Page 17 of Puck to the Heart
Olivia pushed away, removing herself from my space entirely. I found myself missing the contact, tugging my jacket closed to hide how much I wanted to pull her back. It was so cold our breath steamed the air, hanging between us like the sudden tension as Olivia put at least a yard between us.
In reality, it probably took less than ten minutes to get outside, but something inside me altered irrevocably. All because of this woman with her neon makeup and fishnets.
“Thanks,” she said, staring at her shoes. “For… helping.”
With my hands bereft at the loss of her between them, I spun the ring on my middle finger, sliding it up to my first knuckle and back. “It’s nothing.” It wasnotnothing. Everything shifted; my entire world just reoriented itself, and she had no clue.
“Ash.” Stormy blue eyes met mine for the length of a lightning flash, electricity zinging across my nerves likeshewas the lightning. It was too much, so I looked away. “You talked me out of a panic attack. It’s a huge deal. Nobody else—” Her voice caught in her throat.
Nobody else—what—took care of her? Knew how to work through a panic attack because they’d been through their own? In my younger days, I struggled with them. Panic attacks weren’t new.
But I kept my fraught history to myself. Instead, I said, “Let’s get to the car, then we’ll figure this out.”
The color returning to her face drained away again in an instant.
“Shit,fuck, I have to get to the hospital.”
With my hands no longer keeping her steady, they needed something to do, so I took off the hat and adjusted it, then removed it again, rolling the fabric between my fingers.
“It’s my dad,” Olivia offered without my asking once we settled in the darkened interior of the car. “He—he—I’m not sure what happened. I heard emergency room and blacked out, but I need to go. Now.”
“Whoa, okay.” Every instinct screamed to reach out and comfort her again. Easing across the space between our seats, I sat beside her, close enough to touch if she wanted to reach out, though I left the choice up to her. “Which hospital? I’ll take you. We can go now.”
A shuddering gasp escaped her, and the whites of her eyes glowed as they widened, her pupils turning to pinpricks in an instant. “R—Raleigh.”
“North Carolina?” There was no driving to North Carolina.
With jerky movements, she nodded, then tied her hair up into a ponytail, scraping her long reddish-brown locks back so tightly it must’ve hurt. Something sharpened, the prickliness of our first meeting slipping back in place. The change startled in its immediate severity.
“Right. Okay.” Gone were the tremors and sawing inhales. “I need to check flights. Shit, I have to go home first. Wait, do I though?”
Did she forget I was in the car, too? “Breathe, Barnes. Can I help?”
“Yes.”
I began to speak, but she wasn’t talking to me. “Need a suitcase. Not sure how long I’ll stay.” All this muttered while she scrolled frantically, presumably clawing through airline websites.
An idea came to me, so I pulled out my phone. A quick look at my schedule, a short search, and a text message confirmed.
“No, no, no,” Olivia chanted. “Fuck, I can’t get there until—ugh—I can’t even think.”
“I can help.”
A wave of her hand dismissed me. “No, you can’t.” Her scoff and the way she ignored me since she got the call stung, but I understood. If something happened to Nana, I’d charter a plane to get there in a heartbeat. But I also remembered days when doing so wouldn’t have been an option financially. I’d be freaking out, too.
“I can. Look.” I held out my phone, open to the latest text thread with Coach Olson.
Finally, she looked up from her phone, her glacier eyes lit by the glow from our screens. “What? What is this?”
“We’re flying to D.C. Early tomorrow morning. I know it’s not perfect, but you can drive from there to Raleigh. It’s about a four-hour drive, and you won’t have to deal with the airport.”
Frenetic energy rolled off her in waves as she processed what I said. The blankness in her eyes disappeared, replaced with laser focus. Again, the shift was abrupt and startling. I might’ve enjoyed being the subject of such intense attention from her if we weren’t in the midst ofanothercrisis.
“When you say we…” One corner of her mouth tensed.
“I’m flying out on a private plane with the rest of the team. The hockey team I play for. The Knights.”
A very distinctive “ew” look crossed her face, though she didn’t say it. Gears spun in her brain.
