Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 85342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“I was on the ice, just going around in a circle, and then it’s like something pulled in the back of my leg,” he explains and I sit down on the little rolling chair.
“Straighten your leg,” I urge him and he winces. “Was this the leg that got slashed the last time?” I ask him as I touch his knee and I’m happy he isn’t wincing. I move my hand to the back of his leg and then he yelps. “Lie on your stomach.” He gets up and he lies down and I see the big bruise on the back of his leg. “You have a big bruise.” I touch around the big purple mark. “My guess is you have a pulled hamstring.”
“Fuck,” Tristan curses. “What does that mean?”
“It means, depending on the next couple of days, you can be out three weeks or you can be out three months,” I say and his head whips around.
“Are you fucking with me, Doc?” he asks and I have to laugh.
“I never fuck about injuries or dates. I’m going to call Bruno and we can go over exercises.”
“This means I can’t play tonight,” he pouts, sitting down.
“This means you can definitely not play tonight,” I confirm and he just puts his head back.
“I was on a points streak,” he groans in frustration.
“If I send you on the ice like this, you’ll last maybe a shift,” I say. “And you might give out and then they can score on us and it’ll all be your fault.”
“Wow, talk about kicking someone when they are down.” He gets up. “You didn’t even try to give me a pep talk.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Just keeping it real,” I say and Tristan walks from the room. I take my phone out of my back pocket and text Bruno, the team trainer. As soon as I’m done, I pull up Julia’s number.
Me: Hey, just checking in.
I press send and then wonder if I should have called her instead.
Me: How you doing?
“Good God.” I shake my head. “You sound so stupid.”
I look down at the phone, seeing the gray bubble pop up.
Julia: Leaving the hospital in the Uber, headed to work.
My heart skips a beat and my hands get sweaty. I look around to see if anyone notices what is going on, not sure I could explain it.
CHAPTER 11
Julia
I look out the window of the Uber as he makes his way over to my car. Only when I walked out of the hospital did it dawn on me that I didn’t have a car. My heart speeds up as we make our way closer and closer to the scene. I wipe away the tear that escapes, even though I fight it off. The yellow tape is still up and you can see the glass scattered on the street.
“You can stop here,” I tell the driver and he just looks at me. “My car is right there.” I point over to the side. He stops the car and I get out, trying so hard not to look over at where the car was last night.
I walk with my head down toward the car, pressing the button and getting into the car, letting out a big breath. I put my hands on the steering wheel and my head falls on it, the tension in my body is off the charts. I feel like any second, I’m going to snap and fall into a downward spiral. I put my head back on the seat, closing my eyes as I try to steady my breathing when the phone rings from my bag.
I fish into the bag and take it out seeing that Jillian is calling. “Hello,” I answer, putting the phone on speaker.
“Hey,” she says and I can hear from her side that she is in the car. “What’s up?”
“Not much,” I reply, looking down at the phone, wondering if Chase said anything. “On my way to work.”
“Oh, good, are you coming to the game tonight?” she asks.
“No,” I say right away, “I’m going to have to pass, just got another case on my desk.” I beat around the bush. “And…”
“And you’ll be elbows deep in reading,” she fills in. “Are you okay, you sound weird?”
“Yeah.” I know that if she was in front of me, she would know in a split second I was lying. “Just, I lost one of my girls last night.”
“Oh, fuck, you should have called me.”
“I was at the hospital all night,” I say.
“Still, you shouldn’t have been alone,” she says, and it is at this moment I should say that I wasn’t alone. This moment is the perfect opportunity to say Chase was with me, but something stops me from telling her, and for the first time in my life, I keep a secret from my sister.