Page 95 of When Alec Met Evie
Megan laughs, but I only shake my head. “What is he doing? Is he for real going to keep playing? With stitches?”
Parker shrugs. “Hockey players are a different breed. He wouldn’t be the first one to do it.”
I watch the rest of the game with my heart in my throat. With two minutes to go, the Appies are up by two—they’re all playing like machines—and I start to relax. Alec has been in more minutes of the third period than the first two combined, and I have to wonder if the coach sees what I see. That he’s literally managing to be everywhere at once. He’s blocking, he’s passing, he’s reading the game with expert eyes. I don’t know what came over him. If it’s having his family in the stands, if it’s havingmein the stands. With less than a minute left, Alec sprints after the puck, pulling up in front of the boards before sending it over to Theo, but then his body twists and contorts, and he’s down, flat on his back. He drops his stick and lifts his gloved hands to his knee.
I gasp, shooting to my feet. “It’s his knee,” I say to Megan, but it’s stupid to even say it out loud becauseof courseit’s his knee. Even someone who doesn’t know his history would guess. Juno is in my arms now, and I clutch her against me as I watch the trainers gathering around Alec. The refs have stopped play, and his teammates are hovering nearby. Nathan is closest to him, and since I can’t see Alec’s face, I watch Nathan’s, looking for any clues as to what’s going on.
A minute later, Alec is lifted to his feet and Nathan and Van move in beside him, bracing him between them as they move off the ice.
“Okay, now I really do have to get to him,” I say.
“I’ll come too,” Megan says. “Canwe get to him? Will they let us back?”
I look over to Parker, who is still sitting on my other side. “I can get you downstairs, at least,” she says. “But it’ll be up to the medical staff to get you closer than that.”
CHAPTER 26
EVIE
Megan’s parentsend up coming with us, so Parker leads all four of us into the lower levels of the Summit. Juno is front-facing in her sling by this point, something I’m grateful for because she is a very good security blanket. As long as I have to worry about her, I can’t let my panic over Alec’s injury consume me. The game is over by the time we make it downstairs, so when Parker takes us to a family room, where players can meet friends and loved ones after the game, it’s already starting to fill up.
“Okay, Eric says you can come back,” Parker says. She looks at the four of us. “Well, not all of you, probably.”
Alec’s mom steps up beside me. “Evie, honey, give me Juno, and you go be with Alec. We’ll take the baby home and get her to bed so you can focus on him.”
“And drive him home,” Megan says. “If it’s his knee, he might not be able to drive.”
“Are you sure?” I say, my hands lifting to Juno’s back. I hate the thought of sending her home without me, but since I nursed her in between periods, she never used the bottle I packed. And there’s a portable crib at Alec’s that he purchased so she’d alwayshave a place to nap at his house. There’s no reason why Megan and her parents can’t handle getting Juno to bed without me.
“We can totally handle it,” Megan says. “Just promise you’ll text me updates.”
I unstrap Juno and kiss her on the forehead before handing her over to Alec’s family. Then I follow Parker down the hall to where a man in an Appies polo is waiting outside a room labeledMedical Suite.
“This is Eric, one of the Appies trainers,” Parker says to me. “He’ll help you from here.”
I reach up and give her a quick hug of thanks before she disappears down the hall. Then I turn my full attention to Eric.
“He’s totally fine,” he says when we make eye contact. “Just a little grouchy.”
I nod as I follow him into the suite. Alec is on a table in the middle of the room. In any other situation, I might flush to see Alec in nothing but a tiny pair of compression shorts, but given the moment, my eyes barely skate over the dips and curves of his muscles, only logging the many ways he’s battered and broken.
His knee is propped up on the table, wrapped in ice, and the left side of his face is puffy and bruised to a mottled, deep blue, a line of stitches stretching downward through the center of the bruise. There’s another grapefruit-sized bruise on his torso, this one wrapping around his ribs to his back.
My heart clenches at the sight of him like this. He’s played a lot of games since we started officially dating, but I’ve never seen him this torn up.
Behind me, the door finally clicks shut, and Alec opens his eyes, noticing me for the first time. His expression shifts into something soft as he takes me in, then he lifts a hand, stretching it toward me in invitation.
I glance at Eric, who nods his permission, and I dart forward, slipping Alec’s hand into mine.
“You’re here,” he says, giving my hand a quick squeeze.
“Of course I’m here.” I lift his fingers to my lips and press a kiss against his knuckles.
“You’re brave,” he says. “I smell terrible.”
“Like you just played a hockey game,” I say, because he really does smell pungent. “But it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
He leans his head back and closes his eyes. “Where’s Juno?”
