Page 5 of Elite Player
“Oh my god. I’m so, so,sosorry,” he says, bypassing the nurse to come right up to the side of my hospital bed. He raises his hands as if to touch me but winces and lowers them. “I feel terrible.”
“I’m fine.”
He ignores that and coasts his gaze around the room. “I’m glad you got all this, but I didn’t know what your favorite food is. Otherwise, I would’ve ordered you dinner.” He pulls his cell phone from his pocket, looking at me expectantly. “Can I do that now?”
“Really, I’m fine. You don’t need to order me food.”
He shakes his head as if mentally reprimanding himself then pockets his phone and helps himself to taking a seat in the chair he drags over before letting his eyes roam the length of me, covered by the hospital sheet. The man is a knownwomanizer, and even though he’s clearly studying me for evidence of bumps and scrapes, I’m not immune to his natural charisma.
His eyes are blue like a spring day, while his jaw is cut like winter ice. Despite how his mouth is pinched with tension, it’s still a perfect complement to his nose that is wide in the middle and slightly off-center, like it was broken at some point in his past. His skin is permanently tanned, and his shaggy blond hair is the perfect amount of sun-kissed gold. He’s a young Robert Redford, if the actor ever played a professional hockey player, and once posted a naked picture of himself on his Instagram with his hockey-gloved hand covering his junk. I don’t know what it is about the mix of sex appeal and goofy idiot that has women falling at his feet, but he is irresistible.
Even to me.
The woman he doesn’t know, save for the whole puck-to-the-head fiasco.
“So, JoAnn, what’s the prognosis?”
“Josephine,” I correct.
He frowns. “What’s that? A type of disease?”
I inwardly groan as I rest my head back against the pillow and close my eyes for a moment. From experience, I know hockey players don’t only have dust mites and hockey slang between their ears. Iknowit. And yet…
Here he is, asking if I’m adisease.
“That’s my name. Josephine. Not JoAnn.”
“Oh shit.” He thrusts his fingers through his golden locks, sweeping them off his forehead. “You probably think I’m such an asshole. I am. First, I knock you out. Then, I don’t even know your name. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I mumble.
“It’s not. It’s really not. I’m gonna make this up to you.”
“You’ve done enough.” I gesture to everything around the room. “I don’t need anything else.”
He swipes his hand through the air. “I’ve got the hospitalbills covered. Okay? Don’t worry about that. And anything else you need, something at home, whatever, I’ll take care of it.”
I saw my teeth into my lower lip, and I notice his gaze dips, following the motion, so I immediately stop and pull my legs up, as if that’ll conceal me. Shield me from his attention.
I feel naked. I always do without my camera, but being the only person in this little room with Nico’s huge personality feels stifling. It must be all the anxiety he’s causing me that I reveal, “It’s my camera I’m worried about.”
“Your camera?”
He waits while I consider what to tell him. “I broke it when I fell. It was mine. The team pays for Sean’s equipment, but?—”
“Sean the photographer?”
I nod. Sean is one of two full-time Iron photographers, and at the beginning of every season, each player gets seated in a studio for photos, and since the photographers are the ones there, directing it all, the players are all familiar with them. I’m merely Sean’s assistant, meant to be unseen and unheard.
Welp…
I was seen and heard today.
“I was using my own camera,” I explain then tip my chin over to the baggie my now-busted camera has been put in. Nico immediately takes out his phone and starts typing, asking for the information about the camera so he can replace it.
“You don’t need to do that,” I say, but that really is the one thing I care about. It’s just a reflexive notion that I should stay unseen and unheard.
“I told you, I’m gonna make this up to you. Whatever you need, I’ll take care of it.” He hits me with that blue steel, and I’m unable to do anything except nod.
