“Thanks guys,” she whispers hoarsely. “...stick with the team, the game...”
Killian shakes his head. “Forget the game, Dylan. You’re all that matters right now.”
Noah stays close, carefully watching her face for any flicker of pain. I know how hard this is for him. For all of us.
At the hospital, they swiftly wheel Dylan into the emergency room, a team of doctors and nurses swarming around her.
Noah, Killian and I sink into the waiting room chairs, shell-shocked. Noah stares blankly at the wall, jaw clenched. Killian paces restlessly, running his hands through his hair.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, and drop my head into my hands.
“If anyone can pull through this, it’s Dylan,” I say, my voice hollow. “But seeing her like this...it’s unbearable.”
Noah’s expression is grim. “She’ll pull through,” he says, almost like he’s trying to convince himself. “She has to.”
After what feels like an eternity, a doctor finally emerges. His face is grave as he explains the severity of Dylan’s neck injury and what it could mean for her mobility, her career.
My heart drops into my stomach. Beside me, Noah goes pale.
“Her rugby career,” I say in dismay. “Everything she’s worked for...could it really all end like this?”
The doctor holds up a hand. “It’s still too early to say. The next few hours are critical. We’ll know more then.”
With that, he turns and heads back through the double doors, leaving the three of us suspended in agonizing uncertainty.
Chapter 51
Noah
Watchingherlyingthere,she’s a dichotomy.
I’ve never met someone so small, yet so fierce. So feisty yet so level-headed when she needs to control her team.
And it’s only now that I realize how much she’s changed me.
At first, the attention from fangirls was flattering. I ate it up, not ever giving a care that it wasn’t my intellect and witty personality that was keeping these girls fluttering around me.
I let my ego do its thing, allowing myself to be stroked by these people both figuratively and literally.
But now, I see these interactions for what they were. Empty, hollow, vapid. Little fruit flies flitting around what they perceive to be a future pay day. Professional rugby comes with money, and they know that. It also comes with a certain level of notoriety and fame, and they’re attracted to that. Tothat. Not to me. To people like them, rugby players are as interchangeable as a spare tire.
But then there’s Dylan. Talented in her own right. Someone who has fought hard to be where she is. Who has shown resilience and persistence and tenacity, even in the face of challenges where most people would have thrown their hands up in the air and given up on their dreams.
She doesn’t dwell on the people that wronged her, or the things that haven’t gone her way. She’s human enough to acknowledge they’ve occurred, of course, but that woman gets up every goddamn day and takes life by the balls harder than many people ever will.
The fact that she’s so goddamn gorgeous is just icing on the cake.
So, while sharing a woman with multiple other men—let alone my teammates—would ordinarily feel so very wrong, with Dylan, it feels right.
Staring down at her sleeping form bubbles up so many emotions. Regret for all the things I didn’t say, for my resistance to everything since the first day she got here. Resistance to letting myself to feel all that simmered just below the surface. Allowing my doubts and past hurts to cloud my judgements, even though none of those things were Dylan’s fault and happened long before I even knew she existed.
That all changes today. Right fucking now. Because she’s mine. Ours. And if anybody so much as looks at her in the wrong way, they’re dead.
And if—when—she wakes up and decides she wants to get back on her feet and pursue her professional rugby career? We’ll all be there, in the front row, cheering her along all of the way.
Proud.
Because that’s how you treat a queen.