Page 119 of Puck Struck
"About two hours."
Two hours. Two hours of machines and doctors trying to put him back together and I had no idea. Two hours of him being alone, his life in jeopardy, because I was too much of an idiot to realize I couldn’t live without him.
“How much longer will he be in there?”
"I’m sorry, I just don’t know. There's a waiting area on the third floor for family and close friends," the nurse says. "The surgical team will update you when they can."
I take the elevator upstairs, my legs feeling like limp spaghetti noodles. The waiting area is small and sterile, painted taupe which does absolutely nothing to soothe me. It’s lined with plastic chairs and outdated magazines scattered on cheap wooden tables. A few people sit in clusters, talking in hushed voices.
Looking around, I see Ryan Keating hunched over in the corner, an ice pack pressed to his swollen face, his shirt stained with blood.
A shiver skitters down my spine.
Not his blood. Cam's blood, I’m assuming.
"Logan," he says when he sees me, straightening up quickly. "I didn't know if anyone called you."
"A friend of mine is a cop and he called to let me know.” I look at Ryan's bruised face, the guilty expression. "You okay?"
"I'm fine. It's not my blood." He pulls his shirt away from his body. "I tried to stop the bleeding until the paramedics got there."
"What the hell happened?"
Ryan's face crumbles. "It's my fault. All of it. My father is the one who hired that psycho to dig up dirt on Cam. And when the guy went rogue, my dad cut him off. But the damage was already done."
"Your father didwhat?" I grab onto the wall for support because my legs are about to give out on me.
"He wanted me to have Cam's spot on the team. So he organized this whole character assassination campaign. Hired investigators, made deals with that James guy, manipulated everything to destroy Cam's reputation." Ryan's voice cracks. “I fucked up by getting involved with his plan. I fucked up so goddamn badly.”
The pieces click together fast and I don’t like the picture at all. "That's what Cam was trying to tell me. About his past, about threats he was dealing with. It was about your father. He tried to tell me, but I..." My lower body gives up and I sink into one of the chairs. My heart hurts with each word, stomach roiling at the memory of Cam’s stricken face that night I sent him away. "I called him a complication. Told him I couldn't handle any more problems."
Ryan stares at me, his jaw dropping. "You called him a what?"
I grind the toe of my sneaker into a crack in the floor tile. "He’d come to my house, said he needed to tell me something important. But I was falling apart, dealing with Ethan's surgery, my shoulder, the end of my career. And I just...I lost it and told him he was one more complication I couldn't deal with."
"Fuck," Ryan breathes, dropping into the chair next to me. "So he handled it alone. He dealt with my father's threats by himself because you told him he was too much trouble."
I tilt my head up to glare at him but the words slice into my heart like the jagged edge of a dagger fileting it. "Yeah. That's exactly what I did."
Ryan leans forward, his head in his hands. "When I found him in the parking garage, that psycho was about to finish him off. But Cam, even bleeding out, he told me to run. To get help. He was more worried about my safety than his own."
My throat tightens, a knot of tears lodging there. "That sounds like him."
"I've been such an asshole to him. Cam earned his spot, and I spent all season trying to tear him down because I was jealous."
I turn to look at Ryan. "Why did you help him? In the garage?"
"Because it was the right thing to do. And because I finally realized what my father had turned me into. I don’t want to be that asshole guy." He looks at me. "I told my dad that I’m done. Done with his games, done being his puppet. Done letting him destroy good people for my career."
"How'd that go?"
"He pretty much disowned me. Said I was throwing awayeverything he'd worked for." Ryan shrugs. "Fuck it, though. It was the best conversation we've ever had."
Just then, a doctor in scrubs appears in the doorway, a surgical mask covering his face. My skin prickles as he slowly pulls down the mask. "Family of Cameron Foster?"
I stand up so fast the chair nearly tips over. "How is he?"
"Are you family?"
