Puck Block : A Brother’s Best Friend Hockey Romance (Bexley U)

One look at my brother from across the room, and my pulse is hovering somewhere in between threatening and deadly.

“You don’t get an opinion in this discussion.” Emory, who takes up nearly the entire doorway with his wide shoulders and haughty chest, rolls his eyes.

“Excuse me?” I shriek.

I glance at Ford when I hear a chuckle. We make eye contact, and he raises an eyebrow, angling his body slightly before tipping his chin to the machine I’m hooked up to. I can read Ford’s mind like it’s my own at the moment. Right, calm down. If my blood pressure rises and causes some crazy alert on the monitor, everyone will come rushing into my room, and I’m already feeling suffocated.

“Honey, I agree. You’re being stubborn, and you make poor decisions. Not to mention, you’re still learning about this disease. We all are.”

If I were a child, I’d cross my arms and stand up to stomp my foot just to get my point across. But I’m in my twenties, which is all the more reason why I should get a say in the matter.

I hold my hand out, and Emory sighs before walking over and placing the phone in my palm.

“Mom—” I start, but she cuts me off right away.

“No, Taytum.” There’s instantly a pain in between my breastbone from the concern in her voice. The only sound in the room is the incessant heart monitor behind Ford. “I will not lose you to your own defiance.”

“You’re not going to lose me. I know my own body,” I try to reassure her. “I’m not moving home. I’m fine–”

“You are not fine, Taytum Elizabeth Olson!”© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

The sound of Ford rubbing his hand against the scruff of his face draws my attention, and I know he agrees, just like my brother. I also know that neither of them will back me up if I refuse to let them drive me around campus like I’m some damsel in distress or watch my every move like I’m a felon trying to escape prison.

It’s always them against me.

Always. 

“Mom, I don’t need the glucose mon⁠—”

The door opens, and in walks Dr. McCarthy with his white coat flying behind him like a superhero’s cape.

“What’s the verdict?” he asks, ping-ponging his attention around the room. He lands on me, and his mouth immediately turns into a frown.

“I don’t want to be watched like a lab rat, and I don’t want some monitor placed on me like I’m being tracked. I won’t allow this disease to rule my life like this.” I’m unable to hold back the snip in my voice. I’ve been on edge since being diagnosed, and it bothers me to no end that everyone else is on edge too—because of me.

“I see,” Dr. McCarthy says, taking a seat on my bed.

Ford clears his throat, and we make eye contact again. His blue eyes widen, and his jaw muscles flicker with a hidden message. My heart is beginning to jump all over the place, and if I don’t agree to the stipulations that are being laid out for me, then it’s going to be an uphill battle on top of the already demanding battle with my diabetes.

“Let me explain this to you,” Dr. McCarthy starts. “If you don’t get this under control, those organs that were impacted last summer when you were first diagnosed will continue to be impacted. Today was a high blood sugar episode, but last week was a low-blood-sugar episode while you were driving. You have to see how dangerous that could have been for you and others.”

I do. Of course I do.

Emory intervenes—as if my brother’s hostility regarding my health is going to help matters. “That means you’ll die or kill someone else.”

“Yes, thank you for clearing that up for me,” I snap, flinging myself back onto the hospital bed.

Ford turns his back to our conversation and starts to stare at the machine keeping track of my heart rate. He puts his hand on the top, and from my position on the bed, I can see the furrowing of his facial features, as if he somehow wants to reach inside the device and control the beeping.

“He’s right, Taytum,” Dr. McCarthy adds. “It is necessary for you to wear the monitor so we can be certain that the insulin is the right type for your diabetes. Once it’s stable, then we can move on to a pump.”

A pump? No way. 

I hate this.

I hate being the center of attention.

I hate that everyone is worried about me, as if I’m purposefully crying out for help. But it’s not me. It’s the wonky, weakened organ inside my body.

“If you don’t agree to this, we’re moving you home.” I stare at the phone in my lap like it’s the devil. My heart pounds, and my entire body heats.

“She’ll wear it.” We all turn toward Ford, but he’s looking at me. “Right, Taytum?”

He knows me too well, and I hate it. It’s either move home or wear the monitor, so of course I’m going to wear the monitor.

Emory is staring at me with his eyebrows raised, and my mother is silent on the other end of the phone.

I look to Dr. McCarthy. “Yeah,” I say.

Dr. McCarthy stands up and peers down at me on the bed. “No driving, even with the continuous blood sugar reading. Moving home won’t benefit you, though. You’ve gotta come to terms with this sooner or later.”

Relief settles my heart rate right away, but it’s followed by frustration. I have come to terms with it. That doesn’t mean I have to like it or flip over backward when someone snaps their fingers at me.

Emory steps forward. “We have it worked out, then. Ford and I will make sure she doesn’t drive, and we will have someone close by at all times until we know that we can trust her.”

“Trust me?” I fly upright and glare at my brother. “You act like I’m–”

“Taytum.” I jerk my attention to the phone mid-sentence. My dad is the silent type, only speaking up when necessary. “The last thing we want is for you to give up graduating, lose your scholarship, and move back home. You’re absolutely right. No one wants a disease like this to control them in the way it’s controlling you, so please just promise us that you’ll take care of yourself.”

I slink back onto the bed and slowly hinge my jaw back together. My lips close, and I’m quieter than a mouse. Dr. McCarthy takes the phone from my lap and moves closer to the door to speak into it. My brother follows and listens intently.

My fingers fiddle with one another in my lap, and I remain silent. Last summer, the doctors said my body was resilient for keeping up with the demands of insulin production for as long as it did, but all I want is to go back to before–when I wasn’t under everybody’s watchful eye, and constantly worrying about my sugar levels, and secretly injecting insulin into my body.

I thought it would get better when I came back to Bexley U this fall and could figure out how to live with this disease on my own, but I still find myself full of frustration and dissatisfaction. Everyone is just as concerned as they were before, and Emory and Ford’s reins have only gotten tighter. They view me as their helpless little sister, creating some gigantic protective bubble around me that they love to inflate. I swear they get off on shunning me from parties and directing any potential guy to the blonde across the room instead, because they think I don’t need the distraction right now with everything else going on.

I grit my teeth at the thought of what they used to do in high school when I had a date. And for what reason back then? Did they think a little kissing or dick was going to kill me?

Someone clears their throat, and I snap back to reality. Ford’s blue eyes flare when he gestures behind him. I look at the monitor and see my pulse rising. He has somehow silenced the volume, and Dr. McCarthy is too involved in the conversation with my parents to notice.

“Calm down,” Ford mouths.

I glare at him because, as always, he’s trying to come to my rescue. I don’t care if it’s needed at the moment or that I follow his hand movements regardless. He puts up one finger at a time for me to count, and I do it, despite my annoyance. One, two, three, four…

“There you go,” he whispers. “You know the drill, Heartbreaker.” He grins, and I hate that my first instinct is to smile. The nickname started in high school, when I learned how to get around my brother’s and Ford’s tactics of scaring off anyone interested in me.

I was the one who broke boys’ hearts. Not the other way around.

Hidden flirting and secret make-out sessions in closets at parties that always led to nothing, leaving each and every horny teenage boy with a broken heart full of hope.

Guys always want what they can’t have, and even though, most of the time, I wanted them too, I knew it’d never fly. It only attracted them more.

“Well, that does it, then.” Dr. McCarthy is suddenly standing at the end of my bed. “I’ll have a nurse draw up the discharge papers, and I’ll send the script to the pharmacy. I want access to your glucose levels at our next appointment and then we will go from there.”

Dr. McCarthy gives me zero chance for rebuttal.

As soon as he leaves, Ford steps forward and smiles.

“Your chauffeurs are here and at your service, Heartbreaker. And we expect a tip.”

I roll my eyes and wonder how expensive it would be to hire my own personal driver instead.