Everything happens really quickly after what feels like hours of waiting. The wail of the sirens and blue flashing lights, police bursting through the front door with their guns raised. I put my hands up and identify myself, indicating that they’ll find the kidnappers in the kitchen. Once I know the police are dealing with Etienne and his mom, I run out into the night to find Lana sitting in the back of the ambulance, one of the paramedics dealing with her cut lip. The other rushes past me into the house, and I almost tell her not to bother.
“Baby, are you okay?” I ask once I get to Lana. She looks tiny sitting on the steps of the ambulance, swamped in my hoodie.
“I’m fine,” she replies, wincing as the medic dabs her cut lip.
“She has a few abrasions, a cut lip and a suspected fractured eye socket, along with lots of bruising,” the medic tells me. “She’s being a trooper, but I will insist on taking her to the hospital to get an X-ray on her cheek.”
Lana growls in disagreement; however, she doesn’t fight it. From the look of her, all the fight has finally drained away. She looks wrecked but definitely not defeated.
My little firecracker.
While she’s being cleaned up by the medic, a cop comes out to take her statement and tell us that Etienne has held his hands up to the accusations. At least the asshole has the decency to do that.
I feel Lana tense next to me as Etienne and his mom are led to the police cruisers in handcuffs, so I gently pull her into my arms and stroke her damp hair. She curses softly under her breath, and I realize I’m holding her a little too tightly, so I loosen up my arms and she snuggles into me.
“We’d appreciate you coming down to the precinct tomorrow just to make sure we have all the information, Miss Landon,” the cop says. “Here’s my card if you think of anything else.”
“Thank you,” Lana replies, taking the card in her shaky hands.
The police begin to leave, and the medics start loading Lana into the back of the ambulance just as I hear the roar of Matt’s Mustang.
“Lana!” he shouts, leaping out of his car, closely followed by Mila, both of them sprinting across the gravel. “What the hell is going on? Why are the police here?”
“I’m fine,” Lana replies, looking tired and drained all of a sudden. I don’t want her to go through what happened tonight with yet another person, but I know better than to get in between the siblings.
“You don’t look fucking fine!” Matt yells. “What happened to your face?” He quickly glares at me, and he’d better not be insinuating that it has anything to do with me.
“I told you all this on the phone,” she says in a quiet voice. “Etienne and his mom are with the police. Everything is okay now. But I have to go to the hospital so could you yell at me there.”
As if her words hit him right in the feels, Matt’s face falls to pieces, and he pulls his sister into a fierce hug.
“I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you, Squirt,” he says into her hair, a tear slipping down his scruffy cheek.
When Matt finally releases her, he swipes at his cheek and allows Mila in for a hug, taking that moment to gesture for me to follow him round the side of the ambulance.
“What the fuck, man?” he growls. “Why are you here with my sister?”
“I was coming to help with her charity dinner,” I reply, flustered by the question. “It’s part of the deal—they get their dessert served by a Whalers player. Good job I came when I did.”
“Yeah, okay,” Matt says, looking at me suspiciously. “Thanks for calling the cops and making sure those scumbags didn’t get away.”
“No problem, man.” I slap his arm and we return to the back of the ambulance where Lana is being strapped onto the gurney ready to be taken to hospital. She insists she’ll be fine and that we can meet her there, so Mila drives the Rover and Matt and I take our respective cars, all of us following the ambulance in convoy.
Thankfully, the Emergency Room is quiet, and Lana is seen almost immediately, being taken to X-ray to check her eye socket which is getting blacker every time I look at it. While she’s gone, Matt, Mila, and I pace the waiting room, drinking bad coffee and not talking. It’s awkward as fuck because I just want to let all my emotions flood out—the fear of losing her, the relief of having her my arms again, and the guilt about hiding our blossoming relationship from her brother.
After an hour of hell, Lana is pushed into the waiting room in a wheelchair by a nurse, who hands over her pain meds and instructions to ice her eye regularly. She confirms there is a hairline fracture, but it’ll just have to heal on its own. While Mila goes to get the Range Rover and Matt follows the nurse so he can settle up the hospital paperwork, I squat down next to Lana and take her hand. I kiss her knuckles and rub her palm against my bearded face, feeling the tears finally sting my eyes and the back of my nose. Lana cups my face in her hand and leans forward to kiss my lips gently, tears falling down her face.
At this moment, no words are needed. We just have to feel it, our lips pressed together, our tears mingling, the magic of our connection fizzing between us.
That is until the spell is broken.
“What the hell is this shit?” Matt yells, causing us to spring apart, Lana covering her face with her hands, wincing when she touches her swollen eye. “You’re kissing my sister after what she’s been through tonight? Now is not the time to hit on her.”
Lana does her best to roll her eyes. “He’s not hitting on me.”
“Then why was he sucking on your face?”
My head snaps between the siblings as they bicker back and forth.
“He wasn’t sucking on my face,” Lana growls back. “He was comforting me because we’ve been seeing each other, and he knows I need him.”
With that, Matt’s glare becomes firmly fixed on me. His blue eyes are dark and stormy. However, instead of killing me with his bare hands, he takes a deep breath and slowly releases it.
“I have no capacity to deal with that on top of everything else that’s happened tonight, so I suggest you get the fuck out of here before I make Dexter our first string goalie.”
I give Lana’s hand one more squeeze and smile down at her. “I’ll call you later, babe.”
As I leave, I turn to Matt and say quietly “We really like each other, you know. This isn’t my usual one-and-done. I think I’m in love with her.”
And with that, I leave my firecracker in the care of her big brother, even though walking away from her is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.