Page 29 of Broken Ice
Maybe Emilio wouldn’t mind. Maybe he could lend him a shirt or something and leave. That wouldn’t be too much to ask, right?
He managed to hold off for another hour, but the pain got too much for him. He tried to make sense of his screen, finally hitting Emilio’s contact.
The phone rang. And rang. And rang. It went to voicemail.
Beau hung up. Okay. That was fine. It was three a.m. Emilio probably hadn’t heard the phone ring. Maybe Beau would just try one more time.
Voicemail. He gave it one more go. This time, Beau didn’t hang up as the lady-voice told him to leave a message. Maybe Emiliowould hear him through the phone. Was that how it worked? Beau didn’t know anything anymore.
“Hey, Emilio,” Beau started, trying to sound very, very normal. He had to take a pause to breathe through a wave of pain, but that hadn’t been noticeable. “Just wondering…maybe if you could lend me a shirt. I know it’s late. But. If it’s just one shirt. Okay. Thanks.”
He cut the call off. That had been good, right? He’d soundedsonormal. Beau didn’t think it’d been obvious that he was crying.
He closed his eyes. He was just going to rest for a bit.
Minutes ticked by. Beau checked his phone. Nothing. Shut his eyes. Checked his phone.
Nope.
Embarrassment crawled up his spine. Why had he done that? God, things had been going better in the locker room. Emilio had goofed around with him a little this past week. He smiled when Beau made a joke. And now he was going to get a voicemail from the most undesirable, pathetic Omega he knew. He’d be disgusted. He undoubtedly regretted spendingoneheat with Beau’s faulty ass, let alone help him for two.
Beau called again. “Hey. It’s me,” he said to the voicemail lady. “Ignore—” he failed to chomp down on the sound his body made as it was lit on fire. Beau persevered. “Ignore the last message. It was a joke. Ha. Ha ha. I am very, very fine. Just. It’s very hot in this room. And also. The air is made of knives. But. I’m very fine. So. Ignore that last message. Okay, bye.”
There. That should probably clear that up.
Beau closed his eyes. Pain happened. Beyond the fog of horrors, there was noise.Beep beepbeepbeep beeep beep beepit went, like the worst song in existence.
“Shut up,” Beau whined.God.
More horrors. Another type of noise. Some sort of insane thumping. Beau curled up tighter. He sank to the bottom of a dark, freezing lake.
Time passed.
He opened his eyes.
Holy fuck.It was over.
Beau stretched. His joins screamed at him unhappily.
“This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to anybody,” he whispered to himself, and he was right.
He managed to drink most of a bottle of water and grab a granola bar. His throat was too raw to eat anything, but he did open the packaging, which he should be praised and commended for.
He pawed through the sheets for his phone. It was nine in the morning. Could he make it to practice at noon? Probably. Could he do it without dying a million deaths? Less probable.
Beau blinked at the notifications on his screen. He pulled the little box down. He blinked some more.
49 missed calls.
Well. That seemed like an absolutely insane number.
Heart pounding, he opened his call log. Was his family okay? Had something happened? Maybe a plane had crashed into his parents’ home and they were—
‘Torres’, the call log proclaimed. Many, many Torreses. Forty-eight of them, in fact. He had thirteen voicemails left over a two-hour span.
Mouth agape, he pressed the voicemail icon.
“Hey, It’s Emilio. Sorry, I just woke up and saw your messages. Well,heardyour—I’m on my way. Sorry, I—what should I bring? Clothes? I have a blanket…I’ll bring the blanket. Although you said you had a blue blanket that you used…but you can’t have enough blankets. Anyway. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
