“Can we get hot chocolate?” Giuliana looks at me with those big, round, puppy dog eyes, the same exact ones her father has, and she knows I can’t say no—to her or hot chocolate.
“Of course. We’ll have to leave the hospital to get the good stuff though. You okay with that?”
“Sure.” She places her tiny hand on her father’s chest. “Daddy, we’re going to get some hot chocolate. Do you want some too? We’ll be right back, so don’t worry. We won’t be gone too long.”
Tears sting the backs of my eyes as I lift her into my arms, and carry her out of the room. Aarya is asleep on the cot in the corner, so I shoot her a text to let her know where we are in case she wakes up.
“Can we invite Presley and Chance?” Giuliana asks. “I want to play with Alyssa and Avery.”
“Uh, I’m not sure, kid.” I contemplate the right words to say. Sure, she’s only four, so I could easily lie. But she’s intelligent and intuitive, so it feels wrong to lie to her.
“Are they busy?”
The elevator door dings and we step inside. “Well, the truth is, I’m not speaking to Chance right now. But I can ask Presley if you can have a play date with the kids one day soon.”
Her eyebrows furrow. “Why aren’t you talking to Chance? Did you get into a fight?”
I blow out a sigh as I carry her into the lobby of the hospital. Fuck it. I’m going for honesty. “You know how your dad got hurt during a hockey game?”
She nods.
“Chance was one of the players on the other team who hurt him.”
She stares at me, and I can see the wheels in her head spinning. “He hurt him on purpose?”
I don’t know how to answer this question. It feels wrong to say yes, and it feels wrong to say no. I’ve been going over it in my head like I’m riding a merry-go-round made of knives, trying to understand why Chance had any part in this.
“It’s hard to say what really happened. I don’t...I don’t know if Chance tried to hurt Daddy on purpose, but he wasn’t playing safely, and in the end, Daddy got hurt.”
“Daddy always says hockey is a dangerous sport.” Her eyes widen. “Did you know they’re allowed to punch each other, and nobody stops them?”
I chuckle. “Yes. It’s crazy, right?”
She nods. “I think it was an accident. Nobody would want to hurt Daddy on purpose. He’s so kind, and he’s a great hockey player. Plus, Chance loves you. So, he wouldn’t want to hurt your friend.”
I hug her tightly to my body before setting her down on the sidewalk outside. “You’re probably right.”
My heart says she is, but my mind can’t get over the fact that Chance and Ivanov are known for being overly aggressive. We know accidents happen on the ice all the time, and we’ve each had our own share of scares. In this season alone, I’ve watched both Trenton and Jason end up getting hauled off the ice.
But nothing of this magnitude.
I wish it were me. I wish I could switch places with Alexander. I feel guilty that I wasn’t able to protect him, to stop Ivanov from getting to him. I was too wrapped up in Chance, too focused on the wrong things. My head wasn’t completely in the game, and I fucked up.
“My teacher said that sometimes people do things that they don’t mean to do.” She looks up at me as we walk hand-in-hand down the block, her curls bouncing around her shoulders. “There’s this boy in my class, Marcus, and he hits the other kids.”
I arch a brow. “Has he ever hit you?”
“No, but he hit my friends. Miss Kelly asked him why he hit them, and he said he didn’t know. Then she had to explain it to us, and she said that sometimes people do things without thinking.” Her eyes narrow. “Isn’t your brain always thinking?”
“It is, but some people are impulsive. That means their brain reacts before their mind can catch up to it. That’s probably why Marcus hits, because he gets angry and his brain makes his body react before his brain can think rationally.”
She’s quiet as she thinks on it for a moment. “So, maybe Chance’s brain didn’t tell him to stop before he hurt Daddy. Maybe he was beingim-plus-ive.”
I toss my head back and laugh. “Impulsive.”
“Yeah, that.”
I suck in a lungful of air, and feel a little bit lighter when I exhale. “I love you, kid. You know that, right?”