Chapter Twenty-Eight Ruby
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ruby
Me: I don’t know about this, Lauren.
Lauren: The outfit is Hot. Men love it when you wear something with their name on it. Makes them feel all primitive and shit.
Me: I’m not trying to make him feel primitive. I’m going to support my friend.
Lauren: Mmmkay.
Me: Don’t say it like that.
Lauren: Fine. If you want to kid yourself that he’s making this effort because you’re just friends, I’ll play along. But I promise . . . this is a man showing you that you’re important to him.
Lauren: I’ll be there in twenty. Just finishing up my makeup now.
I tossed my phone onto my bed and sighed, standing again in front of the mirror in my bedroom.
On Lauren’s advice, I tied the jersey off by my hip, a slice of my stomach showing above the waistband of my denim cutoffs.
When I turned to the side, the sight of his name on my back sent my pulse sky-high.
She’d found me a brand-new Griffin King jersey somewhere in Denver when she was visiting Marcus.
It was expected, she told me, that when you go to training camp to support someone in particular, you wear their jersey.
Apparently she knew everything now, even though she and Marcus refused to define their relationship.
The man had literally tattooed her name on his ass a couple weeks ago, but they couldn’t call each other boyfriend and girlfriend.
Their visits were usually limited to once a week, due to his busy schedule heading into the season.
But still . . . they’d each made the effort.
And all that time, I’d been here, wondering why the less-than-two-hour drive to Griffin’s new place made it seem like he lived on a different planet.
It wasn’t like I didn’t want to see him.
Sometimes fear made for a stronger leash than we were willing to break.
My hands shook while I finished pulling back my hair. I’d braided it off my face, anchoring it to the nape of my neck with a dark-blue ribbon. And no matter how badly I tried to ignore it, my heart had been thrashing erratically all morning.
Anxiety, as it turned out, can do that to ya.
Even knowing it was nothing more than that—anxiety about seeing a man who’d climbed deep under my skin—I sat heavily on the foot of the bed and laid both hands on my chest. The curse of being the type A responsible one was only feeling comfortable in situations where the outcome was known. Where it was expected.
It didn’t really matter if the outcome occasionally changed; it was walking into something and owning a relative degree of confidence. Like Griffin. If I’d known how it would all turn out, would I have indulged even a hint of that relationship?
Staring at my own reflection in the mirror from my seat on the bed, I wanted to say no. I wanted to admit that I never would’ve walked the same path, but I’d be lying to myself.
The thought of never having Griffin in any of the ways I’d had him made my bones ache and my heart hurt in a different way than it had ever hurt before. Sometimes I closed my eyes and pictured his face—his wide smile and bright eyes—and it was all I could do not to burst into tears.
Was this falling in love, then?
Not being able to get them out of your head. Missing them like a limb. Replaying all the bursts of time where they made things better. Where their absence felt like a small sort of death to be mourned.
It was awful.
My phone buzzed on the bed where I’d thrown it, and assuming it was Lauren again, I grabbed it and tapped on the message bubble.
Mom: Look what popped up in my memories today. Glad you’re healthy and strong. Love you, my girl.
After that, she included a broken-heart emoji and a string of pictures that sent my stomach sinking down to my feet.
It was my last hospital stay before they found a donor for my transplant.
I didn’t even know my mom had taken these pictures, and looking at them had my chest going hard and cold, my throat tight.
She wasn’t doing this to hurt me—my parents were unfailingly pragmatic, just like me—but I felt it like a knife to the gut all the same.
In the first few, I was sleeping in the hospital bed, hooked up to wires and machines, a sickly pallor to my skin, and my arms and legs were painfully thin.
Off to the side of my bed, my dad was slumped in a chair, his head resting on his hand as he slept in a cramped position.
There were bags under his eyes, and it looked like he hadn’t shaved in days.
A tear spilled over onto my cheek before I knew I was crying, and the slow build of unease crawled up my skin as I looked at the other photos.
I’d turned twenty-four not too long before I was in that hospital bed, and I remembered thinking that I likely wouldn’t see twenty-five.
Making peace with the fact that I wouldn’t.
Telling my mom that I’d prefer to be cremated because the thought of a coffin made me want to scream.
My eyes slammed shut when I imagined having a conversation like that with Griffin. Imagined him sitting where my dad sat. Imagined trying to make peace with any shortened life if he was the one I was saying goodbye to.
My fingers started tingling, and my breath came in choppy, short bursts. I dropped my phone and sank my head into my hands while I struggled to calm my breathing, waiting for the cold, prickly wave of anxiety to pass.
It didn’t.
It built. And built. And soon my legs were trembling, my head staticky and loud and horrible.
Bruiser came into the room, nudging my arms with his nose and emitting a low, distressed whine.
I sank onto the floor and wrapped my arms around him, pressing my nose into the sleek fur of his neck, tears coating my face while I told myself over and over that this would pass. It would pass. It would pass.
After a few minutes, the grip on my lungs eased, and I sucked in a deep breath. Bruiser whined again, licking my face.
“I’m okay, buddy.” I scratched behind his ears and kept breathing until my head cleared and my hands stopped tingling.
After a few more minutes, when I felt like my legs could hold me, I stood from the floor and went to splash cold water on my face.
My makeup was ruined, and I couldn’t find it in me to care.
All I wanted to do was crawl under the covers and sleep until the next day.
Or stare at those pictures and remind myself why being alone was so much easier.
Griffin’s face tore through that thought, and I swallowed a sob.
It will pass.
It will pass.
Whatever I was feeling for him, it would pass.
With a hand still on my chest, I let the steady thump of my heart ground me as I sent Lauren a text. Then Griffin. Jaw tight with resolve, I silenced my phone, peeled back the blankets on my bed, toed my shoes off before climbing in, and tugged the covers up over my head.
Griffin
“Quit looking at the sidelines, asshole. You gonna play or not?”
Liam smacked me on the back of my helmet when I wasn’t listening inside the huddle, and I set my jaw, trying to focus on the play we were lining up.
“Sorry,” I told him. “Just . . . looking for someone.”
He eyed me, the rest of the defense watching our interaction carefully. “Need to sit this one out?”
I raised my chin. “No.”
“Good.” He leaned in. “All right, we’re moving to the Miami 4-3, got it? I need you, you, and you,” he said, pointing to me last. “Crash the left side of that line. Don’t let the tight end get past you.”
We stuck our hands in, and when Liam called, we clapped once before we jogged into position.
The atmosphere of training camp always felt a bit like a party, especially on days like this, where the practice fields were filled with spectators with signs, family members dressed in the team colors.
Balloons danced in the air, and music played over the speaker system.
Media mingled along the sidelines, and even with the massive influx of faces, I couldn’t find the one I was looking for.
I exhaled, anchoring my hand on the grass, grinning at the way Marcus growled at me from his tight-end position.
“Good luck trying to catch me, dick,” he said.
I laughed.
The center snapped the ball into the QB’s hands, and our left side pushed in hard against the O-line.
Marcus tried to run a post route but bounced off my chest, and I shoved him back, where he tripped over his own run protection.
I spun around an offensive lineman, hands reaching for our quarterback, who danced back and tucked the ball under his arm just before I wrapped my arms around him.
In a real game, against a real opponent, his ass would be on the ground, but flooring my own quarterback was generally frowned upon.
“Damn it,” he laughed. “You’re too quick, King.”
I tapped his helmet. “That’s the point, isn’t it?”
He tossed the ball back to one of the coaches and whistled for the offense to take a water break.
Liam approached, holding his fist out for a tap. “Nice work. You do that every game, and we’ll be just fine.”
“Thanks.” Someone handed me a bottle of Gatorade, and I took a long drink, eyes skating over the different groups of people. But there was no sign of messy blond hair and big gray eyes anywhere to be seen.
“Looking for your girl that’s not your girl?”
I sighed, tossing the Gatorade bottle back to the boy who’d handed it to me. “Yeah.”
“She’s friends with Marcus’s . . .” He paused. “Whatever the fuck he’s calling her. Heard him say something about consensual monogamous sex and cuddling partner, and I kinda wanted to gouge my eyes out.”
“Yeah, Lauren is her friend.” My brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Isn’t that her?” He nodded over to the opposite sideline, and I caught a glimpse of Lauren laughing at something Marcus was saying to her.
My heart jumped into my throat as I jogged over there, but still . . . there was no sign of Ruby.