“Dash!” I shouted.
I didn’t know if he heard me over the din. Didn’t know if it was my intervention that brought him back to earth, but he stopped.
The conversation between Dash and the trainer was wordless and brief. The trainer nodded. Dash let go, patting the guy’s shoulder. I scrambled to my feet. Grimacing, Dash slid down to the ground and toward me.
“Are you all right?” he asked, left hand out.
“I’m fine.” I took his hand but didn’t use it to steady myself. I was pretty sure he shouldn’t have even been standing.
I turned toward the cameras, shielding my eyes, and when I turned back, his lips were on mine. I took a breath of surprise then put my hands on his cheeks and kissed him back. The skin of the world sloughed off, and he and I were connected at the core, where everything was quiet but for the beating of our hearts.
“I didn’t know what happened,” he said. “I hated that I couldn’t go find you. I saw a life in front of me where I couldn’t love you, and I knew I’d never be happy again.”
I must have squeaked, but I couldn’t hear it. I only felt the sides of my throat stick together and release. In ten words, he’d wiped away all my worry, all my fear, and embraced me for who I was. Even if his career was over that night, he was still with me.
“You need a goddamned doctor,” the old trainer interjected, yanking me out of my reverie. “Get in.”
But Dash wouldn’t listen. He looked at me as if seeing me for the first time, exploring me with his eyes. There was noise everywhere, questions being shouted at him, unnatural lights blasting his face white on one side.
“This arm’s not going to keep me from fucking you so hard—”
“Stop. Before I blush in front of all these cameras.”
He brought his gaze back to me. “I love you. I’ve never loved another woman. I was waiting for you, and I didn’t even know.”
Angry car horns from far away. The night birds of Elysian park. The whoop of the siren. None were as loud as his words. None came close to shaking my heart the way he just had. I felt grounded and ready to take off for the moon at the same time.
“Can you kiss me before I cry?”
He did, right in front of the news cameras as if he didn’t care anymore. As if I’d taken away a measure of his fear. He held me with one arm, and I pulled away.
“We have to get that arm looked at.” I stepped back.
The space in front of the ambulance had cleared, and fans were leaning out of their windows, hooting and hollering encouragement. I was mentally ready to go back to my car and meet him at the hospital, but Dash pushed me toward the ambulance, and one of the younger trainers grabbed my bicep and pulled me in. The doors slammed shut behind us, and in an instant, I was caught up in the bright lights and sounds.
The trainers pushed him to sit on the gurney, but he was smiling. Even when the trainer pressed his arm and his face contorted in pain, he polished it off with a smile.
“What are you so happy about?” I said, sitting as far out of the way as possible in the crowded ambulance.
“Nothing. Except that you’re all right.”
“I’m fine. I saw the way you fell.”
“Just a flesh wound.” His head twitched, and his brows furrowed as if he’d thought of something. “You saw it? Were you there?”
“I was in Sequoia with a student. She went into diabetic shock in my library.”
“Can’t have that.”
I wanted to hug him but couldn’t. He had three men around him, whispering things I couldn’t understand. His body was so lucrative to so many people and so precious to me. I needed to be there, yet I felt as though I was in the way.
When it got silent and we were only waiting for the space between the stadium and the hospital to fold and disappear, I took my Kindle from my bag.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
“I started Reaper’s Weekend. It’s not bad. Guy’s kind of a jerk.”
“Can I see?”
I scooted close to him and handed him the device. A second passed as he glanced at the screen. The room clattered and rocked.
“Read with me,” he said.
I remembered. He read when he was overwhelmed. It calmed him.
In the minutes I’d spent back there in front of the cameras and feeling like an interloper, I hadn’t seen in his eyes what I saw then. He was broken and in pain, yet those things were nothing compared to the panic he held low in his gut. He was worried about his arm, his career, the one thing he’d ever loved.
“Excuse me,” I said to the trainer next to me before I got up.
Crouching under swinging instruments and wires, I crossed to Dash’s left side. I sat next to him as close as I could.
He put the device on his lap, and we read together.
fifty-eight
Dash