Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Jerry
The victory party at the "Saber’s Den"—a sprawling, converted warehouse on the edge of town that served as the team’s unofficial headquarters—was a sensory assault I wasn't equipped to handle.
Usually, I tolerated these nights. They were part of the job. You win the game, you buy the kegs, you let the rookies worship you and the puck bunnies drape themselves over the furniture. It was a ritual of release, a necessary venting of the pressure valve after sixty minutes of war.
Tonight, however, the noise felt like physical blows.
The bass from the speakers thumped in a rhythm that matched the throbbing in my chest. Every cheer, every clinking glass, every shout of my name sent a fresh spike of agony radiating from my left ribcage.
I was sitting in a high-backed leather booth in the corner, a glass of amber scotch untouched in front of me. I wasn't drinking. Alcohol thinned the blood, and I was pretty sure I was already bleeding internally, at least a little.
I was holding court. That was my role. The Captain. The Warlord. I sat with my arm draped over the back of the booth, looking relaxed, looking bored, looking untouchable.
In reality, I was paralyzed.
If I moved my left arm, the world went white. If I took a breath deeper than a sip, it felt like someone was stabbing me with an ice pick. So I sat very, very still, and I let the mask of "The Judge" do the heavy lifting.
"Great game, Cap!"
"Did you see that hit? You ate that guy alive!"
"Vane! Shots!"
I nodded. I smirked. I gave the minimal required responses.
But my eyes were tracking only one thing in the room.
Heather.
She was by the bar, surrounded by Tank and Johnson. She was still wearing my jersey. It was comically large on her, the sleeves rolled up to expose her forearms, the hem hitting the tops of her knees. She looked like she had been raided from my closet.
She looked like mine.
She was laughing at something Tank said, but her eyes weren't on him. Every five seconds, like a lighthouse beam cutting through fog, her gaze swung back to me.
Checking. Assessing. Worrying.
She knew.
She was the only person in this room of two hundred people who knew that I was currently holding my body together with sheer spite and adrenaline. She had seen me in the tunnel. She had felt the tremor in my hands.
A girl—a sophomore with too much eyeliner and not enough fabric in her dress—slid into the booth next to me.
"Hi, Jerry," she purred, placing a hand on my thigh. "You look lonely over here. Want some company?"
My thigh muscle clenched instinctively. Not out of desire, but out of defense. Her hand was too close to my ribs. If she leaned in...
"I'm not lonely," I said, my voice flat. "I'm observing."
"Observing is boring," she teased, inching her fingers higher. "Why don't we go somewhere quieter? My dorm is close. I have ice packs."
She winked.
I felt a surge of irrational irritation. I didn't want her ice packs. I didn't want her hands. She was a variable I didn't have the energy to calculate.
"He's taken."
The voice was sharp, cutting through the heavy bass.
Heather appeared at the edge of the booth. She was holding two waters. She looked like a Valkyrie in oversized polyester.
The girl looked up, annoyed. "Excuse me? I'm just talking to him."
"And I'm telling you to stop," Heather said. She didn't raise her voice, but there was a steeliness in it that I recognized. It was the same tone she used when she told me to eat my vegetables. "He's tired. He's sore. And he's going home. With me."
The girl looked at me, waiting for me to correct the little scholarship student. Waiting for the rich, alpha Captain to put the "fake" girlfriend in her place.
I looked at Heather. I saw the fierce set of her jaw. I saw the protective fire in her eyes.
"You heard the lady," I said, looking back at the girl. "I'm going home."
The girl huffed, grabbed her drink, and flounced away.
Heather slid into the booth instantly, filling the void. She didn't touch me. She knew better. She sat close enough that I could smell her—vanilla and that sterile arena air—but she left a careful inch of space between her shoulder and my injured side.
"You look like death warmed over," she whispered, sliding a water toward me.
"Flattery will get you everywhere," I gritted out.
"Drink," she ordered. "You're dehydrated. And you're gray. We're leaving."
"I can't leave yet," I murmured, staring at the water. "Team rule. Captain stays until midnight."
"Screw the rules," Heather hissed. "Jerry, you're not breathing right. Your lips are white. If you don't walk out of here in the next five minutes, I am going to drag you out. And I will make a scene. I will cry. I will scream. I will tell everyone you have... I don't know... erectile dysfunction."
I choked on a laugh, which immediately turned into a grimace of pain.
"Don't make me laugh," I wheezed. "It hurts."
"Then let's go."
She stood up. She offered me her hand.
I looked at it. Small. Capable. The hand that had held me in the tunnel.
I took it.
Using her grip as a lever, I hauled myself up. The pain flared, hot and blinding, turning my vision spotty for a second. I swayed.
Heather was there instantly, her body pressing against my right side—the good side—propping me up.
"I got you," she whispered against my arm. "Lean on me. Just a little."
"I'm heavy," I warned.
"I'm strong," she countered.
We walked through the party. People shouted goodbyes. I waved. I smiled. I pretended I wasn't using my girlfriend as a human crutch.
When we finally pushed through the heavy metal doors and into the cold night air, the relief was instantaneous. The silence was a balm.
"Keys," Heather demanded, holding out her hand.
"I drive," I said automatically.
"Not tonight, Speed Racer," she said, snatching the keys from my pocket before I could stop her. "You can barely lift your arm. You are not driving a three-hundred-horsepower death machine on black ice. Get in the passenger seat."
I wanted to argue. Control was my drug, and giving it up usually made me itch.
But tonight, looking at her standing under the parking lot lights, hair messy, wearing my name on her back, taking charge of my life...
I didn't want to argue. I wanted to surrender.
"Fine," I said.
The drive back to The Spire was silent, but it wasn't empty. It was filled with the hum of the engine and the heavy sound of my own shallow breathing.
I watched her drive. She had adjusted the seat all the way forward to reach the pedals. She gripped the steering wheel at ten and two, her expression focused and serious.
She looked beautiful.
Not the polished, magazine-cover beauty of the girls my father tried to set me up with. She was real. She was messy. She was a fighter.
"You're staring," she murmured, eyes on the road.
"I'm assessing," I said.
"Assessing my driving skills?"
"Assessing my luck," I admitted. The pain meds—or the pain itself—were loosening my tongue.
She glanced at me, her eyes softening. "Don't get sentimental on me, Vane. It's probably the concussion talking."
"I don't have a concussion," I said. "My head is clear. It's the rest of me that's broken."
"We're almost home," she promised.
Home.
She said the word so easily. As if The Spire—a cold, glass monument to my father's ego—was actually a home.
But with her in it... maybe it was.
We pulled into the garage. She parked perfectly, avoiding the concrete pillar I usually came dangerously close to. She killed the engine.
She turned to me. The darkness of the car felt intimate. A confession booth.
"How bad is it really?" she asked. "Scale of one to ten."
"Six," I lied.
"Jerry."
"Eight," I amended. "It feels like something is grinding every time I twist."
She winced, as if she could feel it herself. "Okay. We need ice. We need ibuprofen. And we need to get you out of that suit."
"Buy me dinner first," I drawled, trying to deflect.
She didn't smile. She leaned across the console. She didn't kiss me. She just placed her hand on my cheek, her thumb brushing under my eye.
"I was so scared," she whispered. "When you didn't get up."
Her vulnerability hit me harder than the check into the boards.
"I'm hard to kill," I said, turning my face into her palm. I kissed the center of her hand. "I promise."
"Keep promising," she said. "Now let's go upstairs."
Getting out of the car was an ordeal. Getting into the elevator was a marathon. By the time the doors opened to the penthouse, I was sweating again, my shirt clinging to my back.
The apartment was dark, the city lights casting long shadows across the floor.
"Bedroom," Heather directed, steering me down the hall.
We walked into my room. It was stark. Gray walls, black sheets, no clutter. A monk's cell with a view.
"Sit," she ordered, pointing to the edge of the California King bed.
I sat. The mattress dipped, and the shift in gravity made my ribs scream. I grunted, squeezing my eyes shut.
"Okay," Heather said, standing between my knees. Her voice was all business, but her hands were trembling slightly as she reached for my tie. "Let's get this armor off."
She undid the knot of my tie, pulling the silk strip free and tossing it onto the floor.
Then she reached for the top button of my dress shirt.
Her fingers brushed against my throat. Cool. Soft.
Button one.
"You played amazing," she whispered, her eyes focused on her task.
Button two.
"You were insane," she corrected. "But amazing."
Button three.
My chest was heaving. Not just from pain now. From her proximity. She was so close. I could feel the heat radiating from her core.
Button four.
She reached the waistband of my slacks. She tugged the shirt tails free.
Then she parted the fabric.
She gasped.
I looked down.
My entire left side, from my armpit to my hip, was a canvas of violence. Deep purple, angry red, and sickly yellow. The skin was swollen, the definition of my muscles lost under the trauma.
"Oh my god," she breathed. Her hands hovered over the skin, terrified to touch. "Jerry... this isn't a bruise. This is a disaster."