Chapter 3 Ash
I may never walk again. No, that wasn’t right. I could walk, I just couldn’t stand upright. At all. Red’s bed had killed my back. And my hips. And my legs. And my neck, because her pillows were softer than butter with no support whatsoever.
As I tried to work out my aches while I headed to the stadium, I knew that I couldn’t spend the night there again.
Practice was at six this morning, and I had left her sleeping in her best friend’s bed.
I’d left her a note, but I’d also pushed the door open to see if she was awake.
She wasn’t, and, too afraid I would get caught hovering in her doorway like a creeper, I had quickly pulled the door shut and then headed to practice.
As I approached the stadium, I saw my cousins waiting for me outside. Gray couldn’t play, and Jett was gradually being transitioned back in, his shoulder injury healing slowly after wrestling Onyx out of the water.
Gray held out a water bottle to me with a chuckle. “She made it for you before we left.”
Jett gave me a warm smile. “Even got up specially to make it. Without coffee.” He glanced at Gray. “Queeny first thing in the morning, with no coffee? Not fun.”
I said nothing as I took the drink of blended “if-I-don’t-ask-I’ll-never-know-and-if-I-don’t-know-I-won’t-die” smoothie. It was fucked up that this actually made me feel normal. “Thanks.”
“How was your first night?” Gray asked me carefully.
“Her bed is uncomfortable,” I grumbled. “I feel like a human pretzel.”
Jett’s glance at Gray was sharp before he looked at me. “You slept with her?”
“No. Ava’s bed is tiny, hers is longer, so I took hers.”
“You kicked her out of her own bed?” Gray asked me with an incredulous look, his eyes widening in surprise.
“I’m six-four, she isn’t.” I drank more of my smoothie. “This is still disgusting.”
“Stop whining.” Jett punched my shoulder as we headed to the side of the stadium, to the players’ entrance. “I don’t have two hours in me this morning for this,” he lamented as he pulled the door open.
“Are you training today?” I asked Gray as I gestured to his hand that was still strapped.
“Yeah, got to keep all of you honest,” he replied with a smirk.
“Honest? You? That’s new,” I muttered as I finished my drink.
“Stop it,” Jett warned as he looked over his shoulder at me with a scowl. “Not today. Not here.”
“I said nothing,” I lied as I walked past them both. Gray’s good hand shot out and caught my arm, stopping me. “What?”
“We’ll deal with our issue soon.” He held his splint up to show me his hand. “Until then, play the fucking game.”
“All I do is play the fucking game. Whether on the field or off it, I know where my loyalties lie, cousin.”
Gray stepped into my space, not the slightest bit bothered that he was three inches shorter. “Get over it and do it soon. This is bigger than your ego . . . though Christ knows that’s saying something.”
Turning to Jett, I asked, “How long before the splint comes off?”
“Two, maybe three weeks.”
Grunting my disapproval at the wait, I carried on to the locker room.
I already knew Gray and I were going to come to blows, but even though he had offered me the punch, I wanted to hit him when he could defend himself.
Hitting a man with a splint was a coward’s thing to do.
I couldn’t help but grin when I remembered Gray had hit Onyx with the splint, but in his defense, and I would grudgingly give him that, he had been so enraged he forgot his hand was broken.
I may be three inches taller than Gray, but he had three times the amount of anger. Still, I was looking forward to beating the shit out of him anyway.
Coach was already screaming orders when we entered the locker room, and the three of us collectively held our breaths, hoping he wouldn’t notice we were here.
Eyeing our locker area, we moved stealthily toward it as one, while also keeping an eye on the coach.
Once I was in front of my own area, I started pulling off my hoodie, remorseful that I hadn’t had a morning shower.
Or an evening shower. I liked to be clean. At the moment, I felt dirty.
Cranking my neck, I reached for my jersey with one hand, while I undid my belt with the other.
“Why are you three late?” Coach asked from behind, and I turned to look at him, noticing that Jett was still getting dressed and Gray was on the bench, his head back against the wooden post, his eyes closed.
“We’re not late, Coach,” Gray said without opening his eyes. He pointed toward the area of the locker room that held the clock. “We’re still three minutes early.”
With a quick glance, I saw that he was right. Smug bastard.
“The captain should be here before the rest of the team,” Coach retorted sharply. “Some of you live together, so why weren’t you all here . . . together?”
“Sorry, Coach,” Jett mumbled as he pulled his shorts up at the same time as slipping his feet into his cleats. “I’m ready. What’s the drills for today?”
“Laps.” Coach looked at Gray, who still had his eyes closed. “Even you can run laps, twenty-two, let’s move it.”
With a flick of his finger behind Coach’s back, Gray stood.
“That’s an extra ten for everyone, Santo. I’m not fucking stupid.” Coach’s cold laughter could be heard reverberating around the room as he left to go out onto the stadium.
“Well done,” I snarked at Gray, who answered me with that same raised middle finger.
It took him longer to get undressed and dressed due to his splint, and I could have helped him, but I really just enjoyed watching him struggle.
What that said about me, I wasn’t sure, but I was hoping it was simply that I was an almost twenty-year-old man with a bruised ego.
I tried to tell myself he was my cousin, my blood, like a brother, and, because of that, the anger at his betrayal would fade.
Wouldn’t it?
Gray looked up at me as I warred internally, and his smirk as he straightened his practice shirt let me know he knew exactly what I was thinking. I almost apologized, but his low chuckle as he passed me made me lose my guilt and revert back to wanting to punch him. Again.
I had to get over this.
Shaking my head, I followed the twins out of the locker room to the practice area, and with a heavy sigh, I started running laps.
It was what every athlete wanted to do at six-fifteen on a Monday morning in the cold November air.
Sometimes, and they were few and far between, I reminded myself that a computer analyst didn’t do this.
They probably slept until eight, maybe had a light breakfast, commuted to work, and did a nine-to-five job like a normal person.
Then I would remind myself that sitting at a desk from nine to five would slowly kill me.
I loved my sport, and I knew how fragile my position within a team, any team, was.
There was no I in team sports, and for the cocky shits who told you there was a “me” in teams, they’d never been part of a team to understand the mentality.
Team sports, like football, were a brotherhood. I was related to two men on this team, but that meant shit. On the field, I was just as loyal to the eight other men on the field, the eleven on the defense, and the thirty or so who made up the rest of the team.
I would play in the NFL. I knew I would.
I was good, I knew it. I also knew I could be better, and it was that need to be better that drove me forward every day.
Every time I set foot on the turf, nothing else mattered.
My issue with Gray was forgotten when we were talking routes, drives, and strategy.
I had no enemies in this stadium. The only person who could fuck up my ambition was myself, and despite what people may think, I was just as focused as my cousins.
Jett looked over at me as he ran easily beside me, and we shared a smile as we ran.
Gray ran on the other side of his brother, and as I leaned forward slightly, I saw his face was the blank mask he always wore, letting me know that Gray was in the zone and we’d need to physically stop him from running.
As we ran in silence, I knew why I was so focused.
I actually enjoyed the laps, I enjoyed the exercise, and since I could hear the grumblings from my teammates behind us — those who didn’t run for fun — Jett put some speed to his run.
Following him, Gray and I did the same, pulling away from the others, leaving the voices of dissent behind us.
The whistle blowing a while later pulled me back to the field where Coach stood with two huge bags of balls beside him. The practice pads were already set up, and I reached out and caught Gray’s arm to slow his run, because as I predicted, he was deep within his thoughts.
“Think I had another few in me,” Gray mumbled to us both as we headed to the center of the field.
“Finding your Zen?” Jett asked him, and although his tone was light, I saw the tension around his eyes as he watched his brother.
“Yeah, clearest my head’s been in a while, now that I’ve got Quinn,” Gray confessed, and then I saw him remember I was beside him. “Sorry.”
“For?”
Gray sighed and worked his arm backward and forward, his good hand pressed into his shoulder as he loosened the tightness. “All of it? None of it? I no longer know.”
Jett had been right earlier; this wasn’t the time, and this wasn’t the place. “You can’t lose it,” I reminded him, choosing to ignore his half-assed apology.
“I won’t,” Gray replied.
Jett reached out and touched his brother’s elbow, letting him know he was at his side.
It was a gesture I don’t think either of them consciously recognized that they did.
It was as if they were checking in with each other, making sure the other wasn’t struggling.
Sometimes, I envied them for that. Sure, we were family, but they were brothers; worse than that, twins, and I didn’t have that bond.