Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Julie
“ I really think the peach gummies have to go in the number two slot,” Asher says, swallowing a mouthful of candy. “It’s a hard choice, but they’re just a better candy than the gummy cherries. It’s the sugar coating I think.”
I chew the last of the gummy peach in my mouth, considering. “You know, I hate when anyone who isn’t me is right, but I think I have to give this one to you.”
He flashes me a grin. “Tell me I’m right again, Juliette. It just does something to me.”
“You’re an easy man to please.”
“I mean, I’ve got the wide-open road, you in my passenger seat, ten different kinds of gummy candy, and we’re eating dinner tonight in an actual igloo. What’s not to be pleased about?”
He grins at me, and I get a long, liquid pool low in my belly. With a backwards baseball hat, his aviators, jeans, and a long-sleeved dark green t-shirt that hugs his muscles like it was custom made for him, he is almost unfairly hot. And now that I know exactly what he looks like under all those clothes, my mind has gone to some pretty dirty places. I thought it would be awkward and weird this morning. And for a minute, it was. But then Asher did his thing where he makes something that feels terrible not terrible at all. I don’t know how he does it—he might be magic.
After last night’s little show, I woke up this morning with my stomach twisting with anxiety, wondering whether I should grab the first flight I could find out of St. Louis and have Hallie pick me up at the airport later today. I couldn’t make sense of it all—what it would mean for Asher and me, if it would mean anything, and whether I wanted it to. How he would act and how I would act and whether the rest of the trip would be awkward and weird.
But then he was outside my door with his signature grin and my latte and his giant soda and that irritatingly endearing habit he has of getting me to talk about things that I never talk about with anyone, and before I knew it, I was sitting on the carpet of a hotel hallway in his lap, with his arms tight around me.
I would never take anything from you that you didn’t want to give me .
Those words have been playing on a loop in my head since the hotel, and I’ve been trying to make sense of why they hit me so hard. It’s not that anyone has ever taken anything from me that I didn’t want to give, exactly. It’s more that I give so much, the people in my life don’t even realize that they’re taking. I need control and I need to take charge because I need everything to be perfect, and I always think the only way for it to be perfect is to do it myself. I hand out assignments and I organize everyone to within an inch of their lives and I worry about everyone and everything, and I’m beginning to see that maybe this life hasn’t served me so well.
Because what do I have to show for it? The constant thrum of anxiety in the background. A reputation for being a hardass who never takes a break. Hiding the more vulnerable parts of myself so my friends and family don’t realize what a disaster I am underneath my Lawyer Mode shield. I mean, I canceled my entire life for two weeks for a road trip with a man who was basically a stranger rather than tell my brother and my friends—the closest people in the world to me—I had a panic attack. That can’t be healthy. And yet. As the days go by, I realize more and more that I don’t want to be anywhere else except for right here, with him.
And isn’t that a kick in the ass?
I sneak a side glance at Asher, who is bobbing his head to the music we have playing, mouthing the lyrics as he hits the blinker to change lanes. He must have a sixth sense when it comes to me because he glances over and gives me a wink before turning his eyes back to the road.
He sure doesn’t feel like a stranger. We’ve only been on this trip for three days and he might know me better than anyone else in my life. He just gets me. Somehow, this man, who is likely a future hall of fame NFL quarterback, who is constantly named one of the best-looking players in the league, who looks like he just stepped off the pages of a magazine, really looks at me, and he seems to like what he sees.
I like what I see too .
I like the way he constantly searches for fun wherever we go, and when he can’t find it, he makes it himself, like deciding this morning when we got in the car that we were going to rank the best gummy candy in his stash. I like the way he lights up when he talks about his family. I like how he’s not intimidated by me—how he likes it when I beat him at things, and when I take swipes at him, and when I’m in a crap mood. He doesn’t want me to be anything except exactly what I am. I think this is the first time in my life I have experienced that, and part of me wishes this road trip would last forever. That maybe we would last forever.
Forever? Back the truck up, Jules .
Because we might be having fun now, but vacations end, and real life happens, and in real life, the lawyer with awful anxiety and a mile-wide perfectionist streak who can’t even give up control and relax enough to have an orgasm with another human does not end up with the gorgeous, happy-go-lucky, golden-boy quarterback. No matter how much she wants to.
“So, what are the final standings?”
Asher’s voice yanks me out of my head and back into the car.
“What?”
“The candy. We’re ranking the candy, remember? For science, Juliette. Science is counting on us.”
I snort out a laugh. “I hated science. If science is counting on me, science is doomed.”
Asher’s phone rings then. An unknown Pittsburgh area code flashes on the car’s LCD screen, and he rejects the call. The phone immediately rings again with the same number, and he rejects that one too.
“You didn’t need to get those?”
“Nah, I don’t like answering unknown numbers.”
He reaches over and tucks a piece of hair that fell out of my ponytail behind my ear, and traces his fingers down my jaw, letting his hand linger an extra second. Tingles explode out from where he touches me, and he smiles like he knows exactly how this contact is affecting me. I swear the man can read my damn mind.
“Good thing for us, I love science.”
“You do?”
“I do. Bio major in college. ”
“Like, biology?”
“Yep.”
“You majored in biology?”
“Sure did. With a minor in physics.”
“But, why?”
He shrugs. “I wanted to be a doctor.”
I stare at the side of his face. “You…huh?”
He chuckles. “You really did think I was just a dumb jock, didn’t you?”
I shift, uncomfortably. “I mean, not dumb but…I thought all football players sort of coasted through college, studying just enough so they stayed eligible to play. Why kill yourself if you knew you were going to the NFL?”
“I didn’t always know that.”
I scoff at that. “Come on. I grew up in Pittsburgh. I’m a lifelong football fan. I remember when you were drafted. Phenom quarterback out of the University of Boulder, standout all four years of college, started every game all four seasons, third overall draft pick. There was no way you weren’t making it to the NFL.”
He lays a hand on my leg and just rests it there. “Please feel free to keep reciting my stats to me. It’s hot as fuck, Juliette.”
“I would, but I really want to know why you thought you needed such an intense backup plan when your future seemed so clear.” I’m practically burning with the need to know this fact. For some reason, it feels like this little piece of information will unlock a piece of Asher that I desperately want to understand.
He sighs, shifting in his seat, his grip tightening on my leg. “My whole life has been football. Ever since the first time I held a ball when I was five or so years old, I’ve loved it. I loved playing on a team, and I loved throwing a football around with my dad and my sisters in the backyard. The game is a part of me. It always has been. The thing is, football didn’t always come naturally to me. I’ve never been the biggest, or the strongest, or the fastest. But what I was, was the hardest worker. I would get to practice early, leave late, and workout on off days. I studied playbooks when I should have been sleeping and then fell asleep watching tape of our opponents.”
This, at least, I completely understand. “You wanted it more than anything, so you worked your ass off to get it. If you didn’t get it, it wasn’t going to be because you didn’t work hard enough.”
He nods. “You understand.” He says it like a declaration, like he knows he can give me this truth and I’ll see him. My heart suddenly feels like it’s too big for my chest. I put my hand over his, and he turns his over, lacing our fingers together.
“So, since I had to work so hard for it, I didn’t take anything for granted. Not like the guys on my team who were born with a football in their hands and never doubted they would make it. I never looked at the NFL as a certainty, and I wanted to have a plan, in case it didn’t work out. But not just a fallback plan, a real second option that I could be as passionate about as I was about football.”
“Medicine.”
He nods. “Medicine. My dad is a surgeon, and my older sisters Charlie and Annie are both doctors. I love science, and I’ve always been fascinated by my dad’s job. When I was a kid, he would sometimes bring me to the hospital and let me come with him to round on his patients, and those are some of my best memories. Before I realized the NFL might be an option for me, I knew I would go to medical school. I guess I kind of started college with two dreams and wanted to make sure I could make one of them come true.”
I’m a little stunned at the thoughtful way he approached his career, but I realize I probably shouldn’t be. This is a man who brought me back from a panic attack and took me on a road trip so I could take a break from work I desperately needed but wouldn’t ever have taken on my own. A man who has stopped at nothing to make sure that I have everything I could need or want. Who has worked so hard to make sure I’m happy. Who seems to see me without me having to say a word. He is nothing but thoughtful. I get the sudden urge to pepper him with questions; to learn every single thing about this man who is so much deeper and more complex than he lets on. But he is taking his time with me, and he deserves the same in return. So, I start small.
“What kind of doctor did you want to be?”
He grins. “Pediatrician.”
“Somehow that makes perfect sense.”
“Right? I love kids. They’re so fun and funny and they still think everything is magic. I try and volunteer where I can; I make a lot of trips to Children’s Hospital, and I’m working with Jeremy a little during the offseason on the camps he’s setting up.”
“Would you ever think about going to medical school when you retire one day?”
He stiffens a little at that and rolls his right shoulder in a move I’ve been noticing more and more as the days go by. I’m still curious about it, but don’t want to pry too deep, too soon.
“I don’t think so. It’s a lot of school and training, and I’m already thirty-one, so by the time I retire and start school, I’d be a pretty old doctor. Also, I miss my family and my sisters keep having babies, and if I go to med school, I’ll have even less time to see them than I do now. So as much as I would have loved to be a doctor, I’m happy with the path I chose. I don’t regret it for a second. All in all, I’m a pretty lucky guy.”
“God, how did you get so emotionally healthy? I’ve never known a guy like you. ”
He smiles and shrugs. “It’s probably the four sisters.”
“I can’t wait to meet them.” I squeeze his hand when I realize this is the absolute truth. I want to know here this man came from. I want to know everything about him.
Asher’s phone rings again then, the same number that rang before. He rejects the call and just like last time, it rings again, and he rejects that one too. My stomach does a little flip wondering who might be trying to get in touch with him. Whoever it is, they clearly want to reach him pretty badly, so why doesn’t he want to pick up the phone?
“You sure you don’t need to get that?”
“Definitely not. It’s not important.”
“How do you know it’s not important if you don’t answer the phone?”
He tosses me a grin. “I know everything.”
I smile back but unease curls into my stomach. Four missed calls in an hour from the same number when his phone has barely made a sound in the three days we’ve been on the road unless it’s his family or the group chat he has with Ben, Jeremy, and Jordan feels like it might be important.
“Hey, want anything from the gas station convenience store? I need to fill up.”
He signals and pulls off the highway, turning into a gas station and pulling up at one of the pumps.
“No, I’m good.”
He looks at me strangely. “This is the first time since we stopped that you didn’t tell me to get you more caffeine or look for some insane potato chip flavor.”
I just shrug, trying to act casually when my mind is starting to race with all the potential explanations for the four phone calls. Like maybe he’s seeing someone else. Someone who isn’t me. The thought turns my stomach.
“Guess there’s a first time for everything.”
He holds his gaze on me for a second before opening the car door. “Sit tight, Juliette. I’ll be right back.”
He doesn’t take his phone with him, and as soon as he gets out of the car, it rings again. Same number. And again. And again. With every call, the knot in my stomach tightens. I try and breathe against it and force my brain out of worst-case scenario mode. Because right now, it’s trying very hard to go to that place. The place where the things he’s been saying to me aren’t real. They feel real. God, do they ever feel real. But what if they’re not? My fingers scratch at my wrist as my mind races.
His phone buzzes again, this time with a text. I look down at his phone in the cup holder and see the message preview on the screen. As I look, the messages keep coming.
Unknown
Ash, where are you?
Everyone is saying you left town. You didn’t want to come see me before you left?
You know I can give you what you need. I always do.
You need me just as much as I need you.
Call me.
Tears prick at my eyes as the messages finally stop coming through. I lean my head back against my seat and will myself to calm down. My breathing to slow. My fingers to stop scratching my wrist. There may be some reasonable explanation for this, but I curse my analytical, lawyer mind for abandoning me in my moment of need.
I can’t grab hold of logic. All I can grab on to are images of Asher and some faceless woman who probably has a perfect body and perfect hair and a perfect brain that never gets anxiety and never needs to be calmed down and who never needs to hear things like “you’re safe with me” because she never feels unsafe and she can probably have an orgasm on command through penetration alone. I hate her and I try to hate him, but I can’t summon it because what I feel for him is the opposite of that, and when the fuck did that happen?
Because the hell of it is, I didn’t realize just how much I wanted every single part of him—body and mind and soul—until right this minute, when it seems like he’s not mine to have.