Page 10 of Branded
He made a valiant effort, hands reaching for me.
But I was falling and in another blink of that eye, I hit the industrial carpeting hard.
Maybe if I’d fallen to the black skate mat on the public side of the locker room (where they let media in and the occasional fan or visitor) it wouldn’t have hurt so much. But this was the private side of the space. Where the guys changed and showered. They didn’t need thick rubber mats to protect their edges because they wore shoes here, not skates.
This was concrete with a thin layer of durable carpet.
This meant that getting checked to it by a player who outweighed me by a good hundred pounds and was taller than me by an entire foot hurt like hell.
The air had been knocked out of my lungs by the initial impact but dropping to the floor somehow shook free a few more air molecules. Then I wasn’t thinking about air or my lungs or even the floor. I was just gritting my teeth together and blinking back tears.
“Fuck,” Smitty whispered, dropping to his knees at my side, his hands outstretched.
He didn’t touch me, just sort of floated them through the air, as though he were going to magically heal me through his palms. Either that, or he was scared to touch me again. “Kailey, sweetheart, are you okay?” Then he did touch me, his palm resting lightly on my arm. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you walking by.”
That wasn’t a surprise.
People didn’t normally see me.
People who weren’t this man anyway.
“Kay?” Concern on his face, in the V of his brows. “Are you okay?” A beat. “Do I need to get Samantha?”
Samantha?
Wait. That was the trainer. The woman who would presumably be able to confirm if I was concussed because a six-foot-six-inch, two-hundred-twenty-pound (yes, I’d looked up his stats) hockey player had taken me out.
I felt concussed.
I felt broken.
Getting knocked down by that big hockey player wasn’t a sport, or at least not one I wanted to be part of, especially since it fucking hurt.
But getting checked out for concussions would mean drawing this out.
Would mean more peopling.
So, no, that couldn’t happen.
I put my hands beneath me and shoved up, ignoring the throbbing pain in my hip. Warm palms gripped my arms before I made it to my feet, helping me the rest of the way.
Smitty’s concerned face dropped into view. “Kailey, honey, talk to me.”
And, fuck, wouldn’t that be easy?
To just be able to open my mouth and say the right thing would be fucking incredible.
But that wasn’t me.
I sucked in a breath, closed my eyes. It was easier that way. It was better. “Please, let go.”
The words were barely audible, especially with the noise in the locker room, teasing and yelling and the odd, “What, Smitty? It’s not bad enough that you lay people out on the ice, now you have to do it off as well?”
But he heard me.
Because his big body went still, and his hands opened.
And I was free.
