Chapter 30
A sher was officially cleared to play by me and the training staff on Tuesday.
I’ve never seen an athlete, or anyone for that matter, work as hard to get themselves back into game form as he has.
Hours and hours of physical therapy, weights, running, and training.
He’s been throwing the ball for a couple of weeks now, but Tuesday he went out on the field for practice and proved he was ready.
And yet he’s riding the bench.
Something the fans in the stadium are not happy about and are not shy about letting Joe and the entire team know.
Leo lost horrifically last week. Three interceptions and one fumble. And after Asher’s press conference on Wednesday, declaring himself physically ready to play, the crowd is demanding their hero take the field to lead them to victory.
I haven’t seen Asher much today. He woke up this morning, went for a very early run, and then he got a phone call, and before I knew what was happening, he told me he had to get to the field early and practically raced out the door.
Since he ran out on the field with the team, he’s been… I don’t know… agitated, maybe.
Like lava simmering beneath the surface, ready to blow.
I’m bundled up on the sidelines, wearing more layers than I can count, topped off with a Rebels puffy coat. It’s the middle of October, and it’s especially miserable out today as the temperature huddles around freezing and light icy rain falls from the sky.
“I miss Miami,” I grumble to Dean, who looks like he’s about to go yachting in khaki pants and a navy Rebels sweater. “Aren’t you freezing?”
“Are you kidding me? This is football weather.”
I roll my eyes skyward, only they start to freeze as ice pellets them making me wince.
There are heaters blasting on the sidelines, but those are for the players, and Asher told me I’d look like a wimp if I stand in front of them the entire game.
I flipped him off and put myself in a position where I can catch the very edge of one of them.
I’m fine with being a wimp if it means I’m warm.
Asher is pacing the sideline, talking to Leo, and grumbling out curses when plays don’t go well.
The team is playing five hundred football, Dean explained to me, which means their record isn’t winning or losing.
Considering the expectations for the team this year, I think it’s safe to say no one is happy.
Least of all Asher right now.
He’s changed a bit over the last few weeks. He smiles less, and his manner seems… harder. Less go-with-the-flow. Less himself. I’ve pushed a little bit, but he won’t talk about it. I know it’s related to everything that’s happening with his position on the team and its future.
Joe knows about me and Asher, and how Asher is Mason’s father. Asher told me he followed him to the drug store and confronted him there, but then Joe had the audacity to tell me I should end it with him because he’s not good enough for me.
I laughed in his face and walked away.
But I also know that Joe doesn’t like Asher and that his time on this team is borrowed. What that means for me and Mason, I don’t know. Only time will tell, and I force myself not to dwell on it. At least not until I have to.
“Remind me why we have to be on the field?”
Just as the words leave my mouth a defensive player comes barreling at Leo, who doesn’t run or shift to deflect the onslaught.
The defensive player plows through one of our offensive guys and straight into Leo, knocking him to the ground with so much force that I immediately cover my mouth with my hands to stifle my shriek of horror.
“Fuck,” Dean hisses.
“Oh my God!” I grip his forearm. “Is he moving? Is he getting up? Is he okay?” I rise up on my toes to try and get a better look, but I’m shorter than all of these players by several inches.
A player waves over the training staff. “Doesn’t look that way. This is why we stay on the field.”
Dean grabs his medicine bag and runs out onto the field, and I find myself walking over to the sideline to where Asher is standing with his hands on his head, elbows butterflied out, and distress all over his face.
“He’s unconscious,” he tells me, and I feel my eyes prickling with tears. “I tried talking to him, and he hasn’t responded, and I heard Ryder call that out to the staff.”
“Dean is on it.”
He gives me an absent nod, but that’s it. Joe is on the field, standing over Leo and talking with the crew who are working on him. He wipes at his face, his expression grim, and then he points at Asher.
My heart gallops faster in my chest. “What does that mean?”
Asher blows out a breath. “It means I’m up.”
“No.”
The word is out of my mouth before I can stop it. Asher peers down at me, but after seeing that hit Leo just took and watching as they bring out the fucking cart and put him on a backboard with a neck collar, I can’t help it.
“Asher.” I follow him back to the bench where he grabs his helmet off a holder.
He turns back to me, stares around at everyone around us, and then back up at the crowd in the stands. And when he turns back to me, I see the grit and raw determination in his eyes and the locked set of his jaw.
“I’ll be fine.”
The crowd erupts in applause as Leo gives a small thumbs-up as they load him onto the cart and drive him out toward the tunnel. Thank God for that!
“I have to get warmed up.”
“Asher!”
His hand cups my jaw, and then his mouth slams down on mine. Rough and passionate, and taking no prisoners. Right here on the field. In front of the entire world, most likely because I’m positive there are cameras trained on the returning quarterback. But at this moment, I don’t care.
I’m scared.
I don’t want him to go out there, and I never thought about it in those terms before, but he could get hurt .
“You don’t have to watch,” he whispers against my mouth. “But this is what I do. And I’m damn fucking good at it.” He steps back and gives me an arrogant boy wink. “I love you.” And then he puts his helmet on as a kid comes racing over, holding a ball, and ready to take some passes with him.
“I love you too,” I murmur, but he’s already gone, and now I’m stuck here like this. With my face plastered across the massive screens that line the upper portion of each endzone. Awesome.
I head back over to the returning training staff, doing my best to pretend not to notice that my face is blown up to the size of a blue whale in high definition or the players who are all staring and talking about me and their quarterback.
“Is he okay?” I ask one of the trainers.
“Yes. He got his bell rung and most definitely has a concussion. Dean is taking him back for an X-ray and possibly a CT scan, depending on what he discovers during his neuro exam.”
“Good.” I breathe out a sigh of relief. “I’m glad Dean is on it.” Leo is a nice kid. A bit too cocky for his own good, but a nice kid.
Joe glares at me from the sideline, and I give him a cheeky grin.
He grumbles something I can’t hear and then turns back to the field.
What his problem with Asher is, I have no clue, but it doesn’t matter.
We’re out there now. Asher just made us public, and any peace and quiet we had before is now gone.
I should be angry about that. It’s not what we talked about at all, but I can’t find my ire anywhere. My guy is on the field, and that seems to trump everything else at the moment.
“Don’t worry,” one of the players, whose name is Aaron I think, says to me. “They’ll keep him safe, and Asher is the best in the league at evading the sack. I think he only had six all of last season.”
“That’s not a lot?” I ask, gnawing on my lip.
He grins at me. “There are quarterbacks who have six in a game.”
“Oh.” I grimace. “Okay. Got it.”
“You get used to it,” he tells me. “My wife never used to watch my games, but now she comes to every home game we have.”
“Thank you for that,” I tell him. “It helps.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I slip it out to see it’s Fallon.
“Excuse me.”
I shift over toward the side—and the heater, let’s be honest—for some privacy that I doubt I have any of.
Fallon: Asher kissing you is all over every sports network right now, whether they’re broadcasting the game or not. You can also tell that he says I love you to you.
Me: Fabulous. What are the odds we make it home without a media storm or without people discovering that Asher is my baby daddy?
Fallon: Next to none. They’ll know your name and who you are by the end of the game. I’m sorry.
Me: Thank you. It was bound to come out at some point.
That’s the spin I’m going to put on it because it’s the only one I’ve got.
Asher steps onto the field, and the place erupts into thunder and lightning, vibrating the earth beneath my feet with its intensity and flashing endless light from camera phones.
Asher throws his hand up in the air, thanking the fans, and then he’s all business, going into the huddle and leading his team.
My heart hiccups into my throat and stays there, lodged like a lump of clay unable to be expelled.
My fingers knot up and tuck under my chin like a six-year-old.
I never really watch the games when I’m out here.
I mean, I watch some of it. But I don’t follow plays or downs or the score—or much of anything—other than the clock that I was always counting down.
But right now, I’m invested, my breath held along with every other fan here.
Ryder snaps the ball, and right off the damn bat, two guys on either side of the field go running the distance along with another guy I’ve heard referred to as a tight end.
Asher fakes handing off the ball to the runner and then he sidesteps, dodging the advance of a defensive player, and lets the ball fly.
Joe curses audibly, ripping his headset from his head and thrashing his arm out as if he’s about to chuck it.
The ball sails in a high, tight spiral that hits one of the players downfield midstride.
With the ball in his hands, he sprints down the field, only to be tackled on the twenty-yard line.
Asher fist pumps into the air and then points at his wide receiver, but that’s the only emotion he shows.
Just like that, he’s clapping his hands, and getting his team to run down the field, calling something out to each of them as they go.
Joe is losing his absolute mind on the sideline and then calls a timeout.
Asher is furious, yelling at Joe in a way I’ve never seen him do before as he comes running over to the sideline.
The two of them go head-to-head, shouting words no one else can hear due to the roar of the crowd.
Ryder inserts himself between the two of them and then starts walking forward, pushing Asher back onto the field.
“Follow the fucking plays I call!” I hear Joe belt out, and all Asher does is shake his head.
“I know!” He points at Joe over Ryder’s shoulder. “I fucking know all about you, Joe. You’re not calling shit today.”
I have no idea what’s going on, but I’ve never seen Asher like this.
And what the hell did that mean? He knows about Joe?
What does he know? Ryder grabs Asher by the facemask of his helmet, and then he’s saying something that has Asher nodding.
The timeout ends, and Asher is on the field, calling the play, going completely rogue.
Joe’s headset goes flying, skidding across the grass, forcing two players to jump so it doesn’t smash into them, and then it crashes against one of the heaters.
He’s ripping at his hair and for a man who is notoriously cool and composed, he’s completely unhinged.
The players shift, giving Joe a wider berth.
Not even his assistant coaches will go near him.
My phone vibrates in my pocket again.
Fallon: What the hell is going on? The announcers are going nuts, speculating about all kinds of things. Is Asher running the show and not listening to Joe? They’re also saying he’s been traded to LA.
My skin prickles with uneasiness.
Me: What? No. That can’t be. Asher would have told me if he was being traded.
Wouldn’t he have?
Fallon: I don’t know. Layla, Aurelia, and I are watching.
The guys are in another room talking about something.
Did Asher say anything to you this morning?
The announcers are now saying there’s a deal in the works for a rare mid-season trade to LA, but now that Leo is hurt and Asher is on the field, they’re stating that deal might end up on hold.
Me: He went for a run and then left in a rush. He’s been quiet and maybe a bit more inward and distant, but I assumed it was related to being benched. Then he just yelled at Joe that he knows about him. I don’t know what he’s talking about or what’s going on.
Could she be right? Is Asher being traded to LA? And why wouldn’t he have told me? He told me he wouldn’t do this. I told him how I work. Where my mind tends to go. That I have freaking abandonment issues. So no. He wouldn’t do this.
Right?
Fallon: The guys know something for sure, but they’re not sharing it yet.
There’s something going on beneath the surface.
All I know is that Lenox was doing some digging into Joe.
Grey let something slip before they went into the other room to talk.
Maybe he found something on Joe. If I learn what it is, I’ll text you.
Me: Thank you.
I don’t even know what else to say. What on earth could Lenox have found on Joe that would have Asher so furious? And what if Fallon is right? What if Asher is being traded to LA? And he didn’t tell me.