Page 83 of Good Guy Gabe

The words I feared all season. Every single game, every time he lay on the field a second longer than he needed to, every time he was wobbly standing up. But the season is over. It doesn’t make sense.

ExceptI don’t knowwhat off-season is like. He talked about having more time and that it was a good thing that my due date is in the summer because he’ll have a couple months to bond and care for the baby before things get crazy again. That doesn’t mean the off-season isn’t rough, though.

“How bad is it?” I ask, fighting the urge to vomit.

Blaise’s eyes are watery, his bottom lip quivering. “It’s bad. It’s really bad. He’s asking for you.”

“Oh god,” I whisper, unable to say anything else. My knees buckle, and poor Rose and Iris have to keep me upright until Blaise makes it to my side to take my weight off their hands. “What hospital is he at?”

Blaise shakes his head. “He’s at home . . . if you want to see him. You don’t—”

“Of course I do!”

We leave behind Rose and Iris, who are wringing their hands.

Chapter 33

Gabe

NO FUCKING CLUEwhere Blaise ran off to. Literally ran off down the street like a psycho. There’s a Jugs social thing this afternoon that Blaise bailed on to hang out with my crippled ass, and then he just ran off. And I’m losing my mind.

With boredom.

I adjust myself in bed, grunting when my knee bends the slightest amount and pain shimmers through me, pushing the outer bounds of my pain killers. Blaise was lying next to me like we were having a damn slumber party, watching one of his weirdo animes with subtitles. Focusing on them is giving me a headache. So I spend at least three minutes feeling around for the remote where Blaise was sitting before realizing that it’s on the opposite nightstand.

Joss’s nightstand.

Valentine’s Day sucks when there’s an actual person to spend it with but they’re across town and there’s no way they’re going to come over here.

I seriously consider making the trek across the bed, but laziness and malaise win out. I fish around my nightstand to get my glasses and start reading the screen.

It still hurts my brain. Not the reading, but what they’re actually saying. There are two characters on screen, except one is some sort of clunky office equipment, I’m thinking a printer, and I’m not sure if it’s sentient or if the other character, a supposedlyteenaged boy, is psychotic and hallucinating the printer’s side of the conversation. And I saysupposedlybecause he may look young, but he’s definitely a villain who’s already murdered a bunch of people and is discussing with the printer who he should murder next.

Or possibly not discussing because, again, it’s a printer.

Also, and this might be something that would make more sense if I hadn’t been tossed into the middle of this insanity, they appear to be in a fantasy setting. Like, they’re in an old castle and the boy has a sword and a cape and a magical amulet.

The stupidity sucks me right in, just trying to figure out what the hell is happening, and it’s two episodes later that I hear someone running down the hall. Not unusual in this house, but the guys all left together and I don’t hear the usual commotion of everyone walking in at the same time. Not Blaise, either. He’d be going way faster. His perma-zoomies.

It sounds more like Merrick jogging at a pace that could pass for normal human speeds, except the shoes sound all wrong. Light footfalls, but striking the ground sharply like the soles aren’t as flexible as his sneakers.

This is what my brain’s turned into in the last five days. In-depth analysis of footfalls.

“Gabe?” Joss yells in a panicked voice.

Oh fuck.

I haven’t even had the chance to get my legs off the side of the bed before Joss rushes through the doorway, her face red and tear-streaked. “Oh my god, what happened?” she sobs.

I’m so thrown by her clear distress that I get myself even more tangled with the stack of pillows and blankets that havebeen crafted to prop my leg and back up in the absence of one of those fancy beds that do it automatically. Joss bodily throws herself over my torso with a shriek to stop me.

I gently ease her up with a hand against her collarbone. “Gentle!” I warn, careful not to state my concern over the baby, having learned that lesson the hard way. “It’s my MCL. It’s fine.”

She’s still crying, though, and if tearing an MCL is what it takes to get her to throw her arms around my shoulders to hug me as fiercely as her scrawny little arms can hug, I’m happy. “What’s an MCL?”

“A knee ligament. There’s a bunch of them. ACL, LCL, PCL, you know, just knee stuff.”

She’s still crying as she lifts her head back up. “Are you ever going to walk again?”

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