Page 35 of Fate on the Ice

“Tainting?”

She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she whispers. “All that matters is that you’re okay.”

“Am I?”

She smiles and turns her head, then touches her lips to the center of my palm. “Some metal, some pins, and you’re good as new,” she murmurs against my palm, then she looks back at me with unshed tears in her eyes. “And some stitches.”

“Bionic Cheek Man,” I say with a grunt.

“Exactly that, and the scar is ugly now, but it’s going to look so sexy,” she says.

I snort. I don’t believe her, but I’m glad she says it. I don’t think I want to see my face now. The thought of being scarred in the face bothers me. I know it shouldn’t, but it does.

Never considered myself vain until this moment, but I am just that. The idea of messing up my perfect face is bothersome.

“Your perfect face?” Grace asks.

I said that out loud.

“You did, and you keep saying things out loud,” she says with a laugh. “Just rest, Otto. You need it.”

My eyelids grow heavy, and they close against my will. I’m exhausted. I don’t know why. I haven’t done a damn thing. But I can’t seem to stay awake. I fall asleep and wonder offhand if my mother knows what’s happened. She’d be pissed if she didn’t know.

Chapter

Seventeen

GRACE

I stayed by his bedside all night long. Then I hear the phone ring—it’s his cell. Sometime late last night, Reid delivered it. He left it with me and checked up on Otto. I could tell he was worried, and I told him everything I knew.

Reaching for the device, I notice that it says Maman. Oh god. His mother probably only speaks French. I wonder if I should just let this call go to voice mail. But then I glance at the strong man lying in the bed. The man who looks like a shadow of himself, almost small and frail in that bed.

Except I know he’s still strong as shit, inside and out, and I know he wouldn’t want his mother to worry. So, that’s why I slide my finger across the screen and lift the phone to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Otto?” she asks, her voice soft and airy. I can hear her French accent in just that one simple word.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Larsson, but there’s been an accident.”

I hear her gasp, then her bloodcurdling scream. I try to calm her down. I call out her name, but she just screams in my ear. Then the phone is taken from my hand, and I shift my gaze over to Otto, who rolls his eyes to the ceiling before his baritone voice fills the room.

“Maman,” he grunts once, twice, then three times.

“I’m okay,” he says. “There was an accident. It happened on the ice during practice. A puck hit me right in the cheek. Split it open, fractured and broke all kinds of shit. I’m held together now with pins and metal.”

Wincing, I think about the fact that his face was broken. I hate that. And Reid told me that it was because my father angrily shouted his name and distracted him. Forrest was already midswing and couldn’t stop his movements. The puck went flying right into the side of Otto’s face.

He retells the whole story to his mother. I listen unabashedly, loving the fact that he switches between French and English. I don’t think he even realizes that he’s doing it. Then he clears his throat.

“Yes, that was Grace. She hasn’t left my side.”

Pressing my lips together, I roll them a few times. My face feels warm, and I know that my cheeks are probably bright red.

“I haven’t heard yet. Yes, I'll come visit you, and I’ll bring Grace.”

He ends the call, then holds out his phone for me. I take the device from him and place it on the little bedside table next to him. I open my mouth to ask him about his mother when the door to the hospital room flies open, and there stands my asshole father.

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