Page 191 of Slashed Bonds

Cold air. Dishwater light. And Maddie, in all her pink glory, with the comforter in one fist and the expression of a woman who has run out of tolerance for my bullshit and is prepared to say so.

“Get the fuck up. Showered. Decent-looking. Or I’m kidnapping Knox and I’m not returning him.”

I roll my eyes.

Then I roll the rest of me. Slowly, like a log in a river, onto my other side, until my back’s to her and my face is at the wall.

“Take him. He loves you.”

“BITCH.” Louder. “That dog is my ENEMY. He will destroy every pink thing I own. My furniture is not an endless supply of dog toys, Mori, it is FURNITURE.”

“Tough luck.”

“This bitch.”

And then she’s shaking me. Both hands on my shoulder through the comforter, rocking me back and forth like she’s trying to start an engine.

“Get. The fuck. UP.”

I ignore her.

Not because she’s wrong. That’s the thing I’d admit if admitting were an option. Going out would be good for me. I need air that hasn’t been through a radiator. I need to see a sky that isn’t a window. I need, probably, to stand up.

The guys haven’t been pushing.

That’s the part that’s been getting to me, under the covers, in the dark. They’ve left me alone. Not alone-alone. Alone the way you leave a wounded thing in a den, close enough to hear and far enough not to crowd. Cassian’s been in and out with the tape for the second round, which is next Thursday, a program called Westmere with a big top line and a goalie who cheats glove side, and he’s left the iPad on the lounge with the clips cued and hasn’t asked whether I’ve watched them.

I have. All of them. Westmere’s center drops his left shoulder before he goes to his backhand, every time, and I’d like to tell Cassian that, and I haven’t had the strength to walk to his door.

Their top line’s the problem. Three seniors who’ve played together since they were fifteen, who cycle low in the offensive zone like water going down a drain, and who scored eleven goals in two games on a 1-3-1 almost identical to ours because the high forward kept chasing the puck instead of holding the lane. Cassian’s circled that in red. Hold the lane. Let them cycle. They’ll cough it up on the third pass. The goalie’s a big Alpha with a glove he trusts too much, and he cheats toward it on every low shot from the slot, which leaves a blocker-side hole the width of a puck for anybody willing to shoot where he isn’t.

Blocker. Low. Don’t look at the glove.

I’ve drawn it in the notebook on the lounge. Twice. Lying down, with the pen slipping. Next Thursday feels like a country I used to live in.

I feel bad. I feel like shit, and I feel bad about feeling like shit, which is a loop with no exit.

I haven’t bathed in two days. Maybe three. The days have gone soft at the edges. My hair’s a nest and I can smell myself, and not the way the shower made me smell myself two weeks ago. The other way.

Maybe I am depressed. Maybe this is what it looks like from the inside, and I’ve been calling it withdrawal because withdrawal has an end date.

But.

They make sure I’m cozy. That’s the word Killian used, on the second day, when he came in and put another blanket over the comforter without a word and left. Cozy. There’s always a snack within arm’s reach of the bed. Crackers. Those dried apricots Nikolai found that I ate one of. A cup of something warm that’s replaced when it goes cold whether I touched it or not. Knox is allowed on the bed, which he wasn’t, which means somebody decided the rule mattered less than the dog.

And on the worst day, Monday, when I couldn’t hold my head up, Nikolai sat on the edge of the bed with a bowl of broth and fed me.

Spoon by spoon. His hand under the spoon to catch the drips. Not talking. Looking at me the way he looks at a shooter, patient, reading the next move, and I let him, which surprised me more than him doing it.

Being taken care of. By these men. It’s different. It’s unexpected. And I’m going to admit a thing I’ve never admitted, to the wall, where nobody can hear it.

I like it.

For once in my life, I like being the one who’s looked after.

“Are you two always this loud together?”

I pout.