Page 64 of Married to Number 22
It’s only when we stop outside a closed door that the nerves start to come back.
“He’s fine,” Smitty says, seeing me hesitate. “He’s with Doc, but you can go in.”
I nod again.
Smitty knocks and we hear a voice call out to, “Come in!”
“You got this.” Smitty smiles encouragingly as he twists the door handle, pushes the wooden panel inward.
I start to step inside then stop, turn back. “Smitty?”
His gentle giant gaze comes to mine. “Yeah, Luna girl?”
My heart pulses at the nickname, but I don’t have space to process how nice that feels, how nice he’s being, how much I like all of that, how much I want it to be forever, to have men like him, a man like Aiden in my life.
But I don’t have time to verbalize all of that.
So, I just nod at Smitty and murmur, “Thanks.”
Somehow, I think he sees all of that flowing through my head because he nods, mouth kicking up on one side. “You’re welcome.”
Then he strolls away, skates clomping on the mats as he walks.
I shore up my courage, brace against what I might see, then move into the room.
And go completely still.
Aiden is watching me, his green eyes lucid and clear.
“Oh, my God!” I gasp that panic lurching to life again. “Are you okay?”
His eyes might be lucid and clear but there’s a bruise blooming on his cheek. A huge, ugly bruise with?—
“Oh, my God,” I gasp again.
Of course he’s not okay.
He got hit with a puck in the freaking head!
“Luns,” he says.
And there are stitches in his cheek, a neat line of them bisecting all of that black and blue and purple.
“Luns,”he says again.
I blink.
Realize that he’s holding his hand out. “Come here, sweetheart.”
Only, my feet can’t move. They’re glued to the floor and something trails through his expression when he seems to realize that. “Am I good?”
My eyebrows drag together because that doesn’t make sense.
He’s not good—he has a honking bruise on his face and stitches holding his skin together and he got hit in the freaking head with a freaking puck and?—
“You’re good,” I hear the other man say—the one who must be the team’s doctor, orDocas Smitty referred to him.
Doctor or not, I open my mouth to remind them both that Aiden isnotgood.
