I opened my eyes to a bright room with sun streaming in. My head was pounding as I looked around and took stock.
Looking down I noticed I was in a hospital dress and dread washed over me like a bucket of cold water.
“Hiya handsome,” Paige said as she entered the room. I just stared at her. “You feeling okay?” She asked in a chipper voice. Her happiness was rubbing off on me the wrong way.
“Where-?” I realized with one word that it hurt my head to speak. I lowered my voice to a whisper, still wincing. “Why am I here?”
My brain was extremely foggy and I hoped I wasn’t stuck like this. I struggled to think back to the last thing I remembered.
The parking lot.
I started to get up, but a pain shot through my side. I looked down the hospital dress and noticed I was taped up.
“You have broken ribs, bud,” Max said, coming up behind Paige. He rubbed his jaw. His eyelids looked heavy, like he hadn’t slept. He was still in the clothes he wore to the tournament, so I doubted I was out longer than the night.
But staring at Max and Paige from the hospital bed, a bad sense of déjà vu set in. Why were they here and not Jules?… Surely she knew I was here… they must’ve told her.
The two of them looked at each other with grimaces and avoided looking at me.
She wasn’t here again.
I couldn’t go through this. Not again.
I brought my hands up to my head and closed my eyes. I wished I’d been hit harder because I didn’t want to remember her and not have her. I didn’t want to live alone again.
“Get out,” I grunted without looking at them. They didn’t budge. “Get! Out!” I yelled and then cringed, closing my eyes against the pounding in my head.
“We just wanted to give you this…”
I whipped my head around at the sound of that tiny voice and immediately regretted it. It felt like my brain was loose and rattling around in my head.
Standing there was a shocked looking Canyon holding a card and a Tupperware box. Jules was behind him with her hands on his shoulders wearing a look of worry on her face.
“Don’t worry, he just thought you guys didn’t come,” Paige said with a warning look at me.
Immediate relief coursed through my body. I took a couple deep breaths to try to steady the way my head was feeling.
“Canyon, bud,” Max said. “How about you come with us to find Smitty and Aunt Ashlie while Grey let’s his brain catch up a bit.”
Canyon gave a nod of approval, walked toward me and gave me his presents.
I ruffled his hair, “thanks, kid. I’m sorry for yelling,” I said quietly.
He seemingly held no grudge, and I thanked God for that. He put out his little fist for a knuckle punch, causing me to painfully chuckle.
I heard Max whisper to Jules, “I’m glad you came.” And then they were out.
“You weren’t going to come?” My face cracked with emotion.
“I was afraid,” Jules told me. “Kevin wasn’t going to let it slide that you hit him. He was going to try to take Canyon away from me. But… Thank God… Max had new security cameras installed in the parking lots to scare away kids from drinking out there… and they caught the whole thing. Kevin knocked you out and kicked you when you were down. I didn’t watch. Max just told me… but please…” She stepped closer to me and lightly touched my arm. “Please press charges…”
I paused a long moment. “It’s Canyon’s father, are you sure?”
She nodded and her eyes started to look glassy with tears. She turned away from me. It pained me that she felt she needed to hide emotions from me. She never had in the past. It would be my mission to give her the safety and confidence in me that she needed to share everything once again.
“I wasn’t strong enough to… press charges myself,” she closed her eyes and it killed me. I needed to hold her.
“C’mere, babe,” I patted the bed next to me and scootched over a bit.
“No, I don’t want to hurt you,” she replied in a quieter decibel that tried to cover the shakiness in her voice.
I pouted my lip out. She couldn’t deny me in a hospital bed.
But she was standing firm.
I leaned over the bed and planted a hand against her hip. I felt a small triumph in the fact that she didn’t jump away from me, she just looked at me in confusion.
I took that as permission.
Letting out a grunt, I pulled her up and into the bed.
“Grey, your ribs!”
Once I had her tucked close to me, I took a few long breaths.
Her long delicate fingers reached up and touched my jaw bone, which was surely popping out of the socket from the pain I was bearing.
“Why did you do that, you crazy!” Jules scolded.
She started to move away from me, but I pulled her back.
“Worth it,” I told her. “Kiss me and make it feel better?” I joked through deep breaths.
She finally relaxed against me, realizing she wasn’t going to win, “no kisses because I’m mad you just hurt yourself again.”
I felt a smile touch the corners of my mouth. That sounded like the old Jules.
“Okay, Lil mama.”
She turned on her side and used her free hand to draw calming strokes on my chest and stomach with her nails. I closed my eyes, embracing the comfort from the girl I loved.
A couple minutes of cuddling later, noise from the door forced my eyes open. If it was a nurse or doctor, I’d beg them to leave. This was more healing for me than they’d ever know.
But Paige popped her head in.
Seeing that the coast was clear, she ushered the rest of the crew in. I couldn’t help but feel proud of the fact that Canyon fit in so seamlessly with the group. He was comfortably chatty away with Ashlie and Smitty.
“So now that we’re all in a happy mood and we’re all together,” Paige said looking around at the group with a bright smile, “Guess what?!” She was wringing her hands in excitement, and she looked like she was about to burst.
“We’re pregnant!” Paige called out.
Max’s face stretched into the biggest grin I’d ever seen on his face, “it’s gonna be a son, I know it!”
Paige rolled her eyes at him and he placed a hand on her stomach.
“This is so exciting!” Ashlie called out.
“Congrats, man,” I told Max and I gave a wink to Paige. It was fitting for her to be a mom. “Time for a diaper party, eh?”
I turned to look down at Jules face. She was looking at Paige in a wistful way.. she seemed happy, but I detected a twinge of jealousy, maybe?
I hoped I was still good at reading her because that made me fucking elated.
The group was chatting and not paying attention to us.
I leaned in to whisper in her ear, “Wanna make a baby?”
She pushed me away and gave an eye roll.
“I’m serious,” I told her with a straight face. “Do you want to get married and have babies with me?”
Her doubtful expression turned serious.
“You know you wanna…” I teased, bumping her shoulder with mine. “Or we can just have babies and forget the marriage part… but I really wanna give you a ring and my last name.”
She looked dumbstruck.
“Did you lose your mind?” She finally asked.
“I mean… my mind is probably fucked… but I do mean it. Actually, wanna be a pregster bride? Not really traditional, but it would really show everybody you’re mine,” I joked. I leaned in to whisper in her ear again, “Mine to love and protect. Forever.” I pressed a kiss into her temple. “And I kinda want to now.”
She turned her head and kissed me on the mouth.
I laughed against her lips and cringed in pain as she accidentally elbowed me in the ribs.
“Sorry!” She pulled back and looked at me. Tears were forming on her bottom eyelids as I started to move her off me.
“What are you doing?” She asked, “These are happy tears!”
“I have to get down on one knee,” I grunted.
She pulled at my arm to make me get back in the bed, but it was no use. I was already up and moving.
“Jesus. I got way more beat up for you than hockey,” I struggled. “This is gonna be kinda short, okay?”
She laughed through her tears as I bent down in front of her and took her delicate hands. I looked up at her and saw her as a stressed out, lonely teenager with a beautiful smile, a twenty-somethin excited to start life, and as the strongest, kindest mother I could ever know.
“Juju Louise, I’ve been wanting to do this for over a decade,” the truth of those words almost choked me up. “We didn’t get it right in our Gametime. But I think we were able to get it right in our Overtime. If we’re together, we’ve really won, baby. Marry me?”
She came closer to me and put both hands behind my head and kissed me. Her glassy, happy eyes looked down at me.
“Yes.”
