Page 184 of The Off Limits Captain
I stay until the nurse comes in to check vitals.
Then another five minutes.
Then another, because leaving her room feels like walking off the ice before the horn and I have already done that once tonight.
Finally, I bend and kiss her forehead.
“I’ll be right outside.”
The hall is dim when I step out.
Peyton is on the floor across from the door, back against the wall, cap beside her, phone dark in her lap. She has not gone to the waiting room. Has not found a chair. Has not left.
She sits where I will see her first.
Her eyes open.
“How is she?”
“Stable. Sleeping. Doctor rounds at six.”
Peyton nods.
I stand there looking at her and think of every polished thing I have ever said. Every controlled answer. Every distance that kept me useful and unreachable.
I have one word now.
“Stay.”
Her face changes.
“Okay,” she says.
I slide down the wall beside her. Our shoulders touch. The floor is cold through my jeans, and my body aches from the game, the drive, the fear, the hours without sleep.
Peyton leans her head back against the wall.
Neither of us speaks.
For once, quiet does not feel like distance.
After a while, I say, “Bill called you.”
Peyton’s head turns against the wall. “Yes.”
“Before the team. Before the arena got it to me.”
“He needed someone who could reach you.”
That is the practical answer.
The clean one.
I look at my hands. “He called you because you are not outside anymore.”
Peyton goes very still.
I do not look at her because if I do, I might stop before saying the rest.
