Checked

by Elise Faber

  She hadn’t fully grasped exactly how much agony she was going to be in without Gabe in her life. Not until that moment.

  Until she wanted him to pull her into his arms, to hug her close in celebration, to see the pride shining in his eyes that she’d stood up for herself.

  But she couldn’t have that.

  She had finally found her strength.

  And she was alone.

  Nineteen

  Gabe

  The arena was hopping.

  Seventeen thousand Gold fans all thrilled by the way their team was playing—up by five goals—and showing their approval by cheering loudly.

  Brit, shoulder back to normal, had started the game by making an incredible save off a broken down play in their own zone that had meant she’d suddenly been alone in the net with two of the opposing players bearing down on her.

  The team had rallied for her, scoring four quick goals.

  And Coop, freshly returned from his concussion and rib rehab, had scored three of them. The forward was in top shape, almost a blur on the ice as he moved with and away from the puck, dodging hits while throwing his own, battling in the corners and along the boards, passing and moving and just working really hard.

  That was part of what made him such a good addition to the team.

  He wasn’t lazy, he had a great attitude, and he loved to play.

  Needless to say, he’d slid right into his new team without any issues, and the Gold were lucky to have him.

  And finally, the roster was back to normal, the team was healthy, and they were about to secure a few much-needed points to keep them in the running for the top spot in the Western Conference.

  Normally, Gabe would eat this stuff up, loving that the team was coming together at exactly the right time, that he’d played some small part in that.

  Tonight, however, he could barely stay focused on the game.

  Rebecca.

  She hadn’t come into the arena that day. Not that he’d really expected her to, especially with all that had happened between them. Her job was largely based on a normal Monday to Friday schedule, since she didn’t travel with the team. Also, the second phase of the diet plan had been rolled out and well-established by this point in the season so she didn’t need to pull extra hours. Mostly, she’d been on maintenance for the last few weeks, helping injured players by adding foods to promote healing, adjusting meal plans for newfound food sensitivities, changing up calorie intake if players needed to increase or decrease their weight and muscle mass.

  Still, she was always at the arena for home games, typically doing paperwork in her office, occasionally drifting down to the PT suite to check in on the guys rehabbing.

  Tonight she wasn’t.

  Because of him.

  He sighed. Fuck.

  A whistle drew his attention to the ice and a group of players scuffling with each other near the crease.

  Brit was smart and grabbed her water bottle and skated away from the mass of punching, squirming bodies. Though—Gabe grinned—she did give one of the opposing players a shove as she did so.

  The linesmen broke up most of the scrums, but two continued throwing punches, gaining space as they broke into a full-blown fight. Blue landed a few solid hits to the other player but took a glancing strike off his mouth. That would require some doctoring, no doubt about it.

  Twenty seconds later, the linesmen had gotten between them. He shepherded Blue to the bench rather than the box because blood was dripping down his chin.

  Gabe adjusted his gloves as he stepped to the side so Blue could walk down the hall. They would move out of sight of the cameras, assess and clean the wound then slap on some glue and butterfly bandages, if necessary, before returning Blue to the game.

  Blue grabbed the towel Gabe held out and strode down the black mats that protected the edges of his skates from being dulled by the concrete of the arena floor. Gabe started to follow him then remembered that the supply bag he had in the hall was almost out of glue because of an earlier repair job they’d needed to do on Max.

  He heard the whistle signaling the puck was going to be dropped as he spun back around and headed to the bench, bending to snag his bag stowed behind it.

  Skates crunched on the ice as play began, voices rising as the teams jumped into motion, needing to communicate loudly enough to be heard over the crowd as well as the crack of sticks and noise of bodies colliding.

  Gabe had straightened, bag in hand when he heard it.

  The slightest pop of a puck being deflected.

  There was an unfortunate thing about NHL players, about their game moving so quickly. While it was exciting, that speed was also dangerous.

  Gabe didn’t have time to react, to move or shift to the side.

  One second the puck was safely on the ice.

  The next, it was flying at his head.

  Twenty

  Rebecca

  The Gold game was on in the background as she alternated between working on her latest blog post and summaries of the chapters she wanted to write for her book on nutrition. As of that morning her initial proposal had been accepted, and the advance was safely ensconced in her checking account.

  Exciting news she wanted to share with Gabe.

  Exciting news she couldn’t share with Gabe.

  So, she’d done the next best thing, put on the game, hoping to hear the announcers say his name or catch a glimpse of him on camera as he tended to the players on the bench.

  Typically, she did watch the team play, wanting to know who was skating well, who looked particularly winded after a game and might need their food plan adjusted.

  But the team was up by five goals and she’d zoned out a bit, tinkering with her chapter on foods that boosted aerobic recovery time.

  The whistles and shouting drew her focus, and she winced as Blue took a hard punch to the face. She didn’t care what the guys said about adrenaline and heat of the moment, getting socked in the face really had to hurt.

  Blue skated straight to the bench instead of the box, which meant he was bleeding and would need—

  Her lungs turned to ice.

  Gabe.

  Fuck, he was so gorgeous standing there, alert and ready to help Blue. His hair was mussed, dark stubble on his jaw, and—

  Her heart hurt.

  She’d set him free, but she didn’t think she could go about her day-to-day work, seeing him, just being friends with him, and survive. The book advance meant she had some savings, maybe she could find another sports team to—

  Her eyes had drifted down to her laptop screen when play had begun again, but then she heard the tone of voice change on the TV announcer, concern lacing it, the noises of the game completely cut off.

  Gut sinking, her eyes shot to the television, but instead of video of an injured player on the ice, it was a shot of the bench.

  She was on her feet in an instant, laptop dropping to the rug, throat collapsing.

  The camera shifted, moving from a pair of boots she knew too well to a body she’d learned every inch of the night before, up to a face that had gentled every time it looked down at her.

  Gabe.

  Eyes closed, completely prone, a growing puddle of blood surrounding him.

  One instant and everything changed.

  Fear of what she would do to him morphed into fear of what she would do without him.

  Then, for once in her fucking life, she stopped thinking of all the ways this decision could go horribly wrong. Instead, she just grabbed her purse and sprinted out of her apartment.

  Twenty-One

  Gabe

  He groaned and reached a hand up to carefully probe his face, feeling like he’d been run over by a truck, rather than being grazed by a deflected puck.

  “No touching.”

  Mandy.

  Disappointment curled through him when he heard his friend’s voice. Not because he wasn’t relieved she was there patching him up, but because it wasn’t Rebecca.

&n
bsp; “How bad is it?”

  “Laceration to your scalp,” she said, shifting his head gently to the side. “It’s still bleeding like hell, but it’s not deep.”

  “From the puck?”

  “Nope.” She swapped towels. “From unluckily hitting your head on the corner of the bench as you went down.”

  “Fuck,” he muttered.

  “Good news is you’ll have a nice bruise to match Blue’s on your jaw,” she said lightly and carefully probed his mouth, “but you didn’t lose any teeth.”

  He started to push up. “I have to get back to the game.”

  She shook her head. “Cameron’s got it. There are only five minutes left in the third. You, my friend, have a one-way ticket to the hospital.”

  “No—”

  “Arguments,” Mandy chimed in. “That’s right. Good job following your own treatment plan you designed for players who get knocked out.” She gestured to someone while still talking. “So, you can either let us help you to your feet so we can walk you to my car, and I’ll drive you to the hospital. Or you can argue, and I’ll have them bring the stretcher out and hog-tie you to it for your ambulance ride.”

  He made a face but knew better than to draw this out any longer. “Car,” he grunted and pushed to his feet.

  The arena erupted into cheers, the guys on the bench calling out encouragements as they tapped their sticks on the ice and boards.

  Embarrassing as hell.

  But also kind of nice.

  Still, he was thankful Mandy stood with him, keeping the towel to his scalp and wrapping an arm around his waist when he staggered. Blane came to his other side, the burly player helping Gabe down the hall and into a wheelchair.

  “Got him, love,” Mandy murmured, pressing a kiss to Blane’s lips. “Thanks.”

  Gabe grunted again, not happy about the wheelchair, but also knowing it was a long walk to the parking lot.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Blane said.

  “I know.” She patted his jaw, and the gesture added acid to the already open wound on his heart when it conjured the memory of Rebecca’s hand on his jaw.

  Fuck, how was he going to do this, be with all of the ridiculously happy couples while knowing that he’d just narrowly missed out on his chance at that?

  Pathetic. Devastating. Agony.

  Knowing the reality of no Rebecca was his future hurt a hell of a lot more than his head, that was for damn sure.

  “Here,” Mandy said, grabbing his hand and putting a fresh towel in it. She brought his arm up so he could put pressure to the wound as she pushed.

  Blue lightly punched his arm as they moved by him, one of the physicians from the team assessing his injury. “Nice wheels,” he called.

  “I’m never going to hear the end of this, am I?” he muttered.

  “Probably not.”

  “Awesome.”

  “Are you grouchy because of the forthcoming teasing or because of a certain beautiful redhead?”

  The teasing.

  Fuck, who was he kidding? Definitely the redhead.

  Still, he just adjusted the towel and said, “None of your business.”

  “Redhead.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Did you blow it?”

  “Mandy,” he sighed. “Didn’t you ever hear the old idiom, never pester a man with a head injury?”

  “Clearly not.” She stopped outside the training suite and dashed in to grab her purse and car keys then began pushing him double time to the parking lot. “Because the head injury means it’s the perfect time to get the truth out of you.”

  “Cruel.”

  “Nosy,” she corrected, throwing on the brake before softening her teasing. “I want you to be happy, Gabe.”

  He heaved himself out of the wheelchair, keeping the towel in place as she helped him into the passenger’s seat of her car. “I love her, Mandy.”

  She froze. “Oh.” A huge smile growing on her face, she declared, “That’s great!”

  If he could have shaken his head without it hurting like a mother, he would have, but Mandy knew him well enough by now to read between the lines.

  “Rebecca will come around.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “She’s come out of her shell the last months because of you.”

  “Not me,” he said. “That was her.”

  “Maybe, but you helped her find the courage to do so.”

  “It’s not enough.”

  “Gabe—”

  “Please leave it”—he sighed—“Tomorrow, you can interrogate me further. Today, can you just drive?”

  She was quiet for a long moment, but eventually, she nodded, rounded the hood, and got in.

  Then she just drove.

  Twenty-Two

  Rebecca

  She went to the arena first, which had been her initial error, then the wrong hospital, which had been Cameron’s. The assistant trainer had been misinformed and Rebecca had been so worried she hadn’t questioned it and by the time she’d realized—after arguing with the staff at the county hospital and driving an hour both ways through city traffic—she finally arrived at the right place.

  Rebecca barreled out of her car, rushing to the front doors, and nearly mowing down Mandy as she came out of a sliding door, cell pressed to her ear.

  “No, Allison,” she said into the cell, steadying Rebecca with a hand on her shoulder. “Blane decided to organize. The extra diapers are in the gray cabinet to the right of the crib.” A beat. “Right. Great. Thanks again for staying later than we’d planned. Blane will probably beat me home.”

  They exchanged a few more words before saying goodbye and hanging up.

  “Hey,” Mandy said, stowing her cell away. “I thought you would be here earlier.”

  Her friend’s tone was laced with disappointment.

  “I missed you at the arena,” Rebecca told her. “Then Cameron said you took him to County and—” She shook her head. “Never mind that. Is he okay?”

  Mandy tucked their arms together and walked them to the doors. “He’s sleeping, waiting on results from a CT. Hit his head when he went down.”

  “I saw a lot of blood,” she said.

  “Scalp wounds bleed a lot. He only needed glue and a couple of stitches.”

  “O-okay.” She released a shaky breath. “I-I—” Her chin dropped to her chest. “I fucked up.”

  Mandy chuckled lightly. “That’s often a universal theme in finding your way to love.”

  “I worry that I’m going to bog him down, that’s he’s going to say all of my idiosyncrasies are cute and funny now, but at some point, he’s going to get tired of them. That it’s going to be too much and he’ll . . .”

  “Leave?”

  Her heart pulsed. “Yeah.”

  Mandy dropped her head to Rebecca’s shoulder. “Welcome to the club, girlfriend. You fight falling in love, but despite your best efforts to stay safely inside your protective armor, Gabe finds a way through anyway.” Since that was an accurate description of the previous four months, Rebecca didn’t argue as they made their way onto the elevator. “And Gabe’s been all in from the moment he realized what you were to him, what you could be. He goes too fast, skips too many steps the moment he sees that you’re tentatively ready to move forward. But he’s like that, isn’t he? Fearlessly moving forward despite any obstacle in his place.”

  Rebecca released a long, slow breath. “Yes.”

  Mandy pressed the button for the third floor. “So, what you have to decide here and now is if you’re willing to accept him for his faults along with all the rest of it—the gentleness, the little chocolates and tea we’ve all been seeing him leave you on your desk, the way his smile changes when you’re in the room. He’s loyal, he loves you, and he won’t stop no matter how hard you push him away.” Mandy touched her arm. “But he does wear those blinders, and when he’s wearing them, a bull in a china shop has nothing on him.” The elevator doors opened with a din
g. “You have to accept him for the flaws and the good things. Just as he’s accepted you—”

  “I—”

  Mandy turned to face her, dropping her hands onto Rebecca’s shoulders. “But what you really have to do is find the courage to believe that he’s not going to leave you.”

  Rebecca’s breath caught, tears welling in her eyes. “Mandy—”

  Her friend hugged her tight. “I know, babe. That’s the hard part for girls like us.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “But it’s also the best part because when you find a man who’s the other half of your soul, you know he’ll always be there to catch you.”

  “You make it sound easy,” she said, hugging Mandy back.

  “Fuck no, it’s not. That first step is absolutely terrifying.” She dropped her arms. “It’s just that every step after it gets easier—until you’re not hovering on the edge, barely dipping your toes over, but launching yourself over the cliff, knowing he’ll catch you.”

  “I—"

  Mandy pointed to a door halfway down the hall. “He’s in there.” She nudged Rebecca that way. “Take the leap, babe. Be brave and. Just. Take. That. Leap.”

  Rebecca sucked in a breath, released it slowly, and with Mandy’s words in her ear, pushed through into Gabe’s room.

  Twenty-Three

  Gabe

  He was glued and stitched, his head was pounding, and he was annoyed at having to stay for a CT he thought was unnecessary, but he couldn’t argue about it because he’d made the freaking protocol and disobeying it would set a bad example.

  The first was his fault.

  The second was Mandy’s.

  She was a great mom, and mostly because she had the whole mom guilt down. Not hard when she’d had a whole hockey team and support staff to practice on.

  His snort made a pulse of pain lurch through his jaw, but he ignored it. He had very important other things to do. Like stare at his cell phone and wonder longingly if he should call Rebecca.