The stretcher was smooth on the linoleum floor of the hospital. The entire emergency room was loud with the noise of other patients and the staff consistently on their toes. I watched in a daze as people rushed past us. My head felt like it was swimming while simultaneously pounding. The blood on my forehead had since dried and turned into a scab that felt like a piece of glue stuck to my skin. It felt taut and was really sore.
They wheeled me into a room and Nico was right there walking beside me the entire time. A nurse stopped him at the door as she put her hand up in front of him.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we need to check to make sure it’s okay if you’re back here with her.”
His eyes went wild and his jaw clenched. “I’m not going anywhere without her.” There was a coldness in his tone and it was almost too calm. It was as if he were a volcano that was getting ready to erupt. Like the calm before the storm.
The nurse glanced over at me and looked back at him. “Please wait outside for one moment. If you don’t cooperate, I will have to call security.”
Nico’s gaze flashed to mine and I nodded at him. He let out an exasperated sigh and stepped out of her way. The nurse pulled the door shut behind her and stepped inside the room. “It’s protocol for us to ask questions in private in regards to your safety.”
My eyebrows pulled together. “Okay…”
She went through a series of questions, all of which I answered honestly. After she deemed it was safe to let him back into the room, he rushed in like a whirlwind and took his spot back by my side. He was standing guard, like he would attack anyone he thought wasn’t doing what they should be or if they were a threat to me.
Various nurses and doctors came in to check on me before they decided I needed to get a CAT scan for them to make sure there was no trauma to my brain. Nico’s phone began to ring as we were waiting for someone to come take me back. I watched his face fall as he looked at the screen and glanced back at me.
“It’s Wes,” he said with his voice low. “Fuck.”
“Answer it.”
Nico frowned, but he accepted the call and held his phone up to his ear. His body instantly grew rigid as he listened to Wes rambling through the speaker. “No, we’re fine. We’re at the hospital right now for Harper to get checked.”
His jaw was clenched as he listened again and he ran a frustrated hand through his hair as he hung his head. His shoulders sagged and something wasn’t right. “Who all knows?” He fell silent again. “What the fuck did it say?” Silence again, but his footsteps filled the void as he began to pace. “No. Fuck. That’s not what happened at all.”
My head was still pounding and there was a feeling of dread building in my stomach from the way Nico was behaving. I watched the slight limp in his gait and that made me feel even worse. My mind began to race as I played over every possible worst-case scenario in my head.
“Yeah, I’ll let you know when we get out of here. Thanks, bro,” Nico said quietly to Wes before walking back over to the bed. His eyes instantly found mine. “Someone posted about the accident on Twitter. No one has any idea how anyone found out… but I’m pretty sure everyone knows.”
I stared back at him for a moment as the words registered and settled in my mind. “Shit,” I mumbled as I realized what this really meant. My job was officially in jeopardy. Nico’s eyes were laced with concern and I reached out for him, for his hand. His palm was warm against mine. “We’ll worry about it all later. You need to get your leg looked at.”
Nico was silent for a moment. “Fuck my leg. What happens to us?”
“What do you mean?” I demanded, just as the radiology technician stepped into the room. “This changes nothing between us, Nico. I’ll figure it out.”
His eyes softened. “No, you won’t. We will—together.”
I held his gaze, feeling his words as they settled deep within my soul. There was nothing but love radiating from the way he was looking at me and I could literally feel his words. We were no longer separate entities. We were in this together and we would figure it all out together instead of alone.
As the technician wheeled me away, I felt Nico’s absence as soon as his hand left mine. He was always in a better position when it came to our little secret we had between us. If anyone found out, Nico would always be safe because they weren’t going to jeopardize his career because of a little scandal. I was much more expendable than he was.
There were plenty of other photographers out there and they didn’t need me. I’d be easily replaced and I already knew that was the position I would find myself in. I knew this would eventually blow up in our faces, I just didn’t know when.
Nico went and got his knee checked out as they finished up my tests. They determined that we were both fine. I had a concussion and he had some swelling in his knee that he would need to rest before he could skate again. Nico called Wes and he showed up at the hospital to pick us up and take us home.
“How are you feeling, Harper?” Wes asked me as I climbed into the back seat of his car. Nico followed behind me and I gave him a questioning look. “What am I, your chauffeur?”
Nico’s eyes sliced to Wes’s through the rearview mirror. “Just drive please.”
“I’m all right,” I answered Wes’s question as he looked to me before he started to drive. “My head is just killing me so the sooner you can get us to Nico’s the better.”
“What about you, man?” Wes probed Nico. “Are you good?”
“I can’t play for, like, two weeks and will have to be cleared by the team doctor to be able to get back onto the ice.”
“Fuck,” Wes mumbled as he shook his head. “I mean, it could be worse. I’m just glad I’m not you and don’t have to have that conversation with Coach.”
Nico cocked his head. “I’m sure he already knows since it seems like word spread relatively quickly.”
Wes shrugged. “Better you tell him about it yourself. He’s already going to be pissed, so I don’t think it’s worth giving him another reason to be unhappy.”
“Good point.”
I tuned the two of them out as I rested my head on Nico’s shoulder. The hospital wasn’t far from his apartment and it wasn’t long before we were riding up the elevator to his floor. Nico’s arm was around my waist, like he thought I was the one who was having trouble walking. As we stepped off the elevator, I swayed slightly and was grateful for his overprotective arm.
He kept me steady and his sister was pacing the hall as we stepped deeper into his apartment. She began to move her hands around, signing in a frenzy. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but Nico’s eyes were tracking each movement she made.
“I’m sorry I didn’t let you know as soon as it happened,” he spoke out loud so she could read his lips with his arm still around me. “We’re both fine. My knee is a little banged up and Harper has a concussion.”
I gave Giana a small smile as she looked at me for a moment. She signed something else to Nico that I didn’t understand.
“Do you need anything?” Nico asked me for her.
I shook my head. “No, thank you. I think I just need to go lay down and rest my head.”
Giana signed while Nico translated. “She said for us to go get comfortable and let her take care of everything.”
She stepped out of the way while Nico limped the two of us back to his bedroom. He walked me over to his bed and helped me on as I climbed up. I looked down at my clothing and realized I didn’t have anything here since I had taken all of my things home earlier in the day to wash.
Nico was already walking over to his closet and came back with one of his t-shirts. “Here, love,” he murmured as he handed it to me. I set it down on the bed and stripped down to my underwear before pulling the shirt over my head.
He had already stripped down to his boxers and grabbed a pair of basketball shorts that he put on. I settled under the covers in his plush bed and he crawled in with me. He pulled me into his arms until I was flush against him with my head on his chest.
“Today scared the shit out of me,” he whispered into my hair as he held me close. “When I saw you were unconscious, I swear my entire fucking world stopped. The Earth stopped spinning and my heart stopped beating.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promised him, meaning every single word. “We’re both okay and we have each other.”
Nico fell silent for a breath. “I can’t lose you, Harper.”
“You’re not going to.”
“But we don’t know what is going to happen with your job or any of that shit,” he reminded me, his tone tense and his words heavy. I could feel the turmoil radiating from him and I tightened my arm around his waist.
“I don’t want to think about it right now.”
“Okay, love,” he said softly as he stroked my hair. “Go to sleep and rest your head. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
I smiled against his chest as exhaustion settled inside me. My eyelids were growing heavier with every passing second and I knew I needed to sleep. It was what my body needed to heal and I couldn’t fight it any longer. Nico’s warmth enveloped me and it wasn’t long before I was drifting off into a dream world where our problems no longer existed.
