Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(62)

Temporary. Everything was temporary.

Fallon jerked Tess around so she couldn’t see the Jumbotron and yanked her close. Tess didn’t cry, she didn’t let loose with the scream building inside her, she just stood there shaking and praying as Fallon held her tight.

Please God, let him be okay. Just let him be okay.

She could have stood there for another minute or ten or a million listening to the blood rushing in her ears and praying but finally, clap by clap, the cheers of the Ice Knights fans in the arena broke through. Turning her head back to the ice, she watched as they wheeled Cole off the ice and he lifted his arm and gave the crowd a thumbs-up. The other Ice Knights players whacked their sticks on the boards in front of their bench and even some of the Rage players, too, as he disappeared down the tunnel leading to the locker room.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Fallon said, taking a step back. “He’s hard as nails. He’ll be just fine.”

Tess collapsed into her chair, suddenly so weary that even holding her head up was a epic challenge.

“Speak to me, Tess.”

Unclenching her body, muscle by muscle, like she’d done during that nap with Cole, she took in a deep breath before letting it out. “Inanna is the Sumerian goddess of love, fertility, and war. It’s kind of appropriate that they put those three things together, don’t you think?”

“Why’s that?” Fallon asked.

“Because they’re all scary as shit.” And that was the God’s honest truth.

Temporary had always been her mantra, her constant in a swirling world. She was ready for the rest of the world to come and go but not Cole—and that hit her square in the face, a hard slap of reality. She loved him.

“Come on.” Fallon held out her hands. “Let’s go down to the locker room. You need to see him.”

“He’s fine,” Tess said, her voice strained and tight as the possibilities of what could have happened to him out on the ice continued to ripple through her. “He’ll be fine. You said so yourself.”

“Tess.” Fallon held out her hand. “Let’s go.”

A security guard waiting outside the suite walked them through the twisting back tunnels leading from the upper-level suites down to the locker room. Every once in a while, the cheers of the crowd could be heard as the game went on, but the sound barely penetrated for Tess. It was all a numb haze.

When they got to the locker room, Fallon pointed to the treatment room beyond the coach’s office. “Do you want me to go with you?”

Tess shook her head. “I need to go myself.”

This was a new world, uncharted territory. She needed to see him, touch him, talk to him, and make sure the man she’d fallen in love with was okay. By the time she quietly opened the glass door to the treatment room, Cole was sitting up on the table. His helmet and gloves were off and his mouth twisted into a grimace as the doctor flashed a light into his eyes. The moment she saw him, all the numbness faded away and the tears she hadn’t realized she’d been holding back came cascading down her cheeks, hot and unwanted.

He was okay.

“I was only out for a second,” he grumbled. “You were the one who told me not to move. I’ll be fine, Doc.”

The sound of his voice, even as raw and full of pain as it was, was like a cool breeze on a humid August day—a total and unexpected relief, and she sank against the doorframe to catch her breath, relief seeping through her. Three deep breaths and she’d have herself under control and ready to go out there, wrap her arms around him, and tell him she was there for him. Tonight. Always.

Marti burst into the room from another door, rushing over to him and taking his hand in hers and lifting it to her mouth for a quick brush of her lips across his knuckles. “Oh my God, are you okay, Cole?”

“It’s nothing.” Cole practically growled out the words.

The doctor let out a snort of disgust. “That is a different way to pronounce minor concussion, but I just went to the best medical school in the country, so what would I know?”

Marti reached out and took Cole’s hand while the doctor continued his exam, the fact that they cared for each other was obvious as the smell of Icy Hot in the air. Tess took a step back, letting the door fall shut in silence, unable to look away but unable to move forward, either.

How many times growing up had she watched from the outside as a similar intimate scene played out? Her aunt Suzy bandaging up her cousin’s knee and then giving it a kiss. Her uncle Arnie sharing a knowing look with Aunt Zoe after an inside joke. Her younger cousin Sherice curling up on her mom’s lap even though at ten, she barely fit anymore.

Observing those moments while standing around the corner just out of sight had hurt, but nothing like this. Those times had been like a mosquito bite compared to the bone-deep pain of seeing Cole with Marti. This was true intimacy, a connection, something more than a sense of responsibility or obligation. This was what she’d always wanted and had never had. Her love wasn’t temporary, but it also wasn’t returned. He’d never promised her forever, but like a fool, she’d let herself start to imagine it anyway. Taking a step back and then another and another until she couldn’t see Cole anymore, she broke inside all over again.

The hurt, too raw and fresh to cover, must have shined off her face because the second she turned the corner and found Fallon standing in the hall outside the locker room, her friend rushed over.