Page 223 of Cross Checked
Approval, gratitude, trust.
Their girl.
Inside the room, Bliss laughed at something Charm said, the sound tiny and pained and still somehow unmistakably hers. Every man in the hallway went silent at once, listening like that laugh was proof of life.
Because it was.
I looked toward the door, then back at the men standing with me in that sterile hospital hallway, all of us angry, wrecked, and useless against the fact that she had already survived the worst part without us.
“He comes near her again,” Ryker said quietly, “we end it.”
Knox’s eyes closed for half a second.
Nobody argued.
Not even him.
I looked through the small window in the door and found Bliss sitting in bed with Charm adjusting her hoodie and Aura pretending not to fuss over the water cup. She looked too small in that hospital bed and too alive to be anything but dangerous to the man who had tried to make her disappear.
“Yeah,” I said, voice low. “We do.”
By the time we got Bliss into Hockey House, the entire place felt like it had been holding its breath.
For once, there was no music pounding through the walls. No freshmen lingering on the porch pretending they belonged there. No half-empty cups abandoned on the kitchen island. No Briggs shouting from another room. No one laughing too loud or making the house feel like the center of every terrible decision on campus. Rider and Briggs had cleared the main floor before we arrived, and somebody had opened windows long enough to chase out the stale beer smell, leaving behind cold Michigan air, detergent, pizza grease, and the faint chemical bite of the rink that clung to all of us no matter how many times we showered.
Bliss hated every second of being helped inside.
She hated the arm I kept around her. Hated the way Aura hovered close on one side and Charm on the other. Hated the fact that Ryker walked behind us like he was prepared to catch her if her knees gave out. Hated the stairs most of all, because the second she looked up at them, I saw the calculation cross her bruised face.
Pain.
Pride.
Stubbornness.
My girl was going to try to climb three flights of stairs on broken ribs and spite.
“No,” I said before she opened her mouth.
Her swollen eyes cut to mine. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“You were going to say you can walk.”
“I can walk.”
“And I’m going to carry you.”
Her mouth parted, outrage flickering through the pain medication making her eyes soft around the edges. “Absolutely not. This is how rumors start.”
Briggs, standing near the bottom of the stairs with both hands shoved into the pocket of his Fury hoodie, lifted one finger. “Technically, they already started.”
“Read the room,” Aura snapped.
He immediately lowered his hand. “Yep. Fair. Bad timing.”
Bliss tried to glare at him and winced instead, which made every person in the foyer flinch like we were wired to her pain now. She noticed that too and let out a careful, frustrated breath.
“I hate this,” she whispered.
