Chapter Twenty-Seven #3
The phone was picked up then, and Braden’s mother came on. She was stunning, a warm, older woman with those same honey eyes that Braden had. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise when she saw me, and I swore I saw her and Ginny exchange a knowing glance.
“Hello, dear. I’m Braden’s Mom, Angela.”
“Hi, I’m Emily.”
“Glad to see Braden is making some friends. He gets so focused sometimes I think he forgets life is not all about football,” she teased.
I slid my hand over Braden’s ass out of frame, squeezing playfully. “I do my best to get him to take breaks and live a little.”
“Love to hear it,” Angela said. Her smile slipped as she exited Ginny’s room. “Braden, do you have a moment?”
I felt Braden stiffen next to me. “Always.”
He muted us before telling me what to keep an eye on while he was gone, and then disappeared back down the hall.
For a few seconds, I stood there staring after him, the kitchen suddenly too quiet after the warmth and laughter of the last several hours.
Then I turned back to the stove.
The chicken was done, the edges golden beneath the creamy Tuscan sauce that bubbled softly around the spinach and sun-dried tomatoes.
I used a pair of tongs to transfer the chicken breasts to a plate, then draped a sheet of foil loosely over the top like he’d instructed.
When I lifted the lid on the rice, a cloud of steam curled into my face, warm and fragrant, and I gave it a quick fluff with a fork before lowering the heat.
Dinner was ready.
Braden wasn’t back.
I found myself glancing down the hall more than once, listening for his footsteps, trying not to let my mind run ahead of me.
When he finally returned to the kitchen, the change in him was immediate.
His face had gone pale, and whatever softness had lived there before was gone now, replaced by something tighter and more guarded. He looked like someone who’d been pulled abruptly out of a dream and dropped back into real life.
I straightened. “What happened?”
He dragged a hand over the back of his neck and exhaled through his nose. “They had a scare.”
My stomach dropped. “What does that mean? Is Ginny okay?”
“Yeah,” he said quickly, though his voice was heavy with something that made the word land unevenly. “She’s okay. She got dizzy, and Mom said her breathing got a little weak for a minute. They were close to taking her in, but she stabilized.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah.”
He looked down at the counter when he said it, jaw flexing once.
The mood in the room shifted so completely it almost made me dizzy.
The man who’d been teasing me, kissing me, smiling at me like a kid on summer vacation had sobered.
In his place was the version of Braden I was beginning to understand lived underneath all of that — the one who carried his family on his back so naturally he probably didn’t even realize how heavy it was anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly.
He nodded once, but I could tell he was already somewhere deep inside his own head.
“Mom called me on Sunday. It was before the game. I thought she was just going to wish me luck, but I was getting focused, so I didn’t answer,” he said absently. “I figured I’d get back to her after the game but then I just… it slipped my mind.”
“Braden, you didn’t know.”
His mouth tightened. “I know better than to ignore a call.”
There was so much packed into that sentence. Guilt. Fear. The impossible standard he clearly held himself to every second of every day.
I wanted to go to him. I wanted to wrap my arms around his waist and tell him none of this was his fault, that Ginny was okay, that he was allowed to have a few hours for himself without the world falling apart.
But one look at him told me he was no longer in a place where comfort could reach him.
So instead, I nodded toward the stove. “The chicken’s done.”
His eyes lifted to mine, and something in them softened with gratitude before the wall slid back into place.
“Let’s eat, then.”
He moved through the rest of dinner on autopilot. He plated the rice first, then the chicken, spooning the creamy sauce over the top with practiced care, making sure mine looked perfect before he set it in front of me.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
“Of course.”
He sat beside me at the island with his own bowl, but after a few bites, it became clear he wasn’t really eating. He pushed the food around more than he touched it, gaze fixed somewhere beyond the kitchen, beyond me, beyond this house entirely.
And I sat there in his shirt, eating the dinner he’d made for me, watching that softer version of him retreat in real time.
There was nothing dramatic about it, no obvious shift I could point to and say there, that was the moment.
It was just the quiet, devastating understanding that whatever had existed between us all day had been interrupted by the truth of his life.
And the truth was this:
Braden never really got to put anything down.
He couldn’t ever fully abandon his fear, his responsibility — not even for a few stolen hours in bed with me.
By the time I set my fork down, the cozy warmth of the kitchen had gone cold around the edges, along with the man sitting next to me.
And no matter how badly I wanted to, I had no idea how to bring him back.