Chapter 11 Sterling
STERLING
ALDRICH WAS BEING weird. And not weird in a bad way but in a way that had me somewhat on edge.
We had a ball in California after they won the Super Bowl and it was amazing to see Ami light up at everything in Disneyland.
The entire crew had come and we’d run through the park like kids since it had been shut down for the day for us.
Parker had to have pulled major strings to have it shut down but I was grateful the entire day hadn’t been spent dodging fans or the fellas signing autographs.
They had press obligations that meant time away from the fun, but they all happily got on rides without an ounce of shame.
Seeing Runt walking around with mouse ears on as tall and broad as he was still one of my favorite memories.
But none of that explained why Aldrich was being strange.
We’d been home for two days, and Valentine’s Day was tomorrow.
The players hadn’t all dispersed around the country yet despite it being the off season.
Having won the championship, they had extended media obligations and of course everyone wanted a piece of the champs.
Aldrich had been tied up heavily since we’d had our brief vacation last week and I was thankful Mama Sonya could come back with us for the next few days.
Our time in California had been fun but it had still been too brief.
I got introduced to a bunch of cousins and aunts and uncles from his mom’s side of the family.
Old friends and colleagues of his father’s had come by the party that Mama Sonya had thrown for him at a local community center.
He seemed even more surprised by the party than he was about winning MVP.
I was so happy to witness his life getting back to a new normal and I knew he wasn’t taking a second of it for granted.
It made me love him even more and so much deeper than I could’ve ever imagined.
The last few months hadn’t been perfect but I felt like it forced us to grow even more as a couple.
I was grateful that we’d been able to work through just about everything that had come our way on our own.
What we couldn’t, we took to counseling with Doc.
I could tell that Aldrich was withdrawing into himself just after the New Year.
They had a first-round bye because they were the number one seed and having that physical break for his body didn’t serve him well the way it should have.
Without the constant distraction of work, his mind started to unravel especially when a reporter so flippantly retorted to him what a difference a year made when Aldrich said he was more than focused for the playoffs.
That seemed to send him immediately into a dark place that I knew I couldn’t pull him out of by myself.
That night everything seemed normal even when we went to sleep.
His body was wrapped around mine but at some point in the night we’d separated.
He’d started having a nightmare and he wasn’t violent but it broke my heart when I woke up to hear him whimpering.
For a moment I just watched his body twitch and then still, like he was frozen in the moment his body taunt with fear.
Instead of touching him, I called out to him, giving him words of encouragement to pull him back from where he was.
The last thing I wanted was to startle him by making physical contact or to have him associate me with his fear.
It took a minute but he finally roused and when he realized it was me; he had tears in his eyes.
He’d wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to him, resting his head on my chest. I held him while he cried and didn’t say a word when he left early and went to talk it out with Doc.
He asked me to come with him to a later session and I did it without hesitation.
I’d seen firsthand how traumatic it could be to be assaulted.
I’d borne witness to rape kits and the aftermath of another human’s brutality while nursing and I felt just as inept to help them as I did with my partner.
It was hard not to internalize his trauma as my failure to keep him happy.
Doc being as good as he was at his job recognized it and told me that everything was technically still fresh and gave me a few recourses to read through on my own.
It helped me feel less guilty and focus on being what he needed.
Work, of course, put him back in a place of not having his sole focus being what happened but at night we talked about how he was feeling.
He knew that the stress of the game and potentially not winning had brought on the self-doubt and that’s how it had manifested for him.
The way he acknowledged his hurt and accepted it as a part of him while still working on being better reaffirmed that Aldrich was my person.
I was grateful for the people we had in our lives who could hold our hands and help us navigate troubled waters without judgement.
They wouldn’t allow us to fail or falter and I appreciated how they would share their own troubles with us so we knew we weren’t alone.
Many people talked about family, but ours proved true to their word when it mattered most. Billy had sent a request to the security company for Aldrich’s townhouse for all footage of that time period to be wiped from their servers.
I wasn’t sure how she knew it was done, but she seemed confident like she had an inside connection.
The last thing I would ever do is question that woman.
She took the drive that held the footage that Aldrich had saved and put it in a vault inside of her office.
The last thing I wanted was for him to have it tormenting him whenever he saw it and Billy’s office was more than secure.
Aldrich didn’t want to see it, but he also no longer felt like it would be the end of the world if someone else did. I could only thank Doc for that.
“Everything okay, baby?” I’d glanced up from where I’d been lost in thought as I moisturized my arms and legs. Aldrich’s eyes were locked on me as I soothed the scented whipped butter into my skin and I was fighting my grin at the amorous way he watched my movements.
“Yeah, why do you ask?”
I stood up carefully because I didn’t want to disturb the clips that were keeping my curls set. I’d spent forever getting my hair right and the last thing I wanted was for these curls to fall before I showed off the full effect when I got dressed.
Aldrich pulled a tuxedo out from the tailor’s bag it arrived in. He turned back around to look at me and I could tell by the look in his eye exactly where his mind had gone.
“Aldrich—”
“It ain’t my fault you over here looking fine as fuck per usual.
You think I’m not going to be thinking thoughts?
” He walked over to me with his mind on seduction and all thoughts about my hair went out of the window.
He was only wearing boxer briefs and I could see his dick growing longer against his thigh as he strolled toward me.
Aldrich’s hand slid down my hip pulling me flush to him as his lips met the bottom of my jaw before traveling down my neck.
My back was against the blonde wood of the shelves before I could think to pull away from him.
Not like I actually wanted to.
“I thought we came in here to get dressed, baby.” I spoke my attempted admonishment against his lips since they were pressed against mine with no desire to move. Anticipation skittered up my spine as his fingers traced a path along my skin
“We did, but now I’m looking at you all dolled up looking like a pinup and I can’t help that my mind has wandered to other things.
You can’t see how fine you look right now.
If you did, you wouldn’t be able to blame me for how I was feeling.
” His hands kept roaming my body but he moved back so that his eyes were looking down into mine.
The love that shone in them was neck and neck with the lust and I was about to give in because the man was more gifted in bed than he was at his job.
“You can’t think of wanting to fuck right now. I spent too long getting ready to have you sweat my hair out.” I was whispering yelling because we weren’t alone in the house and I didn’t want to alert his mother to what we were about to do.
“You not gone feed me, Ling?”
The mischievous look in his eye had me biting my lip because I was going to fold.
It didn’t matter that his mother was in the house and we were supposed to be getting ready to go out and spend time together.
She’d flown in just so that we had someone to look after Ami because she’d had a slight cold and I didn’t want her to go to Billy and Coby’s or even with Grams and potentially get the other kids sick.
They said they didn’t mind but truthfully I wouldn’t have been able to relax, worrying that she would pass her cold to their babies.
There was too much floating around this time of year to play with anyone’s health by being careless.
“Aldrich, we are supposed to be heading out but you’re talking about me feeding you. What if we’re late?”
“What if we are? This is special but I gotta have a lil something on my stomach before we head to dinner. Can’t show up ravenous or there’s no telling what I might end up doing in the car.”