Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Julie
O ur room is warm when we get back. Shirley must have seen us go outside and assumed we would be freezing because a fire is roaring in the giant fireplace and even with the god-awful wallpaper, the room is inviting.
Asher closes the door behind us before unzipping my suitcase and handing me the pajamas he somehow knows are always on top. “Go warm up in the shower. We can talk afterwards.” He kisses my forehead again and pushes me gently towards the bathroom. I sense he needs a minute to gather his thoughts, and now that I know whatever is going on is career related, I’m happy to give him whatever time he needs.
I come out of the bathroom to a bare mattress and a nest of pillows and blankets on the floor in front of the fire. Asher is sitting in the middle of the pile, wearing gray joggers and a navy hoodie. His light brown hair is disheveled, like he has spent the last ten minutes running his hands through it, and he looks so cozy I want to curl myself into him and never let go.
I take a seat across from him, cross-legged so our knees are touching, and he immediately takes both of my hands in his, holding them tighter than necessary, like he needs a touchstone for whatever conversation we’re about to have. His face, normally so open and cheerful, is tense, and his sky-blue eyes look troubled and anxious. I’m suddenly almost desperate to put him at ease. To calm him the way he has done for me so many times over the last few weeks. I pull one of my hands out of his and lay it on his cheek. He leans into my touch immediately.
“Asher. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
“I’m a little afraid of this conversation.” His admission comes in a raspy whisper.
“Tell me why.”
“I’m afraid you’ll walk away once you hear what I have to say.”
“I won’t.” I’m starting to think there is nothing on earth that would make me walk away from this man. He could tell me he killed someone, and I would grab a shovel to help bury the body, law license be damned. “I swear I won’t. You’re safe with me too, you know. We can be safe with each other.” I feel the truth of those words more deeply than I have felt anything in my life. I want to be his safe place, because he is absolutely, undoubtedly mine.
He leans into my hand for another minute before he recaptures it with his and starts to talk.
“Okay, so it started about five years ago. It was the first home game of my fourth season on the team, and I dislocated my shoulder in the third quarter.”
I narrow my eyes, thinking back. “I was at that game. It was a bad sack, right?”
“Yeah. You were really there?”
“I go to a lot of home games. My dad’s company has a bunch of tickets, and when he’s not using them for business, he gives them to us. Ben and Hallie and everyone were there too. I remember when you went down.” And I do. I remember him laying on the turf, holding his arm close to his body so it stayed immobile, and I remember thinking I could see the pain in his eyes as the trainers helped him off the field. Weird to have such a vivid memory of a single football game from years ago.
“So, you might remember that I didn’t come back to the game. Not that day and not for eight more weeks. It was my first real football injury, and I didn’t need surgery, so everyone expected a quick recovery. They kept saying I would be back to practice in a month and then back to the game after six weeks. But that didn’t happen. Instead, I missed more than half the season. For some reason, the pain wouldn’t go away, and no one could figure out why. I did intense physical therapy and got cortisone shots that let me play the second half of the season. I was never pain free, but I got good at hiding it. As far as the coaches and trainers knew, I was healed. But I wasn’t.”
He stops then, taking a breath. He looks at me, as if he’s asking for permission to keep going. To tell me whatever comes next. I say nothing, just squeeze his hand and give him what I hope is a reassuring smile. It must work, because he continues.
“I was worried enough about the pain that when I was in Boulder that offseason, I went to see a close family friend who is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine. He did an MRI and diagnosed me with post-traumatic arthritis. He couldn’t tell me why it happened—it was mostly just bad luck. He kept the appointment completely off the books as a favor, and no one ever found out. As far as anyone else knew, I healed fine, and the injury was forgotten.”
The pain in his eyes when he took the hit in the playoff game. The way he rolls his shoulder. His discomfort when I mentioned his post-football plans yesterday. My logical brain slots these pieces right into place to form the whole picture .
“But you didn’t forget about it.” It’s not a question. Asher clearly lives with at least some pain, and the thought of this sweet, strong, confident man being in any kind of discomfort kills me.
“I didn’t. Post-traumatic arthritis can be temporary, but my job literally requires the near-constant use of my shoulder, so it wasn’t temporary for me. That first season after my injury, I was in pain all the time for the first few weeks. I could get through the games, but practice was excruciating, and off-days were terrible. But I still didn’t want to tell anyone because I didn’t want them to pull me from the game.”
He stops then, taking his hands from mine and running them down his face before he continues.
“I belong to a gym near my house. Sometimes on off days, I like to get a break from the team gym. I could work out at my house, but I like being around other people, and sometimes I take a spin class. Or yoga.” He gives me a wry grin, and the thought of Asher in a yoga class makes me giggle. Actually giggle like a fucking teenager.
“Anyway, one day this guy at my gym came up to me and said he had something that could help me. I had no clue what he was talking about, but he told me he had been watching me and noticed I was having shoulder issues. It freaked me the fuck out because I had been able to hide it from the team trainers who are literally paid to notice shit like this, but a stranger saw it right away. But I guess when your income depends on selling things that help people not feel pain, you get pretty good at noticing who’s in pain.”
Asher stops speaking again. He runs his hands through his hair a couple of times and tugs at the cuffs of his sweatshirt. I can feel the anxiety pouring off of him. It’s a strange dynamic shift, but the more anxious he gets, the calmer I get. Almost like I was put here in this moment to help carry whatever is weighing him down. I want this burden, I realize. I want to be the keeper of his secrets.
Like he does for me, I take both his hands in mine, and wait until he looks at me. “It’s okay. Whatever it is. I swear, it’s going to be okay. I’m not going anywhere.”
He takes another deep breath before he starts talking again. “His name is Danny, and for the last four or so years I’ve been buying anti-inflammatory injections from him that I use before every game. They aren’t narcotics or anything, and it’s the same painkiller the trainers use on players every day. It has worked pretty well, except this season it isn’t, and I’ve needed the injections before practice too. It was Danny who called and texted yesterday. I called him before we left but hung up before he answered because I don’t want to be the guy who can’t get through the day without injecting painkillers into his body. The pain isn’t terrible, but it’s always there lately—a kind of dull ache in the background. The thing is, I’ve never really had pain in the offseason before. I think it was already starting to get worse, and then with the hit I took in the playoff game…”
His voice trails off then. I can hear what he’s thinking as if he’s saying it right out loud, and my heart aches for him.
“You’re afraid of what this means for your career.”
His eyes fill with gratitude, that I said the words, so he doesn’t have to.
“I know how terrible it is. I know all about the possibility of long-term permanent damage. You must think I’m such an idiot for doing this, and trust me, I do too. But I do it anyway because football is my entire life. I have no idea who I am without it, and I think losing it would kill me.”
Asher’s voice breaks a little on the last word, and before I can even think, I’m moving towards him, straddling his lap and wrapping my arms around him. I feel his arms go around me and hold tight. He buries his face in my neck, his breathing harsh. I hold him until his breaths even out, and when I go to move off his lap, he grabs my hips and holds me in place.
“Can you stay here? I like you close to me.”
“Anything.” And I mean it. I like everything about cheerful, upbeat, howls with wolves, loves gummy candy and Dr. Pepper, and is fascinated by giant barbershop poles Asher. But it’s vulnerable, uncertain Asher that has my heart leaping out of my chest and straight into his hands. It’s not nearly as scary as I thought it would be.
I lean in and kiss his forehead, letting my lips linger there. My habitual instinct to fix the problem in front of me is nowhere to be found. Instead, all I want to do is offer comfort and a safe landing spot. To be whatever he needs me to be in this moment. He lets out a shuddering breath and lays his hands on my cheeks, bringing our foreheads together. We stay like that for a few minutes, breathing each other in, before I hear him whisper.
“Thank you.”
I lean back so I can look him in the eye. “For what? I didn’t do anything.”
“For listening. For not judging me for this. I know it’s pretty stupid.”
I shrug. “Ill-advised maybe, but not stupid. Look Asher, there is no one on earth who understands hiding vulnerability better than I do. I would rather eat dirt than show anyone my hurts. And for you, when your entire career and sense of self depends on you being physically able to throw a football better than anyone else? You did what you needed to do. I am the last person who would judge you for choosing your career.”
He doesn’t answer, just stares at me with a look in his eyes I can’t decipher. When he brings his hand up and tucks a strand of hair back behind my ear, gliding his thumb down my jaw before resting his hand on the side of my neck, warmth floods me and butterflies explode in my stomach. When he finally speaks, his tone is low and deadly serious.
“Juliette, you are my favorite person.”
“Because I didn’t run away when you told me something hard? That seems like the very least a person could do. Not nearly enough for favorite person status.”
“No. Because you’re you.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to answer, just grips my hip with one hand and with the other still on my neck, he brings my lips to his.