Page 109 of What if It's Us

The puck drops and there’s commotion all around me, but I don’t move.

I barely register the scramble, barely hear the whistle as the referee calls a false start because I’m nowhere near the face-off circle anymore. My body moves on its own accord and I’m skating, not toward the puck, but away from it.

I skate toward the boards.

Toward Marlee.

“Dayne? What the hell?”

I can’t answer him.

Not now.

I have to get to Marlee.

My gloves hit the ice and my stick falls from my grasp and then the crowd is murmuring as I vault myself over the boards, one of my skates catching slightly. I land hard and tear off my helmet as I sprint toward the concourse, panic overtaking every muscle in my body.

I’m coming Marlee!

Fuck!

Please, God, let her be okay!

The scraping of my blades on concrete fills the hallway as I round the corner too fast, nearly sliding into the wall.

And then I see her.

Marlee lying on a stretcher, paramedics surrounding her.

Her face is pale and her eyes are squeezed shut. One hand rests on her belly. Always protective of the life inside her.

Layken, Scarlett, and Corrigan stand nearby, all of them trying not to look too worried but I can see the concern I their eyes.

They’re just as scared as Marlee is.

This is bad.

Fuck, it’s bad.

Corrigan is an ER nurse. If she’s worried, it can’t be good.

“Marlee!” I call out, my voice hoarse.

Her eyes flutter open at the sound of my voice. The panic in her expression softening, if only slightly.

“Ledger. I’m sorry…” She shakes her head, a tear slipping down her sweet face. “I didn’t ask them to pull you out of the game…”

I nearly drop to my knees as I stand beside the stretcher, cocooning her hand in mine. My gloves gone, and my stick forgotten, the roar of the arena might as well be on another planet.

“I pulled myself out, Mar. I saw the commotion and no way in hell am I going to let you go through this alone.”

“Ledger, it could be nothing,” she whimpers, wincing in pain with the slightest movement.

Yeah, it’s not nothing.

“Are you okay? Is it the baby? What’s going on?”

The paramedics start to wheel her down the concourse and one of them answers as we walk. “We’re taking her in now. She’s stable, but she needs monitoring. Could be preterm labor, could be dehydration. We won’t know until she’s seen.”

---