my stomach drops.
“Bee,” I whisper. “Don’t cry. It breaks my heart when you cry.”
A corner of her mouth lifts. Soft surprise floats through my chest. The hand on my wrist disappears. Billie looks across from me, and I force my gaze to follow. Carys carefully walks to the door of the hospital room, her eyes flicking from Billie to me and then back.
“Are you sure?” Billie asks in response to some kind of silent communication.
Carys nods. “Take all the time you need.” Her eyes lock on mine, and then I feel her hesitant hope along with relief. “I’ll let the nurse know you’re awake.”
Billie leans forward, perching her arm on the bed’s railing. I want to fill the silence, want to tell her how much I still love her and want her. That I know about her and Carys and want all of us to figure this out together. But I hold it all back, waiting for her to break the silence.
She’s the one who asked for space.
“They don’t think you sustained any damage to your spine,” she says after a minute, “or have a concussion which is really lucky. It was a terrifying fall.”
“You saw it?”
She nods and rests her head on her arm, lightly tracing the bandage covering the IV in my arm. A tear slides down her cheek. I carefully wipe it away with my free hand. She leans into the touch, and I shudder out a breath.
“I didn’t think they’d show it on television. Networks get nervous about showing medical stuff like that.”
“I don’t know if it was shown on the broadcast,” she admits. She traces my thumb, drawing shapes on the inside of my wrist. “That kid is an asshole. Marley’s already texted me. They’ve read him the riot act apparently. He didn’t realize who you were, I guess.”
I can’t shrug, so I try to convey through our bond how much he doesn’t bother me. Her lips twist as she feels my lack of worry and then she chuckles.
“Just like you to need three transfusions and not be concerned that the guy who caused the whole mess didn’t even get a penalty for the cross-check.”
“Transfusion?”
“Three of them. When you fell, you landed in the exact wrong spot. Peter cut up your neck when he tried to move and clear the puck.”
“Damn,” I mutter. “That explains the fuzzy feeling in my head.” And then I start piecing every together a bit better. “You were at the game?”
She nods, breathing in more raggedly this time. “To talk to Carys. To tell her I wanted to have you both if I could, if I hadn’t burned the bridge after I refused while you were in Florida.”
My stomach clenches. I wipe another sliding tear away, and she looks up at me.
“She said it was up to you.”
“Up to me?”
She nods once, her cheek brushing against my arm. Nerves flow across our bond.
“It’s never been up to me,” I say softly. “It’s been your choice. Whatever you want, I’m willing to live with.”
She looks down at where she’s touching my hand, her fingers light as a feather.
“I said I needed space to figure things out,” she says after a minute.
“I don’t know if I really have. I felt guilty for being attracted to her and then didn’t know how to handle that you knew she was your scent match.
I was… Mostly, I was angry at myself for not trusting you enough to tell you that I was having feelings for her.
” She traces a vein up my arm. “And then when Carys said she couldn’t handle another secret relationship, I panicked.
I just… froze. What if I’m a really shitty pack Beta and the fallout is seen by the entire hockey world?
But that’s just me being scared again. And I don’t want to be scared.
You taught me to be brave three years ago when you bought me that drink. And I want to be brave now, too.”
I make sure she can feel my love for her. Her smile is softer now, not that carefully guarded mask.
“You were brave before me, Bee. I remember you that night.”
More emotion flows through the bond.
“We need to make sure Rhett’s on board, too,” I say. “Being in a pack is a lot different from being a pair. We’ll need to make sure we establish boundaries and expectations and be willing to talk through all of the jealousy that’s bound to crop up.”
She nods and squeezes my hand.
“I know. I want to try. I’m… probably not going to be all that great at communicating like that,” she admits, pink staining her cheeks. “But I’ll work on it. And the bond helps with that, too.”
There’s a knock on the door. Billie looks to the door without sitting up, her constant contact soothing the part of me that wants to protect and provide for her.
“You can come in,” she says.
Carys carefully edges into the room, keeping toward the back wall where a line of cabinets stand. Rhett palms the small of her back, the circles under his eyes deep, the worry in his face obvious.
“You good?” he asks.
“Should be. How many stitches?”
“Twenty-two,” Carys breathes. Her worry fills my chest like a slowly-creeping vine. Billie’s echoes it a moment later, and she squeezes my hand tight enough her knuckles whiten.
“Guess I’m not playing tomorrow night then,” I say with a small smile.
Billie smacks my arm, then apologizes for hitting the IV. I lean over and carefully kiss her temple. Tears fall down her cheeks again, faster than I can manage to wipe away.
“So I hear there might be a new pack forming.” I attempt to bridge the gap.
Rhett snorts. “Yeah, sounds like it. You good with it?”
I focus on Carys. Her cheeks are pink, but the nerves haven’t gone away.
I hold up my other hand in invitation. She slowly closes the gap, carefully lacing our fingers together.
Her gaze flicks to Billie and then to Rhett, who quickly wraps an arm around her waist and kisses the bonding bite under her ear.
“Is our Omega good with it?” I ask, squeezing Billie’s hand to make sure she knows she’s part of that “we.”
Carys smiles.
“Yeah. I’m good with it.”