Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Kat
I wake up slowly, letting out a long yawn. I’m still tired, and I can tell I stayed up way too late last night. As I blink my eyes open, squinting against the morning light filtering through the open curtains, I realize I’m still holding my phone, the screen dark against the white sheets.
I tap it to life and immediately scroll up through my conversation with Asher from last night, a smile tugging at my lips as I read back through the messages.
I remember how hard I had to work to keep my eyes open toward the end, how sleep kept tugging at me, trying to drag me under, but I didn’t want to stop talking to him.
Every time I thought about saying goodnight, he’d ask another question or make another comment that made me want to keep going.
His last two messages make my smile widen.
ASHER: You still awake over there?
ASHER: Goodnight, bright eyes. Sleep tight.
My stomach does this little flutter that I try really hard not to notice.
I haven’t stayed up that late texting someone since high school, when Sam was away at summer camp all summer and we missed each other so much we’d text until our phones died or my parents and her counselors confiscated them. But this felt different than that.
I think back to my conversation with my best friend yesterday evening, before Asher and I started our marathon texting session.
I told Asher that I admitted the truth to Sam, and that she approved of our arrangement.
But I didn’t tell him everything. I didn’t mention that although Sam was scandalized and excited, thrilled by the wildness of this crazy plan and impressed that we’d actually pulled it off so far, she also expressed some serious protective reservations about the whole thing.
She wanted to know more about Asher, how we were handling the fake dating aspect, what the rules are between us.
She warned me that although not all professional athletes are players, some of them definitely can be.
That I should keep my head on straight, keep my heart protected.
Not let myself get too invested in someone who’s only going to be in my life temporarily.
I glance at my phone again, reading those last two messages one more time, and my smile fades slightly at the reminder that this really isn’t anything but fake.
In a few weeks, Asher will go back to his real life and I’ll go back to mine, and this whole strange interlude will just be a weird story I’ll probably never tell anyone but my bestie.
Brushing that thought away because I don’t want to dwell on it, I swing my legs out of bed and get up, padding to the bathroom for a shower.
I stand under the hot water longer than I probably should, letting it wash away the last remnants of sleep and the nagging voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like Sam telling me to be careful.
After I get dressed in stretchy jeans and a comfortable sweater and dry my hair until it’s not dripping anymore, I head downstairs to start the coffee maker. The familiar ritual is soothing, measuring out the grounds and listening to the machine gurgle and hiss as it comes to life.
I’m just pouring in what’s probably an obscene amount of my favorite caramel creamer when there’s a knock at the back door. Something about the predictability of Asher’s arrival makes me smile as I head down the hall to let him in.
“Morning,” I say, pulling the door open.
“Morning.”
He’s already showered and dressed, wearing dark washed jeans and a black Henley that hugs his broad chest. His hair is still slightly damp, and I can smell his soap or shampoo or whatever it is that makes him smell the way he does. Woodsy and smoky with that hint of spice.
“Coffee’s ready,” I tell him, stepping aside so he can come in.
“Smells good.”
We move around the kitchen together, him following a few steps behind me. He pulls out the oatmeal and a pot while I finish doctoring my coffee, adding just a little more creamer for good measure.
“Not a black coffee fan, huh?” he observes, and there’s amusement in his voice.
“Not exactly,” I admit, flushing slightly as I stir the coffee and watch it turn from light brown to a lighter tan color.
“I’ll drink it with other fixings if I have to, but I pretty much never drink it black.
And nothing scratches the itch quite like this stuff.
” I gesture to the creamer bottle, then wince.
“That probably makes me sound high maintenance. Or like I have the taste buds of a five-year-old.”
He shrugs, measuring oatmeal into the pot and adding water. “You like things how you like them. Nothing wrong with that.”
The simple acceptance in his words makes me relax. There’s no judgment, no teasing beyond the initial observation. Just acknowledgment that I’m allowed to have preferences.
We settle at the table with our breakfast a few minutes later, and I watch him eat for a moment. There’s something on his mind, I can tell by the way his shoulders are set, the slight tension in his jaw.
“So what’ve you got planned for the day?” I ask, taking a sip of my perfectly sweetened coffee.
His face falls a little, a grimace twisting his lips. “I’ve got to head over to my dad’s place again. I noticed some stuff around the house that needs fixing yesterday, and I might as well do it while he’s laid up and can’t do it himself.”
There’s something in his voice, a heaviness that makes my chest hurt.
“That’s nice of you,” I offer.
“Yeah. I want to do as much as I can while I’m here.” He stares down at his oatmeal, stirring it slowly without eating. “Because I might never be back.”
The words hang in the air between us, flat and final. I don’t know what to say to that, how to respond to the resignation in his voice.
I hate the way he sounds when he talks about his father. How his whole demeanor shifts, like a weight settles on his shoulders and presses down until he’s carrying something too heavy to bear.
“Can I ask what happened?” The question comes out before I can stop it, my voice low. “I know you don’t get along, but why? What happened between you two?”
Asher goes still, holding his spoon in the bowl.
For a long moment, he just sits there, and I immediately regret asking.
Our conversation last night was so nice and light, easy and fun and free of heavy topics.
Maybe I should’ve tried to keep that vibe going instead of digging into painful territory before he’s even finished his breakfast.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay,” I add quickly, backtracking as fast as I can. “It’s really none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked.”
He looks up at me, his blue-gray eyes meeting mine, and something shifts in his expression.
“No, it’s fine.” His voice is a bit gruff, but not angry.
“I just don’t tell a lot of people about it.
It’s not something I usually share with anyone.
” He takes a breath, setting his spoon down.
“I kind of put it behind me, or thought I did. But here I am, right back in the middle of it again, so I might as well tell you.”
I sit back in my chair, cradling my coffee mug in both hands as I wait for him to continue, letting the warmth of it seep into my palms.
“I grew up in Wisconsin with my parents. Their only kid. Things seemed good when I was little, like we were a happy family.” He huffs a breath, his jaw working.
“Then when I was eight, completely out of nowhere as far as I knew, my parents split up and my dad just left. Not just left my mom, but left both of us. Moved to a different state, barely called, didn’t visit.
Basically disappeared from our lives like we never meant anything to him in the first place. ”
“Asher…” I start, but he keeps talking like he needs to get it all out now or he never will.
“I used to cry about it at night. Lying in bed in the dark, trying to be quiet so my mom wouldn’t hear.
I’d dream about him changing his mind and coming home, about us being a family again.
” His voice drops lower, and I have to lean in slightly to hear him.
“My mom never liked to talk about him after that. She’d get really upset if I mentioned him, would shut down the conversation immediately.
Eventually, she basically forbade me from bringing him up at all.
That messed with me too, you know? I felt like my dad broke everything, broke our whole family, and I couldn’t understand why.
What had I done wrong? Why wasn’t I enough to make him stay? ”
He’s still staring at his bowl, his hands clenched lightly into fists on either side of it.
“It took me until high school and beyond that to stop hoping for more from him. To stop waiting by the phone on my birthday, stop getting excited when I got a call from an unknown number. To stop hoping for scraps of attention that were never going to come.” His voice turns rougher, more strained.
“So I decided to cut him out of my life completely. Let go of that old hope, that stupid kid dream that maybe one day he’d wake up and realize he’d made a mistake. That he’d want to be my dad again.”
“Have you talked to him at all over the years?” I ask softly.
“A little bit. A few short messages here or there. Mostly no contact though.” He finally looks up at me, and there’s so much pain in his eyes that it makes me wince in empathy.
“He made some effort to reach out after my mom died a few years ago. Called me a few times, sent some emails about how we should talk, how he wanted to explain things. But I didn’t really reciprocate.
It felt like too little, too late. Like he had years to try to fix things, and he only bothered once she was gone. ”
I nod, tugging my lower lip between my teeth.