All Chapters of The NHL Captain's Fake Girlfriend : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

ELARA.Noah’s hand closed around my elbow. “Go wait in the car.”I pulled free. The fluorescent lights above the bay made every bruise on Kyle’s face look worse. Mr. Stevens still stood at the head of the bed. Jessica’s fingers were still wrapped around Kyle’s limp hand as if she had any right to them.“No,” I said. “I need to make sure he’s okay.”“Elara—”“I’m not leaving him because of his dad.” My voice stayed low, but it shook. Every second I stayed felt like trespassing. Every second I considered walking away felt like abandoning him while he couldn’t open his eyes to stop me.June stepped in, softer than Noah, keys still dangling from one finger. “I’ll stay. I’ll make sure he’s good. The second he opens his eyes or the doctors say anything new, I’ll call you. Just… give it a minute. His dad’s not going to let you breathe in here right now.”I looked at Kyle’s swollen face. The bandage wrapping one side of his head. The slow, steady beep of the monitor that somehow sounded too f

KYLE.Pain arrived before consciousness did.It came in layers, first the dull, heavy throb along the left side of my skull, like someone had taken a puck and driven it repeatedly into the same spot, then the sharper protest every time my ribs expanded against whatever was wrapped around them, then the raw heat across my knuckles where the skin had split and re-split and split again. Somewhere underneath all of it a monitor beeped in a steady, indifferent rhythm that didn’t care whether I lived or died. The air smelled like antiseptic and stale coffee and the particular recycled cold of a hospital that had been recirculating the same filtered oxygen for hours.I opened my eyes.The ceiling was white and too bright. For several long seconds the room refused to hold still, the edges swam and doubled before they finally sharpened into something I could make out. A window with the blinds half-drawn, a second chair near the wall empty, a door with a narrow glass panel and the weight of a

KYLE.I came out of the hospital building into air that felt too thin and too bright after the recycled cold of the corridors.The gown still gaped open at the back. Somebody—June, probably, in the elevator while I was still arguing with the nurse in my head—had shoved a pair of cheap slide sandals at me and thrown a dark hoodie over my shoulders that smelled like the back seat of his car and old gym bags. My ribs screamed every time I pulled in anything deeper than a shallow breath. The left side of my skull throbbed in a slow, sick rhythm that made the white hospital sign above the entrance smear at the edges every time I turned my head too fast.“Where’s the car?” I asked, eyebrows raising.June stopped beside me on the curb, already scanning the lot with the focused look he usually reserved for reading a defense on the ice. “Noah took it. He left the second they put the cuffs on Elara—said he was going straight to the precinct so she wouldn’t be sitting there alone with no one in

KYLE.Julian didn’t stop crying for a long time.I stood in the doorway with one hand on the frame because I still didn’t trust my legs and watched him fall apart over a body that wore his face. June hadn’t moved either. The borrowed hoodie hung open over the hospital gown. Eventually the sound coming out of Julian broke into smaller pieces. He sat back on his heels, palms open on his thighs, staring at nothing.“We need to call someone.” I said finally, breaking the silence.June’s head turned. “Kyle—”“There’s a body, June.” I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t have the strength for it. “We can’t walk out and just pretend that we were never here.”Julian wiped his face with the inside of his wrist and left a smear of his brother’s blood near his cheekbone without noticing. “Jill,” he said softly, his empty gaze focusing on us. “He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be in Portland until next month.”“Who would do this?” June asked.Julian shook his head repeatedly. “I don

KYLE.Time in a police lobby didn’t move like time anywhere else.I sat in the plastic chair until my ribs forced me to shift, then stood, then sat again. June watched me every time like he was counting the odds of me hitting the floor and already planning how to catch me.Iris had worn a path between the chairs and the bulletin. “She’s been back there almost three hours,” Iris said, not to anyone in particular. “Three hours for something she didn’t do.”“They’re waiting on something,” Noah said. “Or someone.”“They’re waiting to see if the story holds,” June added. “If those guys keep pointing at her, they keep her. If the story starts falling apart, they cut her loose before they look stupid.”I didn’t answer, talking cost focus and focus was the only thing keeping the lights from turning into a white smear across the middle of my vision.Iris stopped pacing and looked at me. “Your father left here looking satisfied, that doesn’t sit right with me.”“It shouldn’t,” I said.“You thin