Page 123 of Two Guys One Puck
“Come back to my room with me.” Seaborn doesn’t really give me a choice. He half drags me there.
“Where’s your roommate?” I ask, sitting on the perfectly made bed, avoiding the one that’s clearly his.
“I don’t know. With Wolfe, I think.” He goes to the bathroom and brings out a wet cloth. “Let me see your hands.”
“Why are you up so late, Seaborn?” I hold them out. I still can’t feel them, but they look like shit.
“I can’t sleep.” He drops to one knee in front of me, taking one of my hands to clean off.
“Why not?” I watch him work. He’s gentle, taking his time. I almost wish I could feel it. Feel anything but the weight of time and my inability to do a damn thing.
“I’m sure you know I didn’t play last weekend.” He puts down my left hand and picks up my right.
“Is it bad?”
He doesn’t say anything for a long time. He focuses on cleaning the dried blood and then stands, and I don’t think he’sgoing to answer. But he does as he walks over to the ice bucket. “Yes.”
“Then why are you here?” I get up and walk over to him. “What you doing?”
He splits the ice between two bags. “Getting ice so you have some hope of fucking closing your hand tomorrow.”
I roll my eyes but let him lead me back to the bed to sit with the ice.
“Twenty minutes on. Then ten minutes off.”
“Fine. But if I’m icing, you sit.”
He meets my eyes and then sits on the edge of the bed. “Fine.”
“Why did you have ice?” I ask.
He lifts his shirt, showing me a nasty purple bruise near his kidney. He looks like he’s lost weight.
“Have you been eating?”
“Some.” He lets his shirt fall back into place.
“Is he in the hospital?”
“Yeah, he has been since last week.” He scoots back a little and lays across the bottom of the bed.
“Why the fuck are you here?”
Seaborn picks his head up and he has dark circles under his eyes. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not going to get drafted if I keep leaving. I’ve been there as much as possible, and Coach understands this, but how do I make that choice? It’s, of course, going to be my dad, but if I don’t get drafted, how am I going to support my family when he’s gone?” His words break my heart.
“If they don’t draft you because your father is dying, they don’t deserve you.”I’m mad for him.
“And yet, I can’t fucking say that.”
“Come here, Ronan.”
He turns his head to look at me again. “Don’t use my name against me.”
“Is all I have left.”
