Chapter 78: The Waiting

CASSIAN’S POV

I had stopped checking my phone after the sixth buzz.

After that, it was just noise.

Messages kept coming anyway, teammates; Danton, Raffi, my mother, Luka. Two numbers I did not recognize, one from a reporter I definitely ignored.

I sat on the locker room bench with my elbows on my knees and stared at the floor like it could give me something useful.

It did not.

The room was almost empty now. Most of the guys had already left or moved on to media, treatment, or whatever part of the night they could still control. One of the assistants had checked on me twice, the trainer had asked if I needed anything, I had said no both times.

I did not need water.

I did not need ice.

I did not need a lecture.

I needed Torin.

That was the part I kept coming back to.

He had gone down in front of me on the ice and the whole world had narrowed to the shape of his body on the ice, the sight of the trainers skating hard toward him, the way my heart had felt like it had stopped and never properly restarted. They had gotten him off, they had taken him away, I had not been able to follow.

The worst part was waiting.

Waiting was worse than the hit, worse than the whistle, worse than the way the game had kept going with me standing in the middle of it like I was only half there.

My phone buzzed again.

I looked down.

Raffi: You okay?

I did not answer.

Another buzz.

Danton: He is in treatment, you need to be strong for him.

My knee bounced once and then kept going. I hated that I could not stop it, I hated that I could still hear the last sound Torin had made when the trainers helped him off, the tight little breath he had tried to turn into nothing. I hated that I had not been able to get to him faster, I also hated the way his face had gone white on the ice when the injury hit.

Then another message came in.

I leaned forward again and put my hands over my face. The room felt too hot, too quiet, too full of the things I did not want to think about. Every time I shut my eyes, I saw Torin going down. Every time I opened them, I saw the empty bench where he should have been. I kept telling myself that if it had been worse, someone would have come to tell me. That did not help as much as I wanted it to.

The door finally opened.

I was on my feet before I thought about it.

My chest tightened so hard I had to take one breath before I could speak.

Torin stood in the doorway.

He was limping.

One trainer was with him, one hand still hovering near his back like he expected Torin to wobble. Torin’s face was tight, his hair damp with sweat, his jersey half untucked, the look on his face somewhere between exhausted and annoyed.

I stared.

“What,” I said, and my voice came out rougher than I meant, “happened?”

The trainer glanced between us, clearly deciding this was his cue to disappear. He backed out immediately and shut the door behind him.

Torin took a breath, braced a hand on the back of the nearest stall, then looked at me.

“Sprain,” he said.

My heart dropped all over again.

He kept going before I could do anything stupid. “Not a tear.”

I just stared at him.

His mouth tightened slightly. “I will be out for the rest of the series.”

For a second I did not know what I was feeling first.

Relief.

Fear.

Anger.

All of it hit at once.

My face must have given me away because Torin’s expression shifted immediately.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I am so sorry.”

That was the wrong thing to say and he knew it the second it left his mouth.

I crossed the room in three strides and caught him by the front of the jersey before he could say anything else.

“Do not,” I said.

He went still in my hands.

I shook my head once, feeling my own voice break around the edges. “Do not apologize.”

His eyes stayed on mine.

I could see the pain there now that I was close enough to read it properly. Not just the physical kind, the kind that came from a player who knew exactly what being out meant at this stage. The kind that came from Torin, who had spent months trying to keep going through a body that kept asking for rest and never getting any of it.

He looked tired enough to fall asleep standing up, he also looked like he was trying not to let me see how much this had hit him.

It hit me harder.

I pulled him in before I could stop myself, one hand at the back of his neck, the other still fisted in his jersey.

I heard my own voice crack when I spoke. “Just be okay.”

His hands settled at my back, warm through my shirt.

I shut my eyes briefly because I could not handle the sight of his face in that moment without losing my grip on myself.

“Just be okay,” I said again, quieter this time. “That is all I need.”

The room was very still.

Torin’s hand moved once between my shoulder blades, a slow, steady pressure that grounded me enough to keep me upright. I could feel the tension in him through the contact, the fatigue, the pain he was still trying to outrun even after it had been made official.

When I opened my eyes, he was looking at me.

“I am okay,” he said.

I looked at him hard. “Do not lie to me.”

He gave the smallest breath of a laugh. It sounded rough. “I am not lying.”

“You are limping.”

“Yes.”

“That is not okay.”

His mouth twitched, just a little. The sight of it nearly did me in because it meant he was trying, even now, to keep this from turning into something worse between us.

“I said I was okay,” he told me. “I did not say I was comfortable.”

I let out a breath that was almost a laugh and almost not.

I looked him over properly then.

His shoulder was tense. His weight was shifted off one side. He had a hand braced lightly on the stall behind him like he was not fully trusting the leg yet.

“You scared the hell out of me,” I said.

His eyes softened.

“I know,” he said.

I held his gaze.

He kept going, voice lower now. “I did not mean to.”

I stepped in closer. “I know that too.”

I could still feel the adrenaline from the game. The fear from the ice. The relief from hearing that it was a sprain and not a tear. All of it lived in the space where his body was against mine.

He tilted his head slightly and looked at me like he knew exactly what he was doing to my pulse.

I stared back at him.

“You should sit down,” I said.

He gave me a look. “You are sounding like the trainer.”

“You are hurt.”

“I know.”

“Then sit.”

He almost smiled, and it annoyed me how much that helped. “You are bossy.”

“I am worried.”

That took the smile out of him.

He looked at me for a second longer, then let me guide him back to the bench. He sat with visible care, one hand braced on the edge, the other still linked with mine for half a beat before I had to let go and step back just enough to see him properly.

The room had gotten quieter around us, even though I could still hear the arena beyond the walls.

Torin looked up at me from the bench.

I saw the pain in him again, but also the stubbornness. That same look he wore on the ice when he was refusing to let the body part that hurt tell him what the night was going to be.

“I am not out yet,” he said.

I stared at him.

He held my gaze, calm on the outside and clearly not calm underneath it. “I will be out for the series, not the season.”

I nodded once, too relieved to bother pretending otherwise.

He saw that too.

His mouth softened just a little. “There you are.”

I frowned, though it did not last. “What?”

“That face.” He tipped his head. “The one you make when you are trying not to show relief.”

I let out a breath through my nose. “Do not start.”

“I am not starting anything.”

“You are absolutely starting something.”

He leaned back slightly against the bench, careful with the knee, and looked at me with that same steady heat he always carried when he was half exhausted and still somehow managing to be infuriatingly attractive. “You look like you want to kiss me.”

I stared at him.

The room got very still after that.

I should have denied it. I did not.

“Maybe I do,” I said quietly.

That did it.

He stood only halfway before stopping himself, then looked at me with a small, tired smile that I felt all the way through my chest.

I crossed the space again before I thought better of it and kissed him.

His hand came up to the back of my neck automatically, fingers curling there with a kind of quiet desperation that made my own hands tighten at his waist. The kiss lasted only a second before I pulled back, but it did exactly what I wanted it to do. It steadied both of us.

When I opened my eyes, he was still looking at me.

I rested my forehead against his for a beat and held on.

“Be okay,” I murmured.

He laughed softly once, tired and warm, and the sound made me want to kiss him again.

“I am okay,” he said.

I closed my eyes for a second and breathed him in.

Then I nodded. “Good.”

I pulled back just far enough to look at him.

He looked wrecked and tired.

But he was okay, to some extent.

That was all I needed to know to breathe again.