Page 99 of Sack

No. No.

No.

Linc and Oz came over, standing on either side of him, and he dimly felt a hand land on his shoulder. “Ivy was due in about now, wasn’t she?”

Colt wasn’t sure who’d said that.

He clumsily pulled his phone out of his back pocket and brought up the text he had sent Ivy with her flight information. She was on flight 289. “What was that flight number?” But he already knew.

“289.”

289.

289.

The number echoed through his head.

“I’ve gotta go.”

A hand grabbed his arm. “You can’t leave now. The game starts in less than three hours.”

Yanking his arm free, he snarled at Cooper, one of the assistant coaches. “I don’t give a fuck. Ivy is on that plane.”

“Damn it, Colt!”

The dude made another grab for him but Linc stepped between them running interference. He looked Colt in the eye. “Go. I’ve got this.”

Colt gave him a chin lift, then pushed through bodies out the door.

Picking up speed once out of the locker room, Colt booked it down the corridors as fast as his legs would carry him, frantically searching for the exit. His brain was a jumble of flashing images of Ivy—a phantasmagoria of the months they’d spent together—all to the soundtrack of her laughter.

He remembered the first time he saw her, holding that damn camera. God, he’d been so pissed. Who would have known that petite, fierce beauty would turn out to be the woman he loved.

Loved?

The realization had him missing a step. Momentum and sheer willpower righted his balance, and he pushed himself to his very limits to run even faster.

Fuck.

He was so fucking stupid.

How could he have not seen how important Ivy was? She was his whole fucking world and if he lost… No, he wouldn’t let himself finish the thought. She’d be okay.

She had to be.

Running high on adrenaline, anxiety, and his full out sprint, he sucked in air as he reached the stadium entrance and scanned his surroundings. He saw a few cabs lining the curb. Thank fuck because, in his mad dash, he hadn’t thought transportation through. It would’ve been agony to have to make a phone call and wait for someone to arrive.

He threw himself into the back of a cab. “How fast can you get me to Phoenix International?”

The cabbie looked at him through his rearview mirror, his eyes widening in recognition. “Twenty minutes.”

“There’s a thousand bucks in it for you if you can get me there in fifteen.”

Not wasting time, the guy put the car into gear and took off.

Colt used the time to pull the news up on his phone. There were still no reports of injuries or deaths, but he was able to learn the crash occurred when the front landing gear malfunctioned, causing the plane to land on its nose, sliding over two-thousand feet before coming to a fiery stop.

The imagery would forever be etched in Colt’s brain.

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