Chapter 37 #2
I shake my head. “No, but I mean, how does your relationship work?” I look over at Chase, who’s watching Lyla.
I think that she’s going to crash into the people in front of her, but she executes a perfect side fake and keeps skating like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
I slap Chase’s back. “Damn, she’s going to give you a run for your money. ”
He looks at me, and I can see his glasses starting to fog up, which means that he’s starting to get worked up about our conversation. “What money?” he deadpans. “Isn’t that why we’re scrambling like Armageddon is coming in a couple of days?”
I pull him tighter against me. “We’re going to figure this out. Tell me about how you and Zane work together,” I press again. I’m starting to outline the mechanics of an idea in my mind, but I’m not sure that it could work.
“This is Radford’s first year with a full-time physical therapist, so we haven’t quite solidified the process.
And I’m still new to the role. Right now, we both report directly into Coach, but Zane has a dotted line to me.
” I look at him confused, so he clarifies, “It means that I don’t manage Zane like a boss, but he needs to uplevel certain information to me. ”
The wheels in my brain are starting to spin, but I still need more information. “How do you know what you don’t know then? I mean, if he’s not sharing what he should be sharing.”
“Well, like West, I only found out by accident. I review Zane’s weekly notes to ensure that everything documented is followed up on by myself if it requires ongoing treatment.”
I’m about to say something, but he stops me. I hate the feeling of emptiness when he pulls away, and I put my hands in my coat pockets.
He does the same, and now instead of a team, I feel like we’re on opposite sides. “His notes are solid. We haven’t had a great relationship lately, but I still review them religiously. I’m sorry that this isn’t the smoking gun that you want it to be, Asher.”
He takes another step back and looks to where Lyla is still skating happily, the chasm between us growing.
Why doesn’t he want to fight for us? Why doesn’t he want to try to figure out a solution? I know that he’s noble to a fault, but I can’t help but feel like he’s looking for a reason to let us fail.
Because if he felt the way about me that I feel about him, he’d be doing every fucking thing under the sun to try and figure out a path forward.
“Then I’m going to leave the team,” I say, trying to find a way to see through this mess.
That gets me a harsh look, almost like he thinks I just said the most idiotic thing in the world.
“Do you know how expensive Radford is? If you leave the team, you’re on the hook for the spring tuition if you want to graduate.
Not to mention if they decide to revoke the money that they paid for your fall semester’s scholarship.
It’s a can of worms that you do not want to open.
We’re talking close to a hundred thousand dollars for this year alone. Easily.”
I wasn’t oblivious that Radford is an incredibly expensive private school, but I also wasn’t thinking through the financial mechanics, either. And I hate how small and childish that makes me feel.
Chase must see it written on my face because he takes a step toward me.
“I appreciate the gesture, Asher. Really, I do. But I don’t understand why me resigning is any different than you leaving the team.
In either scenario, there’s a fifty grand–minimum–loan in play.
You’re looking at me like I don’t love you, too, when that’s not the case.
Why can’t I care about your future, too?
” His voice cracks, and I wrap my arms around him again.
I can’t stand the idea of not touching him right now.
“I hate everything about this,” I say, bringing him closer. I wish that we were at home, snuggled up together where I could feel his warmth against me. It’s the only thing that feels real given what we’re standing on the precipice of facing.
“Resigning isn’t the biggest deal in the world, and if we do it this way, we can do it on our terms. I can get a job at another school or at a physical therapy clinic.
I know that you don’t like this option–trust me, I don’t either–but this is the best option among a lot of shitty ones.
Do you really think that I haven’t been wracking my brain trying to figure out a way through this where we get everything that we want?
” His voice softens as he lifts his hand to my face and ghosts his fingers across my chin, “I love you. Me leaving Radford isn’t going to change that. ”
How can my heart be swelling with my love for this man while also feeling like it’s getting punched at the same time?
“Asher,” Lyla calls from the ice, about fifteen feet away. The kids that she’d been playing around with must be heading home, and she’s on the prowl for a new skating partner in crime.
“You have the ice all ready for me?” I yell to her, wondering if she can hear the distress in my voice.
“Go,” Chase encourages, his hand shifting around to my back. “I’ll be here.”
I give him a soft, imploring look that I don’t think can ever convey the depth of how I feel about him. That’s done with actions and words and the press of our bodies when we come together and nothing else in the world feels as right.
“You better be,” I say before I step onto the ice so that I can skate out to meet Lyla.
Our love shouldn’t require this kind of sacrifice. And it means more than I can ever fucking repay that he’s willing to do this for me–for us–but I still can’t let go of the idea that there’s got to be another way.
I just wish that I didn’t have until Friday to figure out what it is.
“First day back. How did it feel?” Kellan asks, offering me a beer from the fridge.
I put up my hands and take a seat on the sofa, in front of the muted television. “I’m good. Thanks, though.”
I’m at Kellan’s apartment, hanging out with him on one of the few nights that we both don’t have games. The Nauticals just finished up an away series in Seattle, which Chase and I–and Lyla–of course, watched together.
Kellan joins me in the living room, throwing his body into the luxurious leather sofa cushions. He tips his beer to his lips and stares at me. I’m the one who asked if we could hang out, so he probably knows that I have something on my mind.
Like he said, this morning was my first day back at practice. In some ways, it felt as natural as breathing, and in others, I felt like a baby learning to walk for the first time.
But I think that was mostly because it was hard to focus on anything except for the fact that I don’t know that I want to be on the ice if Chase isn’t there, too, and it seems impossible for those two things to co-exist.
“Practice was good,” I finally say when I realize that he’s not going to fill the silence. I should have asked for a drink, if only so that I’d have something to distract myself and calm my fidgety fingers.
“But it seems like you’re not here about practice?” he asks, tilting his head to the side and staring at me.
“I’m looking for some advice, actually. Only, it deals with some sensitive information that I’m going to need you to keep to yourself.”
I can tell that his interest is piqued, as he rearranges himself on the sofa so that he can face me. He smiles when he says, “Oh, I can keep a secret. And just for the record, Wells is in the bedroom. I don’t know if that changes your willingness to tell me whatever the hell’s going on.”
“No, it’s all good. I trust Wells.”
Kellan seems to especially like that answer, and he breaks out into a goofy smile.
Then, we just stare one another down for a few seconds, and I can feel my heart hammering in my chest.
It all starts tumbling out.
To what a bad place I was in after Olivia died.
The panic attacks. The feeling like if I just disappeared, I’d be happier.
And I can’t help but smile when I tell him about Chase, and how he was the person who saved me from myself.
Saved me and then showed me what love and trust and adoration in a relationship could look like.
I know that my features contort and my spine grows rigid when I bring up Zane, and how he found out about us and is trying to blackmail Chase for fifty grand to buy his silence for some indeterminate period of time.
My voice grows strained when I tell him that we don’t know what to do. That Chase is planning to resign from the team on Friday morning so that Zane doesn’t have anything to lord over him, in order for me to keep playing out the rest of the season.
When I’m done laying it all out for him, I take a long, deep breath. And when Kellan hands me his beer, I don’t decline it this time. Instead, I take a swig that mostly polishes off the bottle before handing it back to him.
He looks down at it and then back at me. “I’d give you more shit about basically giving me your backwash except… wow. I’m processing everything that you just told me.”
“It’s a lot,” I agree, wondering how much better I’d be able to hear if my pulse wasn’t so loud in my ears.
Probably well enough to hear Wells coming out of the bedroom.
His hair’s still a little wet from the shower that I heard running a few minutes ago, and I clock that he’s wearing a similar pair of joggers that Kellan favors.
Hell, they probably are Kellan’s, especially when I notice the Nauticals logo on the thigh.
He nods at me on his way to the kitchen, probably to make some kind of intricate protein smoothie. When he passes by Kellan, he stops and gives him a kiss on top of his head, ruffling his hair.