Chapter Thirty
Thirty
Jack
Coach looks thoughtful as I relay everything I’ve learned in the last twenty-four hours, never interrupting me as I tell him about what the doctor said: about the fracture, the possibility of making things worse—all of it.
I tell him about everything that’s been on my mind, even going so far as to clue him in on my feelings for what we should do moving forward.
He nods when I’m finished, leaning back into his chair and looking at me with concern in his eyes.
“That’s…an unfortunate development, son,” he says finally.
I nod back at him. “I know.”
“And you’re sure this is what you want?”
I consider that, trying to gather my courage for the decision I’ve come to. I finally nod back at him, straightening a little in my chair. “It is.”
“Well, I can’t stop you,” Coach says. “Truth be told, I don’t really want to.”
“This is what I want.”
“I know how badly you want to play,” Coach starts, “and with the finals looking like a real possibility, I can understand if you—”
“I’ve thought about it a lot,” I interrupt. “I’m sure that this is the right decision for me.”
Coach frowns, tapping his fingers against the edge of the desk. “I just hope you know that you’re more than this game, son. You’re a damned good player, but you’re a lot more than that too.”
I feel a smile touch my lips as I nod. “I’m starting to see that, sir.”
“Good. There’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about, if you have time.”
I shift a little in my seat, thinking about how I want to get to Abby and fix that part of my life too. “I have a little time,” I tell him finally.
But just as I say it, my phone starts buzzing in my pocket. I reach to silence it so I can continue to talk with Coach, but no sooner does it go quiet than it starts right back up again.
“Sorry,” I tell Coach. “Do you mind?”
“Go ahead and take it,” he says.
I glance down at the caller ID and see Ian’s name there, wincing a little as I prepare myself for what has to be a verbal tongue-lashing over making his sister cry.
I know there’s nothing he can say that would make me feel any worse, so I steel my resolve, swiping the screen and picking up the call.
“Hey, I know you’re probably pissed, but I can explain everyth—”
“Jack,” Ian says seriously. “It’s Abby.”
“I know that,” I answer, “and I’m going to fix it. I just need a little more time, and then I’m going to—”
“She’s in the hospital.”
Everything in my body goes cold. “What?”
“Apparently she was clipped on the street? I don’t know all the details. I just got the call. She got into a fucking cab and took herself to the hospital. I’m on my way there now, but I thought you might want to know.”
“I’m leaving,” I tell him, already rising from my chair. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“Okay,” Ian says. He’s quiet for a second before, “We have a lot to talk about.”
I swallow thickly. “Yeah. We do.”
“Later?”
“Later.”
“See you soon.”
I glance at Coach when I hang up, shooting him an apologetic look. “Hey, I’m so sorry, but something came up. It’s an emergency. Do you mind if we finish this conversation later?”
“Sure,” Coach says. “But I expect you back here when it’s all cleared up, all right?”
“Right,” I answer, my heart racing and my palms shaking as I think of nothing but getting to Abby. “Sure thing.”
I grab my jacket from the back of the chair and rush out of his office, everything in my body flushing with fear and anxiety as I consider what I might find at the hospital. The fact that I know nothing fills me with dread, and all I can think about is getting to her as quickly as possible.
The idea of her being hurt makes me feel more helpless than I’ve ever felt—more than when I found out I might not be playing anymore, more than when people pushed me to have the surgery—all of it. I’ve never felt fear like this.
Which only makes me move faster.
It’s odd being back at this hospital. It’s the same one they dragged me to after I hurt my arm, back when I first got my diagnosis, and with it brings all the same anxieties that I felt that day, except now they’re exponentially worse because it’s Abby.
I can barely think as I rush through the front doors in search of the front desk in the emergency room, taking a quick scan of the waiting area and noticing that Ian and Dee aren’t there.
I can’t be sure if that means they haven’t made it yet or if they’re already back with Abby.
Will the staff even let me in to see her since I’m not family?
I come to a halt just outside the plastic screen that covers the lady at the front’s desk, trying to be as patient as I can while she finishes up her phone call.
She notices me and holds up a finger to signal that I wait another second, and I tap my fingers against the counter, trying to will myself to be still.
When she’s finally done with her call, I can hardly contain myself anymore.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
I grip the edge of the counter. “I’m looking for Abby Thompson. She should have been brought in recently.”
The woman types at her computer, squinting at the screen for a moment. “Ah, yes. She’s already in an exam room. Number 112. It’s just down the hall there.”
“I can just go back?”
“Sure, they should be finishing up with her now.”
Finishing up with her?
“Is she all right?”
“Sir, I don’t have those answers. I can just tell you what’s on the screen. If you want to go down the hall there, you can see for yourself.”
I grind my teeth at her brusque tone, but I attempt to relax, telling myself she’s just doing her job.
It isn’t her fault I feel like I’m coming out of my skin.
I push away from the counter and head toward the hall she pointed out, rushing across the linoleum floors as I count the room numbers along the way.
By the time I notice the number the receptionist mentioned, I’m skidding to a halt and standing outside the closed door with a racing heart.
I try to calm my breathing as I swallow around my tongue, which feels too thick. I gently push open the door and step inside as I brace myself for whatever I’m going to find there.
I don’t know what I expected, but a perfectly fine-looking Abby sitting on the edge of a hospital bed seeming slightly annoyed was definitely at the bottom of the list.
“Abby?”
Her head snaps up to look at me, her mouth falling open in surprise. “Jack?”
My eyes drink her in, trying to look for any signs of injury. She looks relatively fine, but then I notice the bandages on her right arm, the sleeve cut to the elbow and stained with her blood.
I rush to her side. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she tells me. “It was just a cut. They got me all stitched up.”
All-over relief floods through me. “I thought—When Ian called and said you were hurt, I thought—”
She must notice the growing panic that’s welling inside me, must see the way my breath is coming shorter as the idea of her being seriously injured wars with the relief I feel at seeing that she’s all right.
“Hey,” she says. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Really.”
I’m as careful as I can be when I pull her into my chest, minding her arm as I throw mine around her shoulders to hug her tight. “I can’t tell you how fucking worried I was.”
“I’m really okay, Jack,” she says quietly, patting my back.
I pull back, my hands cupping her shoulders as my eyes rove over her face. “All I could think about was what I said to you yesterday. Jesus, Abby. You could have fucking died, and the last thing I said to you was fucking awful.”
“It seriously wasn’t that bad—”
“I’m so sorry,” I blurt out. “About everything. I shouldn’t have said those things. I shouldn’t have made you feel like you weren’t an important part of my life, because you are. I never should have let you think any differently.”
“Jack,” she says softly. “I’m sorry too.”
“You have nothing to apologize to me for.”
“You needed me, and I walked out on you. I feel terrible about it.”
“I deserved it after all the things I said.”
“I should have stayed and tried to hear you out,” she laments.
I shake my head. “I don’t blame you for leaving. I was being a total asshole. I was only thinking about myself.”
“But you had a lot going on,” she argues. “I don’t blame you for lashing out.”
“I do,” I press. “You didn’t deserve it. You’re one of the most important people in my life, and I shouldn’t have let you think for one second that you weren’t.”
She bites at her bottom lip. “I am?”
“Of course you are,” I tell her, reaching to push a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “These last six weeks…they’ve been everything to me, Abby.”
Her voice is quiet when she answers, “Me too.”
“Yeah?”
She nods. “You’re important to me too.”
“It’s the nachos, isn’t it.”
She pinches me in the side with her good hand. “I hate you.”
“I really don’t think you do,” I say with a laugh, so relieved that she’s okay that I can feel elation coursing through me. “Can I take you home now?”
“They still have to discharge me,” she says.
“But after?”
“You really want me to come back?”
“Of course I do,” I tell her. “I want you wherever I am.”
Her lip trembles and her eyes shine, and it feels like gravity, the way I lean into her, the way my lips brush against hers.
My hand pushes up into her hair to cup the back of her head, and it takes nothing at all to lick at the seam of her mouth, practically sighing internally with relief when she immediately opens to let me in.
I hold her closer as my tongue swipes against hers, feeling her teeth scrape at my lower lip as she makes a soft sound of contentment.
I swallow it down, wanting more, wanting everything—and it’s just hitting me that I could have lost her today.
Everything that I’ve been so worried about feels like nothing in comparison to that.
And suddenly the need to say something, to tell her everything I’m feeling, is so great that I can hardly contain it.
“Abby,” I murmur against her mouth. “I—”
“Wow, I absolutely did not want to see this,” a voice groans behind me.
I whip my head around to see a smiling Dee and a grimacing Ian standing in the doorway, the latter looking at the pair of us like he’d very much like to turn around and walk back out.
“You kissed my sister first,” I remind him. “It’s only fair.”
“You were supposed to hate him,” Ian hmphs. “Not kiss him.”
Abby chuckles. “I…tried?”
“I’ll have you know, I’m a very loveable person,” I tell Ian.
Ian rolls his eyes. “I’m feeling less and less love toward you by the second.”
“Oh, shut up, the both of you,” Dee says, pushing into the room. “Abby, are you okay?”
Abby holds up her arm. “Six stitches, but I’ll be fine.”
“Why the hell didn’t you call me to take you to the hospital?” Ian grouses. “I was right upstairs!”
“I don’t know!” Abby counters. “I panicked! The guy was beside himself after he clipped me, and he was worried I was going to sue or something, and I was practically bleeding all over the street…I did the first thing I could think of.”
“Next time maybe call me yourself instead of letting the hospital do it,” Ian grumbles. “I thought you were seriously hurt.”
“We both did,” I chide, turning back to give her a hard look.
Abby rolls her eyes. “Oh, quit it. You can’t pull off telling me off.”
“I can be a stern brunch daddy if I want to be,” I say.
Her nose wrinkles. “I don’t even want to know what that is.”
“Are you really okay?” Dee asks, stepping up beside the bed and frowning over Abby’s bloody sleeve.
“I’m really fine,” Abby assures her. “They gave me some pain meds and a tetanus shot, so I’ll be right as rain.”
“Hopefully they gave you the good stuff,” I say.
“I don’t even want to know what you consider ‘the good stuff,’ ” Abby snorts.
“So are we going to talk about the fact that you were kissing when I got here?” Ian pipes up from behind us.
I turn to give him a smirk. “Doesn’t feel so good when it’s your sister, does it.”
“Abby,” Ian groans. “You know he’s never going to let any of us live this down. You know that.”
“He’ll be good,” Abby says confidently. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“You’re not the boss of me,” I protest.
She arches a brow. “Oh yeah?”
“Hmph.” My lips purse. “Fine, fine. I’ll be good.”
“Oh, I’m really going to enjoy this,” Dee says.
Ian frowns. “That makes one of us.”
“Oh, shut up,” Dee laughs. “You really don’t have a leg to stand on here.”
“Thank you,” I tell my sister.
Said sister smacks my good arm. “But that’s for making her cry.”
“Okay, yeah. I deserved that.” I bounce a little on the balls of my feet. “Can I please take Abby home now? We need to reaffirm our feelings for each other.”
Abby’s mouth parts in horror. “Jack.”
“What? I didn’t tell them we’re probably going to have—”
“If you finish that sentence,” Abby says, “then I assure you, it will not come to fruition.”
Ian now has his fingers in his ears, humming some tune under his breath.
I grin as I lean in to press a quick kiss to Abby’s lips, deciding I can tell her what I wanted to a little later. “Come home with me,” I murmur, low enough for only her to hear.
“If you think you can behave,” she mutters back.
I grin against her mouth, ignoring the way Ian is making a gagging sound behind us. “No promises there, lover.”
I don’t even mind that she rolls her eyes.
I want to make her roll her eyes at me for a very long time.