Chapter 16
sixteen
CADEN
If there was a more surreal moment in my life than walking into the main entrance of the largest hospital in the city with Asher “The Ace” Landry, I couldn’t think of one.
I hadn’t been out and about with Ash without Coach and the team before, so I had no idea what to expect.
Were a gaggle of fans going to suddenly appear out of nowhere and accost him at the visitor’s information desk?
I couldn’t imagine being the focus of that kind of frantic attention. The only people who asked me for my autograph were the five and six-year-olds who lived in my old neighborhood.
There was no way Ash would want anyone to know he was in Sudbury and why.
I subtly took in his face and form in my peripheral vision.
His billboard-worthy good looks still shone through what had to be several days’ worth of dark brown stubble on his cheeks and chin.
Short of wearing a paper bag over his head, I doubted there was anything that could dull the allure of being in Ash’s presence.
Not time for confusing thoughts, Kelly. We’re here to focus on Mom.
He must have noticed me looking over at him as he stopped short of the reception counter.
Ash reached up to rub the back of his neck, the first time I’d seen him make any gesture that could be interpreted as uncertain. “Are you sure you want me here, Cade? I feel like I kind of bulldozed you into saying yes in the car back there.”
Don’t go. I can’t do this without you. Please stay right beside me the whole time. If you’re there, I can face what needs to be done for my mom instead of feeling helpless and scared for her, the voice inside me screamed.
The adult part of my brain knew that this wasn’t Ash’s problem. He’d already gone above and beyond any obligation by driving me here in the middle of the night.
The part of me that was addicted to Ash’s attention and kindness wanted to keep him as far away from my family as possible. The other part wanted to grab his hand and never let go.
Now, faced with the reality of my dad being upstairs, I knew I had to send Ash away.
If he met Frank Kelly, he’d never look at me the same way again.
“Um, yeah. So, I don’t want to keep you here when you’ve been up all night driving. I could book a hotel for you, and you could catch some sleep?” I held up my hands, palms facing up, hoping to convey that I wanted him to go for his own sake, but not insult him at the same time.
“Are you sure? I’d planned on hanging around the hospital, completely out of your way, and after you have a chance to see what’s happening with your mom’s surgery, we could figure out the next steps.
But I won’t stay if you really don’t want me to?
” Ash’s eyes searched my face, as though he would be able to read my true wishes in my features.
The problem was, the way I controlled myself on a daily basis seemed guaranteed to malfunction around him.
I cared a lot about what Ash thought of me, making it much harder to hide everything inside me when he was around.
“Well, I don’t want to put you out more than I already have, but if you are okay to hang out here while I go see my mom before her surgery starts and get the full story of what happened from Kait.
. .I’d appreciate it,” I finished lamely, my gaze shifting to the ground instead of maintaining eye contact.
I’d appreciate it? I clenched my fist at my side to keep from smacking myself in the forehead. To my own ears, I sounded like an idiot who didn’t know what to say, making my gratitude sound hollow.
You are an idiot who doesn’t know what to say, echoed my inner voice unhelpfully.
“It’s settled then. I’ll be here. Give me your phone for a second.” Ash seemed to ignore my awkward fumbling as I handed over my unlocked phone.
He tapped out something before handing it back to me. “There. You have my number. Text me when you know what’s going on, and we’ll figure out next steps, okay? Now, let’s figure out where you’re going, and you can head up to see your mom.”
“Okay. Thank you, Ash,” I said as I took my phone back.
As I walked away from him, I looked back and offered him a small smile, for once hoping he would recognize my feelings of gratitude when I hadn’t been able to find the words to let him know he’d made me feel like I had someone on my side.
“Caden!” A whisper-shout came from somewhere down the hall to my left as I followed the signs for the ER.
I turned around to see a worn-out-looking Kait heading toward me. Her usual medium Tim Horton’s coffee had been traded in for an extra-large cup this morning.
It could be straight espresso in that familiar red cup for all I knew. She had the right idea.
Even though I’d caught several hours of sleep, the weight of my eyelids signaled that my body didn’t feel any more rested because of it.
“Kait! Thank you for bringing Mom. I know you had to miss your night class.”
I strode to meet her in the middle of the distance between us, wrapping my arm around her shoulder on the opposite side of her hot drink. I didn’t need to accidentally soak the only clothes I had with me in hot coffee.
I gave her a gentle squeeze that meant “hello and thank you,” before letting go and following her movements to the nearest wall. Being best friends meant we could recognize the signs of exhaustion in each other, and we were both tired as hell.
“Hey. Are you okay? How’d you get here so fast? I figured it’d take you at least until noon since not many rental car places are open that late. Why didn’t you text me to let me know when you got here?”
A confused wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows.
“I did.” I held up my phone in answer.
A glance at my messages showed the last message I’d sent her as delivered but not read.
“Aw, shit. Stupid dead zones. It’s not as if the hospital Wi-Fi is thirty dollars a minute or anything.” She scowled. “I can’t wait until I can afford a better plan. I guess that means you didn’t get the message I sent you ten minutes ago, eh?”
“No. What happened?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry. They finally found a spot to get your mom into surgery. She’ll be going to pre-op at one p.m., so you’ve got some time to see her and then grab something to eat.”
Her concern for my well-being overwhelmed me when I added it to the way Ash had made me a priority over the past several hours.
Even as tired as she was, she was going to go wild once I told her that Ash drove me up here. It would seem like a confirmation of the very inconvenient attraction we’d discussed when she’d last visited.
I couldn’t deny that once she’d planted that seed in my mind all those weeks ago, it had taken root and grown into an unwieldy set of feelings that were getting harder to shove to the back of my mind.
My disproportionate level of embarrassment at falling asleep on Ash’s shoulder and subsequent avoidance stint screamed strong feelings of something more than friendship and gratitude.
Kait’s “I told you so” was going to be nominated for the Guinness World Records as the biggest, loudest way a person had ever been right in the history of humankind.
Hell, she’d probably engrave it on my tombstone:
“Here’s lies Caden Kelly, the idiot who denied he had a massive crush on his assistant coach for ages.
(Seriously, an Ice Age arrived and receded in the time it took for him to admit he wanted to f—k his too-hot-for-words-assistant-coach.)
He would have been miserable if his brilliant best friend, Kait, hadn’t told him to get his head out of his ass and admit that he wanted to act on his attraction to the sexiest man in the world.
I hope he’s still cringing in the afterlife.”
“Yeah, so. . .” I rubbed the back of my head, pretending to smooth down my now too-long curls, as if a few seconds’ delay would make me any less self-conscious. “Ash offered to drive me up.”
“From Belleville!” she screeched, and the high pitch of her voice echoed in the—thankfully empty—hallway.
“Oh my god, I was so right. You do have a thing for him! But also, I was beyond right. Like, a ‘pre-psychic’ kind of right, where I would already have called his feelings for you if I’d been able to lay eyes on the man.
He wants you too! Damn, I’m good. I have a psychic ability to be right even before I think about it! I should charge money for my advice.”
Kait bounced subtly with each word.
I couldn’t even unpack the ridiculous idea of being “pre-psychic,” as I was busy trying to force air into my lungs. Kait’s words had literally punched the oxygen out of my body.
The thought that Ash might have feelings for me was something I’d never, ever imagined.
No way! This crush, or whatever it was, had been a few particles of thought that I’d shoved so deeply to the back of my mind to keep it a secret, even from myself.
While I couldn’t force it from my thoughts, I’d cleared out a quiet, dark space to set the idea that I could possibly have anything beyond a platonic, pleasant player-coach rapport with Ash.
But my damn feelings for Ash refused to stay buried and were now racing along the surface of my skin, and probably all over my face, like some Road Runner of desire.
Kait would say it was healthier to let the attraction out into the open, at least to myself.
But little did she know, the fragile seed of my crush had been given government-banned level growth hormones on the trip from Belleville.
That seed had become a Venus fly trap of feelings, salivating while it waited to swallow me whole.
Having my own body and heart work against me would make it infinitely harder to keep pretending that I had any remaining professional feelings in relation to Ash.
I’d have to fake it because nothing could happen between us.
Not because he was a guy and I had zero sexual experiences with men. But because on top of all the things I didn’t know about attraction and sex when it came to men, I did know that Ash was Asher “The Ace” Landry, NHL Superstar and now, assistant AHL coach for a team having a breakout season.