Page 23 of Puck to the Heart
Sighing, I fiddled with a loose thread on the sleeve of my jacket. “I got a ride with a friend.”
“You got a ride… Across the country… With a friend? Must be a hell of a friend.” Even banged up and exhausted, Dad got a knowing gleam in his eye.
How did I tell him about Ash? I’d briefly explained about dinner at Le Rêve, and he knew I planned to go to the concert, but nothing about the confusion of my new, conflicting feelings about Ash after he got me out of the arena. And now, with my father watching me like he knew something I didn’t, I couldn’t get the feel of his arms around me out of my head. But… I wasn’t telling him about that. There was nothing to tell. “My… friend had to fly to D.C. for work this morning, and when they flew him out, there was an extra seat.” There, that was still the truth. Just… not all of it.
“Olivia Elaine Barnes.” Dad’s crinkly blue gaze leveled me, sending me right back to grade school when I’d accidentally eaten all the cookies we made for the bake sale and tried to blame it on the dog. The dog we didn’t have.
Well, shit. “Fine.” Petulantly, I drew the word out. “My friend is Ash Wilder, and he plays for the Seattle Knights. I flew with them because they’re playing in D.C. this weekend.”
“Was that so hard?” Smugness smoothed the lines in his face as he grinned at me.
Yes, it fucking was. “Ugh.”
“Tell me about this Ash Wilder. When do I get to meet him? I need to thank him for bringing you all the way across the country.”
They wouldn’t meet if I had anything to say about it. “I don’t know, Dad. He’s not what I expected.”
“Then Ireallywant to meet him. He can’t be all bad if he brought you out here. I’m sure he had a good reason.” The look my father shot me told me he knew exactly why and was waiting for me to catch up. Such a dad thing.
Especially since I didn’t think therewasanother reason. I’d told Dad a little about the disastrous dinner, how awkward it was and how unpleasant I’d been at first, but not about the game with Polly or the concert. I wasn’t ready to share that yet. “How are you feeling?”
“Nice change of subject. I’m fine.”
“Dad, you are literally in the hospital.”
A soft chuckle came from Chase’s direction as he re-entered with a breakfast tray.
“It could be worse.” With a groan, he leaned to one side while Chase adjusted the pillows for him. Then, he pressed the button on the side rail, raising the top half of the bed to put him into a half lounge, half sitting position. “I could be in traction. Or dead.” With that, he tucked into the food. His enthusiasm was encouraging.
For a moment, I glared at him, then softened. It could have been so much worse, and I was grateful it wasn’t. I said a silent prayer to whoever watches over single fathers of anxious daughters. But he’d experienced worse. When I was ten, he had an accident so bad, he was in traction for weeks and weeks. My mom even came home from her travels to help take care of us; one of the only times my parents lived together as parents. Usually, they were separate entities. They loved each other but never worked out as a couple.
The end of Chase’s sentence lilted up into a question mark, and I realized I missed everything he said.
“Sorry, what? Long night.”
He leaned in conspiratorially. “Do you want breakfast? I know the cook in the café today, and I can get you an extra tray. Frozen pancakes might not be the best, but it’s better than driving across town for a greasy breakfast sandwich.”
The same entity who watches out for fathers must be the same one who sends kind nurses.Tears gathered in my eyes and tightened my throat. “Yes, please, that sounds amazing.”
“I’ll bring you some of Johanna’s coffee too. It tastes like tar, but it’ll perk you right back up.”
A few hours later, I met Dad’s doctor, who gave us a debrief on his condition. “Looks like everything is set nicely,” she said, checking notes on a tablet. “We removed the pin from the old surgery, and once you’re out of that cast, you should have much better mobility.”
“Pin?” I asked, since Dad was a little out of it, staring at a cardinal outside his window.
“Yes,” the doctor said, scrolling back a bit, then tapping her tablet’s screen. “An old pin from a reconstructive surgery shifted over time. It happens sometimes, particular in older surgeries. It caused some mobility issues, locking up that ankle. Probably what caused his accident, if I had to guess.”
My stomach plummeted all three floors of the hospital and right through the basement. He’d gotten into another accident nearly twenty years ago and had surgery to piece together the shards of bone. Guilt wracked me as I realized he’d probably been in pain from the shifting pin and lack of mobility for a while.
The doctor went on, “With some therapy, he’ll be good as new. Or as good as a sixty-year-old can be.”
Another jolt of electric anxiety zapped my nerves, and I had to remind myself again that he was okay, that he’d get through this and be fine. Even if I wasn’t here to help. Damn, the guilt wouldn’t let go.
The three days passed in a too brief blur of catching sleep in two-hour increments as the parade of nurses brought in medication and checked vitals. To my utter horror, Dad insisted on watching the Knights games on TV, loudly proclaiming himself a newly minted hockey fan. And if I watched them too, a certain defenseman didn’t need to know that.
On the day of Dad’s release, I went to his townhouse to clean myself up and get the place set up for his return. And I promptly found it to be inaccessible for his temporary wheelchair. The ramp was on the far end of the sidewalk from his designated parking space, and the lot was nearly impassible unless you parked in an accessible spot, if those spots were even empty, which they rarely were. If we somehow managed to wrangle him into the apartment, its interior was small and impassible, and he’d have to stay inside, which he’d hate. The narrow hallway and bathtub/shower combo, not to mention his upstairs bedroom, made the town house impossible for him to live in. Flying him across the country to live with me was also out of the question. Ignoring the flying part, my apartment was smaller and had more stairs. Luckily, I found a short-term live-in rehab facility catering to injuries like his, and as much as we both disliked the idea, I felt better leaving him there, knowing someone would be around to help him at all hours. Besides, they had Western movie nights every week and enough activities to keep him from losing his mind while incapacitated.
I had to stay an extra day to get Dad settled, so I let Ash know, through Polly, that I booked a commercial flight home. With my nerves still so unsettled, I needed every spare second I had before returning to work to pull myself together, and that wouldn’t happen if I flew home beside Ash’s romance reading, gummy worm sharing self. And after he rescued meandflew me across the country, I didn’t want him to think I was taking advantage of his kindness. So, I left it alone, putting all thoughts of him aside.
