Page 136 of Unmanageable

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At 5:00 AM, the facility is at its darkest, that pre-dawn hour where everything feels like it’s held together by threads.

Despite the hour, the room feels full of light.

The boys are scattered across the floor on blankets they “borrowed” from the linen closet.

Nico is sound asleep with his head resting on a half-empty bag of donuts. Leo is staring at the ceiling, whispering power-play stats to himself like a holy prayer. Noah is sitting cross-legged near the wall, methodically checking the hospital WiFi speed on his phone just to have something to do with his hands.

Cash has let go of his father’s hand long enough to lean back in his chair, though his other arm is still clamped tightly around my waist, pulling me flush against his side. His thumb traces the seam of my sweatshirt in a fast, restless motion.

“I can’t believe they all came,” he whispers. “They have practice in five hours.”

“I can believe it,” I say, leaning my head against his temple. “You’re the anchor, Finny. When the anchor drags, the whole ship moves to find it.”

He stops the moving thumb, burying his hand into the fabric of my clothes, pulling me even tighter if that’s even possible.

“I didn’t know how to tell them, Scottie,” he murmurs. “I didn’t know how to say it out loud. If I said it out loud, it made it real.”

“You don’t have to explain it,” I tell him softly. “They don’t care about the secret. Look at them. They just care about you.”

He shifts, his forehead coming to rest against my neck, hiding himself away from the room for just a second. “Thank God I have you, my Scottie-girl. Don’t leave this chair.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, wrapping both of my arms around his neck, holding him right back. “I’m right here. I’m staying.”

A minute later I hear Cash saying my name, confused.

“Yeah?”

“Nico is currently wearing a stethoscope. Is that a problem?”

I look over.

Nico has indeed woken up and found a stethoscope, and is currently “listening” to a box of leftover pepperoni pizza with a look of intense, grim concentration.

“I’m detecting a very weak pepperoni pulse,” he whispers solemnly to a sleeping Brick. “The crust is failing. We might be too late to save the rangoon.”

“I’ll handle it,” I sigh, though I don’t move. I can’t move. I’m pinned to the spot by the weight of a man I love and the sheer, ridiculous, unshakeable loyalty of the family we’ve built out of scandals and saves.

Suddenly, Cash’s dad stirs.

His eyes flutter open, cloudy and distant, but for a second, they sharpen. He looks around the room—at the pizza boxes, the giant men sleeping on his floor like oversized dogs, and finally, his gaze settles on Cash.

“Finn?” he asks. His voice is clearer than it was three hours ago, the fog momentarily lifting like a curtain.

“I’m here, Dad. Right here.”

The old man looks at the chaos, then at me, then back at his son. A tiny, mischievous glint appears in his eyes—the exact same glint Cash gets right before he does something monumentally stupid.

“Who are all these… incredibly loud people?” he whispers.

Cash laughs—a wet, beautiful, relieved sound that fills the sterile room. “These are my friends, Dad. They’re… they’re the family.”

His dad nods, his gaze landing back on Nico.

“That one,” he points a shaking finger, “that one is definitely a defenseman. You can tell by the forehead. Built like a brick wall, that one. No brains, all shoulders.”

The room erupts in quiet, smothered laughter from the guys who were pretending to sleep.