Chapter 65: The Injury Scare

The worst part was how fast it happened.

One second Cassian was cutting through the slot, stick down, eyes on the puck. The next, a defenseman caught him wrong along the boards and his body hit the ice hard enough to make me stop breathing.

I saw him go down.

I saw the way he crumpled.

I saw the trainer’s gloves already off before he’d even finished sliding.

The building did not go quiet, the crowd kept roaring, the puck kept moving, the game kept going, and for one terrible second none of it made sense to me anymore.

“Cassian!”

I did not know if I’d said it out loud.

I was already moving before I could think. The ref was waving off the stoppage at first, then the trainers were on the ice, then the other bench started shouting, and all I could see was Cassian down near the boards with one arm tight against himself and his helmet twisted wrong.

My chest went hard.

I watched the trainer crouch beside him, I watched nothing happen for one sickening beat too long.

Then he moved.

I felt it in my ribs.

Cassian got to his skates on his own.

Raffi skated by me and muttered, “He is okay.”

I nodded once, but I did not trust it.

The rest of the game passed in a blur I barely registered. I kept looking for Cassian every time the line changed. He did not come back.

We won.

I remember that much, I remember skating the line because I had to. I remember the applause and the noise and the way my body stayed too tight for any of it to matter.

The second I got off the ice, I asked, “Where is he?”

Danton was there, towel over his shoulder, expression already wary because he knew exactly what I was asking.

“Trainer’s room,” he said.

I did not wait for anything else.

I tore through the hallway with my gloves still on and my jaw clenched so hard my teeth hurt. The trainer’s room was at the far end of the corridor, and by the time I got there, I was one bad breath away from knocking the door down.

I opened it and stopped.

Cassian was sitting on the bench in his undershirt, one knee bent, a wrap around his shoulder, hair damp with sweat and tape marks still on his wrists. He looked tired enough to make my stomach loosen and knot at the same time.

He looked up when I came in.

The trainer glanced between us like he had already predicted this exact moment and was choosing not to comment on it.

I shut the door behind me.

Cassian’s mouth twitched. “You look angry.”

I stared at him. “Don’t ever do that again.”

The trainer shifted toward the counter and suddenly found a clipboard very interesting.

Cassian leaned back a little on the bench and let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh. “I did not do it on purpose.”

“I know that.”

“Then why are you glaring at me like I tried to ruin your life?”

I took two steps closer. “Because for one second I did not know if you were getting back up.”

His expression changed at once.

The joke left his face.

I heard myself keep going, quieter now but no less sharp. “I saw you hit the ice and you just stayed there.”

“I was checking myself.”

“I know.” My voice cracked at the edge of the word, which made me furious enough to hate the sound of it. “I know that. But I could not tell if you were checking yourself or if something was wrong and nobody was saying it yet.”

Cassian’s eyes stayed on mine.

The trainer coughed softly and pretended to keep working.

I dragged a hand over my mouth, then back down. “I can handle a lot of things.”

He did not interrupt.

I looked at him hard. “I cannot handle watching you go down and not knowing if you were getting back up.”

That landed between us like a hit I had not prepared to take.

Cassian’s face softened in a way that made me want to step in, pull him up, and hold him there until the room stopped spinning. Instead I stayed where I was because I was still too angry and too shaken to trust myself with too much closeness all at once.

He leaned forward slightly. “Tor.”

I kept my jaw tight.

He looked at me for another second, then said, quieter, “I am okay.”

I laughed once, short and brittle. “That is not the point.”

“It is kind of the point.”

“No.” I took another step toward him, then stopped because I was suddenly too aware of the trainer in the room and the fact that none of this was private enough for the way I felt.

He stood up slowly, careful with the shoulder, and the room seemed to hold its breath with him. His body was still warm from the game, skin flushed, hair damp at the temples, and the sight of him standing there on his own feet did more to settle me than anything else had so far.

He looked at me and said, “Come here.”

I should have argued.

I did not.

The trainer very suddenly became the most invisible man in the room. I crossed the space between us in three steps, and Cassian reached for me before I even finished stopping. One hand on my chest, the other brushing my arm. He searched my face like he was checking the damage I would not admit to.

“You scared yourself,” he said softly.

I looked at him. “You are not supposed to be the calm one.”

He gave a tired, almost crooked smile. “I know.”

His fingers tightened once against my shirt, and I felt the tension in my own body shift just enough to be dangerous.

I looked down at the wrap on his shoulder. “How bad?”

Cassian glanced at it, then back at me. “A lot less bad than you are acting.”

That was almost enough to make me smile despite everything.

The trainer finally said, “He took a hard hit. No fracture. No concussion symptoms. We are checking the shoulder, but he walked off, which is good.”

I nodded once, though my eyes never left Cassian.

The trainer added, “If there is lingering pain tonight, we will ice it and reassess tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said.

Cassian’s mouth twitched. “You sound like a very tense husband.”

That pulled a startled breath out of me.

The trainer made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a choke and immediately turned his back to us.

I looked at Cassian. “That was not funny.”

“It was a little funny.”

“You are unbelievable.”

“Yet here you are.”

I stared at him for a second, then let out a breath I had been holding too long. The anger was still there, but it had lost its sharpest edge. Underneath it was everything else I had not wanted to feel in front of everyone else. Relief. Fear. The ugly, immediate need to keep him safe that came from loving somebody in a public world that kept trying to prove it could take things away.

Cassian noticed the shift.

His expression softened. “I am right here.”

I looked at him and heard the roughness in my own voice when I spoke. “I know.”

“You are still mad,” he said.

“Yes.”

“But you are calmer.”

I gave him a look. “Do not sound pleased about that.”

His mouth curved. “I am always pleased when you come find me.”

That one hit harder than it should have.

I stepped in closer because I could not help it. His hand slid from my chest to my shoulder, careful around the taped place where he had been hit. He was watching me with that same steady, direct look he used when he was trying to make me stop thinking too much.

“I meant it,” I said.

He did not ask what I meant. He knew.

Cassian’s expression changed again, softer now. “I know.”

I looked at him. “You cannot keep doing that to me.”

His brow lifted slightly. “Getting hit by large men for a living?”

“Do not make this easier than it is.”

He let out a quiet breath through his nose, then reached up and hooked a finger lightly into the collar of my practice shirt, pulling me closer by the smallest amount.

He leaned in until his forehead brushed mine.

Cassian spoke softly against my skin. “I am okay.”

I closed my eyes for a second and let that sink in.

“I am right here,” he said again.

I put my hand at the back of his neck and held on, just enough to make him steady under my palm. “Do not scare me like that again.”

His mouth tilted faintly. “I will do my best.”

“The trainer cleared his throat and said, very loudly and very intentionally, “I am going to go check the ice machine.”

He lifted his head and looked at me.

I could still see the bruise of fear on both of us, the edge of the game, the hit, the moment he hit the ice and the world seemed to stop.

I kissed his forehead first.

Then I said, “Do not ever do that to me again.”

He gave me a tired smile, one that carried both apology and something softer. “I did not do it on purpose.”

“I know.”

“I am still here.”

I held him like I meant it.

The room around us stayed busy in the background, none of it mattered yet.

What mattered was that he was here.