Chapter 21
A ll day, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. My reaction. Asher asked me a simple question. One he’s entitled to ask and to know about, and I mentally shut down. On him. On myself. On everything. It needs to stop, but I don’t know how to make it.
I drop off Mason at his new daycare—he does better with the drop-off than I do—and then, with thirty minutes to spare before my first patient, I call my mom.
“How’d it go with dropping Mason off?” she asks. I shut the door to my office and then collapse into my chair.
“Good. He did great. It’s not his first time in daycare, so it was like he never left.”
“Wonderful. But why do you sound anything but?”
I blow out a breath, running my finger along the edge of my desk.
“I’m with Asher now.” The words come out sounding hollow, and they feel that way in my chest. It’s strange to say that aloud.
I’m not sure I’ve ever truly considered myself with someone before and this isn’t a small thing.
I’m not casually dating him. There is no casually dating the father of your child, and if this doesn’t work out…
“When did that happen?”
“Last night, but I saw it coming for a while. At least he hasn’t been shy about letting me know that’s what he wants.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “I knew that too. He wasn’t shy about telling me that either. Are you not feeling good about that decision? Did you make it for the wrong reasons?”
A wry grin hits my lips but quickly fades.
“I am feeling good about it. Asher is…” I fade off as I think about this, leaning back in my chair.
“Impossible not to like. He’s funny and charming and sweet, and in my heart, I believe him to be a good man.
I mean, he didn’t even hesitate when I told him about Mason.
Not even for a second. It was like, okay, I’m in. ”
“Then what’s going on?”
I stare down at my hands. “He asked me about Joe this morning, and I froze. Suddenly I was hit with every reason why I hate football and football players and why I don’t trust men. I’m thirty-one years old, Mom. I was five when Joe left. Why am I still like this?”
“Because you were five when Joe left, and it was traumatizing.” She sighs.
“I didn’t do the best job with it either.
I was heartbroken myself, and I tried to comfort you and make you believe it wasn’t your fault, but you blamed yourself for catching him with Loretta, and you blamed yourself for him leaving because he told you both were your fault.
They weren’t, but you didn’t believe that.
Then you grew bitter and angry and resentful when he cut you out.
I don’t know. I should have put you in therapy, but then you started skating, and Gary came along, and you seemed better.
I didn’t know how deep all of this went with you until much, much later. ”
“I don’t want to be this mother to Mason.
I love Gary, and I trust Gary. He’s my dad.
But I am inherently distrustful of every other man.
With Asher, it’s as if I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it has me on edge.
I don’t want him to prove me right, and so far, he’s given me no reason to think he will. But that doesn’t mean I trust him yet.”
“How about this, then? I’ll take Mason tonight, and you and Asher have an evening for just the two of you.
Talk to him. See what he has to say. Give him a chance.
Remember, Wyn, if I had never reopened my heart after Joe, I wouldn’t have met Gary.
Try to imagine that Asher is your Gary and not your Joe. ”
I swallow past the lump in my throat and nod even though she can’t see me.
“Okay. I’ll talk to Asher tonight.”
I disconnect the call and then go and see patients, already feeling lighter after speaking to my mother.
But more than that, I’m back in the hospital.
I’m doing injections and scheduling surgeries.
I’m the doctor I’ve always dreamed of being.
Mason is downstairs in the daycare, and I feel like I’m finding that groove.
The one I’ve been searching for since I found out I was pregnant with him.
There’s only one thing that can derail that.
“Joe Cardone says he needs you back on the field tomorrow,” Dr. Limp—er Limbick says to me just as I leave a patient room.
I sag. Dammit. Limbick gives me a displeased look.
“You told me that he didn’t require you there.
What’s going on, Wynter? We don’t typically blow off our high-profile clients and patients here. ”
“He’s my father,” I admit, moving over to an empty patient room so our conversation is private. “Joe Cardone is my biological father, and we do not have the best history with each other.”
Limbick shuts the door behind himself and then leans against it.
“I figured it had to be something like that since he was so adamant it be you and no one else. You had just started with us and are a new attending. It didn’t make a lot of sense.
” He folds his arms. “Still, it’s the Boston Rebels.
” Meaning over his dead body will he give up the prestige and income that comes with them.
I don’t blame him for that. “Joe says it can only be you. I don’t want to put you in a position where you’re uncomfortable, but I don’t know what else to do. ”
My hands go to my hips. I asked Joe why me when I first started there. I asked him what he was trying to do by forcing me to be there. And he gave me no straight answers. But unless I want to quit—which isn’t an option—I’m stuck.
“I’ll be fine. I can handle it. I’ll report back to the field tomorrow.”
* * *
All the levity I felt after my call with my mom vanished the moment I was done talking to Limbick. Not even five minutes later, a text from Joe came in.
Joe: See you back here tomorrow morning.
I didn’t reply. Anything I would have responded with would have been impudently childish, and that is not the woman or doctor I want to be.
Then the last patient of the day was a total asshole.
A retired football player—I swear I can’t make this shit up—who demanded I give him a cortisone injection even though his last films are over three years old, and he’s had two this year already.
He needs knee replacement but wasn’t happy hearing that from a woman, so he called me a lying bitch and stormed out.
The only reason he was on my schedule was because his last—male—doctor told him the same thing, and he didn’t like it then either.
Whatever.
I drop Mason at my mom’s, and then on my drive home, I try calling Asher.
He doesn’t pick up, so I text him letting him know the plan for the night.
Twenty minutes later, I park in my spot in the garage and fly up the elevator.
But the moment I enter the apartment, my skin prickles with awareness, and my feet turn to lead, begging me not to move.
Not to explore. Not to seek out the source of what I’m hearing.
Asher grunting and groaning. A female moaning. A repetitive smacking sound.
My heart gallops in my chest, and the backs of my eyes burn in shame and humiliation. I’m so sick I’m shaking with it. The reaction comes on so swiftly it actually shocks me, zapping any logical thought from my mind.
“Yes, Ash. More. Give me more.”
He groans louder. “Fuck, Sara. Jesus.”
I creep along, getting closer to his bedroom, where the sound appears to be coming from.
Only a flash of something in his gym stops me, and I pause, finding the reflection in the mirror.
Asher is shirtless sitting on a workout bench, and a blonde woman in a sports bra is straddling him.
Bouncing on him. I forgot he has physical therapy today, and I know he has a female therapist in his crew, though I haven’t met her, and I’m positive that’s what that is, but…
Why is she in a sports bra? And why is she straddling and bouncing on him? He wouldn’t be the first athlete to fuck his therapist.
“Yes.” Her voice is ragged and breathless. “There. That’s it. More, more, more. Don’t stop,” she begs.
“Fuck! Yes!” Asher cries out, his face pinched up in concentration, flushed and sweaty.
He sounds exactly as he did this morning on his balcony when he was inside me.
Out of nowhere, my father’s words to my mother all those years ago venomously snake through me.
“There’s only so much of one woman a man can take before he grows bored. ”
My hand slams over my mouth to stifle my sob, and then before I know what I’m doing, I’m running for the door, needing to flee. Hot tears stream down my face the moment the elevator doors close and I fall back against the metal wall, barely able to catch my breath.
What do I do?
I make it to my car on autopilot, and then I’m peeling out, driving away from the building.
Deep, shaking breaths burn my lungs, and I do my best to clear my thoughts.
I try to think this through logically. But I can’t do it.
All I can see is her on his lap. All I can hear are the sounds they were making.
Music blasts through the speakers of my ancient car as I drive out to the skating rink.
I need to be alone. I need to skate and lose myself for a bit before I’m forced to deal with this.
The rink is magnificently empty, dark, and cool as I set my bag down on the ground and pull out my skates.
The tears keep coming, but they begin to stall along with my thoughts.
I keep coming back to one question: Would Asher really do that to me?
I know what I heard, and I know what I saw. But my brain and my heart are having trouble reconciling that with the man I’ve come to know over the last few weeks. No. I don’t think Asher would do that. And I’m furious with myself for running and not seeing the entire picture for myself.
I want to trust him.
I don’t want to be the scarred, damaged girl anymore. The one who sets up roadblocks and is afraid of any man who speaks to her. I’ve avoided getting my heart broken for so long, and I believe it’s served me well. But maybe it’s time I run toward someone instead of away from them.
Maybe the risk will be worth the fall.
Then again, when I was five, I never would have imagined my father would ruthlessly cheat on my mother right under her nose and then not only blame me for it because I caught him in the act but then abandon me.
Only… that’s not Asher. He’s never been that man.
Still working through my thoughts, I lace up my skates and push myself onto the ice, skating around as I slip my AirPods into my ears and then unlock my phone.
I have three missed calls from Asher as well as about a half dozen texts that I didn’t notice.
The blaring music in my car must have drowned out the sound.
I come to a stop, pulling up the first message, when movement out of the corner of my eye startles me so badly that I drop my phone onto the ice.
Absently I know it broke. I could hear the crack.
But I can’t remove my gaze from the man walking my way.