Page 7 of Buried Treasure
Chapter 3
The duffel bag in Andy's hand felt heavier than it should, probably because of the woman who had packed it. He still couldn't get Sydney's face out of his mind. The way she looked at him right before she left was heart wrenching. It was as if her entire world had collapsed and all Andy wanted to do was promise her he could fix it. Of course, he had no idea what "it" was or why he would even care after only meeting her once. Andy was always the one who fixed people — after all, it was his job — and Sydney just looked so broken.
But Andy had to fix someone else first. He shuffled over to the elevator and pressed the button for the hospital's third floor. It was nearly 10 o'clock at night already, but he wanted to at least drop the bag off in Ryan's room so it was there when the rookie woke up. He expected Ryan would already be asleep after the long day both of them had been through. Surgery can be a taxing thing on the body, even if he was knocked out for most of it. His hard work out at practice earlier in the day didn't help matters.
To Andy's surprise, Ryan was awake when he walked into the hospital room. Well, barely awake.
"Hey, man. How's it going?" Andy asked quietly.
Ryan turned slowly away from the television. "I've been better."
He gave his player a small smile and dropped the bag into a chair by the bed. "I brought a few things for you."
"Beer and pretzels?" Ryan replied with a smirk.
"You shouldn't have beer with your painkillers."
"You sound like my mom."
Andy looked down at the patient, his tone becoming more measured. "Did you talk to your parents yet?"
Ryan flopped back on his pillow. "Yeah, I did. Thank you for calling them, by the way," he said, his eyes blinking slowly.
Andy simply nodded, remembering the dreaded phone call he made earlier in the day to Ryan's family. His parents were actually very calm after he told them their son was in the hospital, but that he was going to be fine. He could tell they had dealt with Ryan's hockey injuries before by the questions they asked. Then they immediately started working on a plan with Andy to get Ryan's mom to town and take care of her son. Usually it was the doctors who handled the family phone calls so this was the first time he was given that dreaded task. But by the end, it was Ryan's parents who were reassuring him that it would be OK, which made him thankful he called the McClouds.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you!" Ryan suddenly exclaimed in the quiet hospital room.
Andy was used to seeing these up and down energy swings from players on painkillers after their surgeries, but it still startled him. Of course, those outbursts were sometimes followed by a whole lot of nothing, which explained why Ryan was now quietly staring at him.
"Um, you forgot to tell me what?"
"What?"
Poor Ryan, Andy thought. "You forgot to tell me something."
Ryan stared at him before his eyes showed some sort of flash again. "Oh, right. My mom said you sounded cute on the phone."
"Cute?"
"Yeah, which is gross when you hear your mom say something like that. But she thinks you're probably cute, and I need to find a girl to date you or something," he explained flippantly. "You'll have to talk to her when she gets here."
"I will do that," Andy said, making a mental note to not do that. "So I'm going to head out. Are you OK?"
Ryan's mood swung again, this time to something looking much less like a macho athlete. "Would you mind staying for a little?" he asked apprehensively. "I've always hated hospitals."
Andy nodded and grabbed a chair from the corner to pull it up next to Ryan's bed. "When was the last time you were in the hospital?" he asked.
"Two years ago. I got dizzy after a game and they were worried about my head," he said, turning to the television mounted on the wall. "Apparently, my drinking the night before caused me to get dehydrated quicker than normal."
"But you still drink."
Ryan smirked. "In moderation. Can't be sloppy on the ice or off it if you know what I mean." He paused. "I mean, with the ladies. That's what I'm trying to imply," he added seriously.
Andy chuckled. "I got that."
"These drugs make me talk alot."
"Yes, they do." Andy suddenly realized he could use this to his advantage. "So I got some stuff from your place in that duffel bag."
