“Not yet,” Luke says.
We all stand around awkwardly for a few beats, and then Josh breaks the silence. “How long will he be in here?”
“Two to three days,” she says. “The doctors want to make sure there’s no delayed arterial damage.”
“When does PT start?” Josh asks, and I’m glad he’s here to ask questions since I don’t even know where to begin.
“As soon as the swelling goes down and he can stand without significant pain. Two or three weeks probably,” she says.
Luke sighs. I’m sure he already knew that, but two or three weeks of sitting around without bearing weight on his knee must sound horrific for someone as active as he is.
Guess it’s time to load up on movies and snacks.
The nurse heads out, and Josh and Nicki take off when Luke wants to rest. I sit in a chair in the corner and let him sleep while I look up things to do with someone recovering from surgery. Cards, games, puzzles, discovering new music and movies...there’s a list. It’s not endless, but we can certainly check off a few things.
I head down to the cafeteria to get some food, and when I get back to his room, Coach Thompson is standing beside Luke asking questions. I’m not sure whether this is a private conversation and I should stay in the hall, but Luke spots me and waves me in.
“Hi, Coach,” I say as I move into the room.
“Ellie,” he says warmly. “Good to see you again. Luke’s been telling me how wonderful you’ve been, and I can’t thank you enough for taking care of my boy.”
My boy.
His coach is here and his parents aren’t. That says something to me. Mitch seems like more of a father to Luke than Tim is. I know the coaching staff at the Aces is fairly new, but clearly these two share a bond.
“I only wish I could do more,” I say.
“His smile when he looks at you says it all.” He nods briefly at me, like this conversation is getting a little too deep for him, and he turns back to Luke. “I will fight for you with the big guys. You know that, right?”
Luke nods. “I know you will, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. I just have no idea whether I’ll come back from this.”
“You will,” Mitch says confidently. “Stronger than ever, kid. Just keep your eye on the ball. Keep your focus, and work hard to get healthy.”
After Coach leaves, Luke tells me to go home, but I can’t make myself leave.
And so I spend the next two and a half days in a hospital room with my husband.
CHAPTER 6
I texted my mom to let her know that we won’t be able to do dinner with Luke just getting out of the hospital. She understands, but I also have an ulterior motive.
I’m not sure I can face my parents without them figuring out I’m pregnant.
I know my mom will be thrilled, and I’m feeling that excitement edge its way in, too, but I’m just not ready to face all this. We agree to a raincheck, and I think Josh was right when he mentioned in passing that he thinks our parents are probably looking at houses here in Vegas. They’re both retired, and both their kids live in the same place literally across the street from each other while they’re back in Chicago.
The only thing keeping them there is their circle of friends and extended family, but they’re out here for most of Josh’s home games, so it makes sense for them to make the move.
Josh helps me get Luke into the house, and I’ve never been more grateful to have my brother literally across the street.
As the doses of morphine decreased over the last couple days, Luke’s mood worsened. He’s back to lashing out, but I thrive on the little moments when the real him flickers through—though he’s trying his best to convince me that this is the real him, that this is the guy I’ve dubbed my Prince Charming.
It’s late, and we’re both exhausted after sleeping in a hospital for the last few days. We head right to the bedroom we slept in the night before the surgery, and I settle Luke into bed with his leg elevated as the nurse showed me before we left the hospital. I make sure he doesn’t need anything before I hop into the shower.
It’s glorious.
I take my shower upstairs rather than making noise in the bathroom next to where he’s trying to sleep, and when I’m done, I flip through the mail Debbie left on the dresser in the bedroom. No test results just yet. She knew to keep a lookout for the envelope from the LV Paternity Solutions Lab and to text me if it arrived, but I thought maybe she missed it.
Or maybe Michelle got to it first, but we didn’t give her a key to the mailbox, so that’s doubtful.
Exhaustion hits me, and I head back down to sleep beside Luke just in case he needs anything at all. The room is dark, and I creep quietly to the bed before I slide onto cool sheets beneath a warm comforter.
“I didn’t marry Savannah just because I loved her,” Luke says quietly into the dark.
I startle at the sound of his voice. I thought he was asleep. “What?” I’m confused. Maybe he’s been taking painkillers again and he’s confused, too.
“I married her because she knew things and I needed to keep her quiet.”
“Quiet about what?” I ask softly.
He sighs. “My parents have been married for thirty-four years, but that doesn’t mean they set a good example of what a marriage should look like. The Daltons look a certain way. They always have. But nobody knew how my mother manipulated my father. Nobody knew about the whispered arguments between the two of them that all three of us overheard. Nobody knew that they probably would’ve been happier apart, but they stuck together. Maybe they really do love each other. There are moments of tenderness there, I guess, but it seems like the bad tends to outweigh the good.”
He pauses, and I can’t help but wonder how the history of his parents links to why he kept Savannah quiet. But I listen anyway. I wait patiently as he confesses these secrets into the darkness of this room.
I reach over and slide my hand into his. He doesn’t move, doesn’t flex his fingers, doesn’t hold mine back. But I leave mine there anyway, and I tighten my grasp.
“My parents showed me one example, and I followed in their footsteps when Savannah knew things I couldn’t afford for anybody else to know.”
“What things?” I ask.
He’s quiet a beat, but then he starts talking. “When I tore my ACL the first time, I took some drugs Savannah gave me. At the time, we were dating. We were just starting to get serious. Whatever she gave me helped me heal, and nobody could believe how fast my recovery was going. The progress was incredible, and I felt great, so I kept taking them. I increased the dose. I asked her for more, and she gave them to me. And then Jack found the bottle. He confronted me. He told me they were PEDs that were banned by the league. I had no idea they were illegal, but I knew I could get into a hell of a lot of trouble if I was caught.”
“What are PEDs?” I ask stupidly.
“Performance enhancing drugs,” he says. “I stopped taking them as soon as I learned what they were. Savannah claimed she had no idea they were banned, but she’s a sports reporter. She played dumb, and I believed her. She wouldn’t have given them to me on purpose if she knew what it could’ve done to my career. And then a few days later, I was slapped with a random drug test. Hindsight tells me she had something to do with it, but it didn’t matter. There was no way I’d pass. PEDs can linger in your system for up to four weeks, so I was fucked.”