Page 108 of Brace and Chase

“I’m really okay,” I assure him. “I’ll just be out for two games. One if I can convince Laney. Seattle’s gonna get the Sweetheart treatment,” I try to joke.

“You’remysweetheart,” he grumbles, not looking up, but doesn’t say anything else.

“Are you okay?” I ask, even though I can plainly see he’s not.

I’m thankful, though, when he doesn’t immediately answer that he’s fine, that he doesn’t lie to me.

“I will be. I just need to sleep.”

“Me too,” I tell him. He looks up and I smile softly. Then a thought pops into my head. “Did they score on our line?”

“What?” he asks, a confused frown all over his face. “No, they didn’t. Jules got his hat trick, though.”

“Of course he did,” I mumble playfully. “He’s such a show-off.”

“Now you get it,” Nik says, fake lightheartedness all over his words. I love that he tries, though. “They didn’t score at all. Bear was pissed and he didn’t let them do shit even during the power play.”

“Good,” I tell him. “Our record’s intact then.”

“What record?”

“When’s the last time they scored on us?” He just keeps frowning, so I clarify. “On our line. With you and me playing at the same time on the ice. When’s the last time any team scored on us?”

“I don’t know,” he says after thinking about it for a couple of minutes.

“Because we’re fucking invincible,” I say with much more cheer than I thought I could have.

But it’s worth it because that finally gets me the smile I wanted to see since he entered the room.

“You’re gonna have to take care of meaaaaall night,” I tease him, and his smile only grows.

“My honor, sweetheart. It’s my honor.” Then he kisses the back of my hand like one of those gallant heroes in fairy-tales and stands. “Come on now, let’s make sure you get some rest.”

Nik

I wakeup cuddling Charlie’s back in San Francisco.

After Jules had his round of interviews and the pressconference, we were finally able to clean up with the rest of the team, then we headed straight to the airport and flew to northern California for our next game.

That game will start in more than twenty-four hours, and for the first time in my career I’m thankful we have one of those weird in-between days during long roadies.

They’ve always seemed like such a waste, but today I get to spend a lot of hours taking care of Charlie and making sure he doesn’t use his right hand at all.

It was also fortunate, I think, that Laney didn’t question me at all when I announced I was going to check on Charlie the second the game ended instead of heading to the locker room.

I’m going to have to spend a couple of hours training today, of course, and I actually should be getting up to get ready for that, but uncurling my arms from around Charlie seems kind of impossible right now.

Not only because I have no idea how I could ever untangle myself without waking him, but because I know that when I do, he’s going to insist on going with me to practice.

I can’t really blame him, since I’d do the same, and I know logically his injury is minor. He just needs to not hold a stick. Skating shouldn’t be an issue at all but...

Fuck, the fear I felt last night when I saw him go down, when I saw half his stick break off and fly away from his body...

It’s something I haven’t felt in a long time.

With nothing to lose, I’ve always gone all in on the ice.

And last night the fact that I now do have something to lose hit me like a ton of bricks. I went blind with rage at that fucking imbecile for how he went at Charlie.

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