Delayed Penalty (Crossing the Line, #1)(21)

"Why do you tell him everything?" I looked at her out of my corner of my eye. "Why would he ask that?"

She shrugged as though I shouldn't care and snuggled into my side. "Let's order Chinese."

We ate, I explained my problem to her, she laughed some more, and teased me, which only added to me being pissed off at the situation instead of helping me.

"You should be talking me through this shit as my friend."

"Hey, I never claimed to be that kind of friend." Callie rolled her eyes, tucking her legs up on the couch. She got comfortable and twirled her fork in the container of noodles. "We f*ck. That's usually all we do. Since when do you want advice from me?"

Giving a shrug, I placed my own carton of food on the coffee table.

"Does this mean you want your jersey back?" You couldn't miss the little sense of regret in her voice.

"No..." Leaning forward, I kissed her forehead. "...You keep that."

Callie gave me a look and then picked her food back up, a contemplative look coming over her. "So, who's the girl?"

"Ami…" Just saying her name did things to me, and f*ck if I wasn't annoyed by that. I looked at my food on the coffee. See? I couldn't even eat. "She's really f*cking me up."

"And this Ami, does she know you've got a thing for her?"

"I don't know. Probably not. I can't stop thinking about her, and then I think about what happened and that it's wrong I even have feelings for her, you know?"

Callie gave me the same glazed over look Leo did at times but surprised me when she asked, "What happened to her?"

"The night before Christmas Eve when we got back into town after playing the Red Wings..." I looked to Callie to see if she was following me. She nodded, twirling her fork in the noodles, her legs propped on my thighs. "Well, I was walking home and found her nearly dead in the alley, so I took her to the hospital. She was raped and beaten to shit. Fractured skull and broken bones…it was awful."

Callie blinked. Her expression held an emotion I couldn't register, almost like sympathy.

"Her parents were killed in a plane crash last year so she has no one else."

"Is she okay?"

"Sorta…she's coming out of it and is finally awake, but she doesn't remember anything surrounding the accident and can't really give us any clues."

"Did they catch the guy?"

"No…" The thought that he was still out there made me sick as it always did.

Callie stayed for a little while longer and then went home. I was lost in my thoughts again and lately nothing good had come from that.

That was when Leo texted me. Hey, man, can you come over and get my jersey off the floor for me?

His question should have been a red flag. Lesson one: Leo never said anything without taking it in a direction you'd never expect. My girl problems didn't matter to him. If anything, that was ammo. I wasn't dumb either. I knew where he was taking this.

No. Get off your ass and get it.



I can't seem to get up. Can you help?



FUCK YOU and Callie!



You tried, remember? Couldn't. You know there's medication for that.



I had to turn my phone off. He wouldn't stop. Lesson two: he never quit.





The very next day, I went back to the hospital to see Ami.

She looked better and every time I saw her, I noticed something I didn't notice before. Like the freckle on her nose and the way she would crinkle her nose in the cutest way whenever the smelly doctor came in to check on her. The dude seriously needed to wear some deodorant.

What I didn't appreciate was the way he flirted with her. Yeah, she wasn't mine, but I wasn't cool with him showing any interest in her. She was young, too young for his mid-thirties ass, so I voiced my opinion to him.

"Hey," I began, looking down on him in more ways than one. "Why don't you keep your hands to yourself and treat her like your patient, not your girl."

I had no claim on this girl either, but this sort of thing left me a little bent. Something rubbed me the wrong way with this guy, too. Maybe it was that I was constantly looking at every guy like they were a suspect. I wanted them to be because I wanted the guy that did this to her to f*cking pay for it.

The doctor, with his smelly body and overly large eyebrows, glared. It was meant to level me, but I was a hockey player and saw that shit daily. "You know, Mr. Masen, I let it slide that you have been in Ami's room at all hours of the night, but visiting hours end at eight. I suggest you get back in there. You've got ten minutes."

I didn't like this new doctor. Not one bit. I didn't like the look in his eyes when he examined Ami, and I didn't like the way he talked to her. Most of all, I didn't like the way he was talking to me. He was trying to intimidate me, and that was my game, not his.

"I'll leave when I want to leave, Dr. Dagger. I'm the only friend she has."

Friend? Is that what I was now? Part of me wanted to be more already.

Dumb ass.

This wasn't the first time I told someone to basically stay away from her either. Remember my conversation with the dance instructor?

I was getting pretty good at this protection thing, but for some reason I had this defense zone around this girl, and damn it if I wasn't going to play good defense. I never wanted to see something like this happen again.