Page 1 of The Rest of the Story
to shout, louder than Brody, loud enough to snap Lawson and Gabe out of their absolute shock at having to restrain our sweet little Brody, hold him back with all of their double might. “Get him the fuck out of here!”
They struggled to do it, and they needed Connor and Josh to help, but eventually, the four of them got Brody wrestled off the concourse. He raged the whole way, bellowing Shea’s name, then descending into all-out animal wails run through with suffering.
Shea tried to lift his head and call for Brody, but he went bone white when he moved, and his voice split into a mutilated whimper.
I brushed my thumb across Shea’s cheek and held his hand, and wished like fuck there was something, anything, that I could do. Put Shea’s leg back together myself, take away his pain with my kisses, chase after Brody and get him to look me in the eyes and come back from whatever dark and horrible place he’d launched into. Rewind time and stop this, all of this, from happening because I hadn’t fucking seen, I hadn’t fuckingimagined, that this was possible, and that wasmyfucking fault. This was my fucking fault because I’d sworn I’d keep them all safe—especially from Coates, that fuck—and here we were. Broken, bloody, and silent, huddled in shock and terror on the concourse as we listened to Shea’s pained gasps and the drops of Coates’ blood hitting the marble floor.
In the distance, the rise and wail of sirens cut through the silence, sharp as a knife slicing through a heart.
* * *
Twenty-Nine
Steve was right:Shea’s leg was broken, in many places, but that was the worst of his injuries. The paramedic who pretzeled himself down to check on Shea said he was “very, very lucky.” In fact, it was the paramedic who was lucky because he was out of range of my fucking punch.
They got an IV in Shea and draped him with a blanket, and then they told us to wait. The other patient was far worse off and needed more attention.
It took some time to get Coates extricated from his Porsche. They had to stabilize the car to make sure it wouldn’t shift or tilt during the extraction, and then two paramedics crawled inside, where they discovered an empty handle of vodka in the footwell and two used injection needles in the dash.
A week ago, Kathy and I had a rushed conversation in the hallway at the rink, her mentioning that Coates had completed court-ordered rehab and had fallen off the face of the earth, and that the team had renewed and re-sent the no-contact order keeping him away from the Outlaws to his lawyer and his agent. Both had acknowledged receipt of the court order, but there had been no word since.
“He can stay fucked off for all I care,” I’d said. “He can ruin his life all he wants, as long as he only takes himself with him.”
Now my guys were huddled in a half-moon, each of them reaching out to touch Shea or brush his arm, and all of us watched as the fire crew worked the saws to cut first Coates and then Shea free of the wreck. Police had arrived and cleared out the concourse, and there were triage stations outside for the fans who needed attention. No one else had been hit, but there was a hefty load of shock and panic happening out there.
Coates left in the first ambulance, lights and sirens blazing, and then the second crew loaded Shea as carefully as if he were made of glass. The lead medic had been on the radio with the hospital and the surgical team that was going to take Shea in as soon as he arrived, and they were coordinating what meds to pump Shea up with for pain relief that wouldn’t fuck with the anesthesia. Finally, the medic dumped a full syringe of happy juice into Shea’s IV bag, and I watched the canyons of pain on his face smooth out and melt away.
I climbed inside the back of the rig before they shut the doors. Shea’s hand found mine. “I’m okay,” he whispered. He smiled, weak and wan.
Bless him for being the one to try and reassure me, with him on his back on a gurney in the back of an ambulance, the imprint of a Porsche still embedded in his hamstring. “You’re going to be okay,” I corrected. He wasn’t at all okay right now, but the doctors were going to take care of him. I was resolutely not thinking about femur fractures and the end of hockey careers.
His fingers tightened. “Check on Brody? Something’s going on. Something isn’t right. That was…”
“Shea—” All I wanted to do was close that ambulance door behind me and ride off with him, stay at his side for the rest of today, tonight, tomorrow, for the rest of our lives. Wild horses couldn’t rip me away.
“Please,” Shea whispered.
There he was, being wonderful again. What could I do when he looked at me like that? “They’re going to take you to surgery,” I forced out. “They’re going to put your leg back together, and it’s going to be perfect. I’m going to be there when you wake up.” I pushed my forehead against his, kissed him on his lips. “I love you.”
One of the paramedics hopped into the rig. Our time was up; they had to move. One more nuzzle, one more squeeze of his hand, one more look into his blues. I didn’t want to move, but I had to. I didn’t want to walk away from Shea, or step out of this ambulance, or face the moments in front of me without him at my side. “I love you,” I whispered again.
We held hands as I backed out, our first knuckles hooked together, then only our fingertips touching. Another step, and we separated. I climbed out of the ambulance with my eyes locked on his. He shot me a watery, weak smile, and I blew him a kiss, and then the doors closed and the engine roared to life, and the ambulance holding the love of my life moved away, down through the concourse to the emergency access, out to the street, and off to the hospital.
On the wall, the digital clock said 3:51 p.m. We had nine minutes until puck drop, but the arena was empty as a crypt. Even my teammates were gone, disappeared back to our dressing room. All I could hear was my own heartbeat and the wet inhale of my shaking breaths, and, if I closed my eyes, the echo of Brody’s wailing.
Brody.Something happened with Brody.
A boiling, rancid sickness rumbled inside me. My hands were trembling. The concourse felt like the hallway of my house when I was fifteen years old and I was waiting at the end of it for my father to round the corner.
Something happened with Brody.
Every step I took felt like I was setting in motion an avalanche. The chill in the air went right into my bones, curled up inside my marrow and froze me from the inside. I was afraid. I was afraid of what I’d find at the end of this long, endless hallway.
I heard them before I found them. Brody, still raging, still revving way past the red line. He was bereft, raging, screams full of fury and anguish.
The team parted around me like the Red Sea when I hit the dressing room. Half of their faces were wet. All of them looked like their souls had just been hammered out of their bodies.
Brody and Lawson were locked up, arms tight around each other, Lawson’s hands white and his knuckles purple where he had them buried in Brody’s hair. Their faces were in each other’s necks, Brody’s shrieks emptying into Lawson’s trapezius and Lawson speaking nonsense words and Brody’s name as they rocked back and forth.
