Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Julie
W e had sex and I cried. I cried . God, how embarrassing.
Except Asher didn’t make me feel embarrassed. He just held on to me and whispered into my ear and then he washed my hair. He washed my fucking hair for me, and my heart jumped out of my chest and straight into his hands. No one has ever taken such careful, deliberate care of me, and I’m struggling to process it. What I do know is that what I feel for Asher is enormous—bigger than anything I have felt before for anyone—and that scares me as much as it thrills me.
After our shower, we dried off and tumbled into bed, naked. We’re tangled up under the covers, his arm tight around me and my head on his shoulder. In our little winter bubble in this out of the way town, our silence is comfortable. But tomorrow, it’ll be time to rejoin the world.
“Can you tell me more about your family?”
Asher shifts so he’s laying on his side facing me and we’re sharing the same pillow, and he is so gorgeous I almost can’t believe he’s real. His hair is disheveled, and with his gold-flecked eyes on mine, he radiates a contagious sort of contentment.
“I’ll tell you anything. What do you want to know?”
“Well, I’m meeting them in two days. So…everything?’
He laughs and presses a kiss to my shoulder. “Okay, well, it’s chaos, but the good kind. There are lots of kids and lots of noise and as long as no one is bleeding, we mostly let the chaos reign.”
“Okay so I know you have seven nieces, and their names are literally tattooed on you, but I’m going to need a crash course in all their names because I can’t exactly lift up your shirt if I forget.”
He smirks at me. “Honestly, with this crew, no one would bat an eye, but I’ll tell you. Charlie is the oldest, married to Jeff. Their girls are Olivia, Lilah, Harper, and the new baby Cammie. Annie is next, married to Zach. Their girls are Addie, Riley, and the new baby Zoe. I’m next, right in the middle.”
I laugh. “That I’ll never forget. You have middle child written all over you.”
He grins and strokes a hand over my hair, as if he can’t go a second without some kind of contact. I kind of love it.
“Kyla is fourth, married to Alex, and Lucy is the baby; she just got married to Noah last summer. Kyla’s having a baby any day now. She and I are the closest in age. I’m close to all my sisters, but it’s different with Kyla. We’ve always had an extra special relationship. Kind of like you and Ben, probably.”
I just nod, not wanting to get into the complexities of my relationship with my brother.
“Anyway, I’m really glad I’ll get to be there to meet her baby when she’s born. With football I couldn’t always be there for the other girls, so this is really special to me.”
His eyes get a little misty, and seeing this big, strong athlete turn into a puddle at the thought of holding his sister’s new baby has my heart doing one long slow roll in my chest.
“And your parents?”
He smiles a little, thinking about them. “Tom and Susan Hansley are something else. My dad’s a general surgeon, and I don’t think anyone in the world loves their job as much he does. Watching him have so much passion for it is what made me want to go to medical school if football didn’t work out. But he’s also such a good dad. He worked a lot, but he was always present, you know? At my games, at family dinner when he could be. Helping with homework. And the way he is with my mom? I’ve always wanted what they have. They still love each other so damn much, even after five kids and almost eight grandchildren. Everything I know about how to be a good partner I learned from my dad.”
I reach out and lay a hand on Asher’s cheek. “I think he taught you pretty damn well.”
He lays his hand over mine. “You think?”
“I absolutely do. And it sounds like your dad and mine are cut from the same cloth. What about your mom?”
“She’s just the best. She’s brilliant and funny and knows everything and loves to bake cookies and pretty much runs all our lives no matter how old we get. She’s a lawyer too. Judge actually.”
“Seriously? How have we never talked about that?”
He gives me a wry grin. “I mean, you told me about your judicial dreams when you were topless. Telling you about my mom’s career wasn’t top of my mind.”
I chuckle. “Point taken. What kind of judge is she?”
“Family court. Adoptions mostly. It’s a tough job, but she’s really good at it.”
“For real, how have we never talked about this? Hallie is an adoption lawyer. ”
He looks confused. “I thought she did wills and trusts like you.”
“She did, but she also always did some adoption work on the side. Last August she got an opportunity to take over an adoption practice and move it to our firm. It turns out she wasn’t happy doing will and trust work anymore, so she transitioned her clients to me, and she took on adoption full time. We made it work.” I shrug, like it was no big deal when it was, in fact, a huge fucking deal.
“That must have been hard for you.” His eyes bore into mine and like always, he sees under my surface to what lies beneath. My instinct is to brush it off, but I’m so damn tired of doing that. I don’t want to hide anything from him.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It was.”
He nods but says nothing, waiting for me to continue.
“Hallie had been thinking about switching practices for a long time, but never said anything to us. When she finally told me in August, we were already deep in preparation to open the firm and I…” I break off, trying to collect my thoughts before I tell him the worst of it. “I didn’t handle it well.”
I laugh a little, but there’s no humor in it. “That’s a lie actually. I handled it so terribly that I’m sometimes shocked Hallie is still my friend at all.”
Asher reaches out and takes my hand, setting our joined hands on the pillow between us while he waits for me to continue. “We had a huge fight about it. The biggest one we have ever had.” I shake my head, trying to find the words to explain this to him. “I still think about it all the time. We talked it out and she forgave me, but the things I said to her? It still keeps me up at night.”
“What were you afraid of?”
His question catches me off guard. “What do you mean?”
“Juliette, there isn’t a single mean bone in your body. If you lashed out, it’s because you were scared. So, what scared you?”
The relief of being seen like this, all the way through, is so enormous that it takes me a minute to answer him. And when I tell him my biggest, most hidden truth, my voice wavers.
“I was afraid of being left behind.”
Asher squeezes my hand, and that little gesture gives me the courage to continue.
“Last summer was not the best. In July we closed on our office space. There was so much to do, and we only had six months before we opened. Hallie, Emma, and Molly all did everything they were supposed to do, but it was…different for me. I was so anxious about everything. I took charge when I shouldn’t have and was constantly ordering everyone around. My spreadsheets had spreadsheets and I didn’t sleep more than a few hours a night for weeks. I tried but my brain wouldn’t shut off, and when I was so exhausted I finally passed out, I would be up two or three hours later. And well, you saw how I wake up. It wasn’t pleasant. I basically mainlined caffeine and got really good at concealer so I could fake the well-rested, put together lawyer everyone expected me to be. That’s pretty much where I was when you met me at the gala.”
Asher leans forward and gives me a soft kiss. “I know, baby. I knew there was something on your mind that night beyond champagne and formal wear and a dance with a football player.”
“How did you know?”
“When you were waiting for me to take your picture, you were tapping your phone against your palm. And when we were dancing and you mentioned you were a lawyer, your hand shook. I don’t know if anyone else noticed it, but I did. I remember thinking that I wanted to unravel you. To see what was beneath the badass attorney. ”
I stare at him, a little stunned. “You remember all that?”
“I remember everything about you.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal. It is definitely not no big deal.
“Do you want to hear the rest?”
“Absolutely I do.”
“Okay, well the day after the gala, we left for our annual lake trip at my parents’ house in Western Maryland. I never told anyone this, but I resented every minute of the forced relaxation because all I could think about was everything we had to do at the firm. While we were at the lake, Hallie and Ben got together. It was so sudden. Our second morning at the lake, I went to wake Hallie up for breakfast and Ben strolled out of her room. He told me that he had been in love with her for eleven years. Eleven fucking years, Asher. He’s my twin brother and very best friend, and he never told me his biggest secret. I thought I knew everything about him, and it fucked me up a little when I found out he kept this from me for more than a decade.”
“And then you had to adjust to Ben and Hallie being, well, Ben and Hallie.”
“Yes,” I whisper. “That was the hardest part of all. One day we were all friends, and the next day they were a couple. They got so serious so fast and were deliriously happy and everyone was thrilled, and I had whiplash. It’s not that I’m not happy for them. I am.”
“Juliette, you have the biggest heart of anyone I know. Of course you’re happy for them. But you can feel other things too. So how does it make you feel?”
Tears spring to my eyes, and I blink them back because I need to get this out. “Lonely. It makes me feel lonely. Hallie has been my best friend since we were born. Where it counts, she’s my sister, just as much as Ben is my brother. But now they have each other and are building this whole life together that belongs just to the two of them, and I don’t know where my place is.”
Asher glides his thumb along my cheekbone, wiping away a tear that escaped. “Your feelings are all valid, you know. Your life changed just as much as Hallie and Ben’s did when they got together.”
I sigh then, and get ready to tell him the worst part. “You asked me what I was afraid of when I lashed out at Hallie? I was afraid of this. Of feeling like the two people closest to me were leaving me behind. I felt like Hallie had already left me for Ben and then she was leaving me at work too, and I felt…”
“Abandoned. You felt abandoned.”
“I did. I still do. Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a place with anyone anymore.”
Asher sits up then, pulling me up to straddle his lap, cupping my face in both of his hands and tangling his fingers in my hair.
“You will always have a place right here with me.”
With those words from his mouth and his blue eyes steady on mine, I take the final fall straight into love with Asher Hansley. I know with more certainty than I have ever known anything that he is my endgame. This is forever, and it’s not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. I lean forward and kiss him, then wrap my arms around his neck, holding tight.
“Can I make a suggestion?” He asks the question into my ear, and I pull back so I can see his face.
“Sure, why not?”
“Have you ever considered talking to Ben? Telling him some of how you feel?”
“Not really. I never wanted to shit on what he and Hallie have or do anything that could get in the way of their happiness.”
“I don’t know Ben like you do, but I have been getting to know him a little, and I know he cares about his people. He would want to know, Juliette. And, sometimes, it just feels good to tell the people you love how you feel. When we get back, maybe do something, just the two of you. I bet he misses you too.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Okay, I’m going to up the ante, because I think we need this.”
I cackle out a laugh. “Up the ante? Are we at a Vegas poker table in the seventies?”
“Nah, but the stakes are just as high. I’ve been thinking about telling my family about my shoulder.”
“Wow, Asher, seriously?”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen when pre-season starts, or how my shoulder is going to hold up, and in full transparency, that scares the absolute shit out of me. But telling you about it last night lightened the load a little, and I think I want more of that. Need more of that. So, I want to tell them, even if all they do is tell me I’m crazy for still trying to play.”
“I’d like to be with you when you tell them, if you want.”
“I definitely want. And I want you to do something else for me.”
“Let me guess. You talk to your family, and I talk to Ben? Matching high stakes conversations that may or may not devastate the people we love most?”
“You know it. There’s no one I’d rather have matching uncomfortable family conversations with than you.”
I grin at him, feeling lighter than I expected, considering I just unloaded months worth of emotional baggage.
“You know what, Hot Shot? You have yourself a deal.”
A phone rings, yanking me out of a deep sleep and shattering the pre-dawn stillness.
I feel Asher shift behind me, dropping a kiss on my shoulder before reaching for the phone charging on his nightstand.
“Ky?” His voice is rough with exhaustion. A female voice on the other end of the phone is talking fast, and suddenly Asher shoots straight up.
“Now? Really?”
He turns to me, and his broad smile—a stark contrast to his sleepy eyes—hits me right in the chest. “Kyla is in labor! She’s going to the hospital now.”
His excitement is palpable, and I grin right along with him.
“Okay, we’ll be there as soon as we can. Don’t fucking have that baby until I get there. Love you.”
He ends the call and grabs my face, kissing me deeply. “Let’s get a couple more hours of sleep, and then we’re going to Boulder.”
“A couple more hours of sleep? Asher, we’re going now.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“Seriously? No, I don’t mind.”
He takes a deep breath. “Okay. It’s a pretty long drive to Boulder. I was planning on making some stops along the way, but…”
His uncertainty is adorable. I just want to snuggle him. Instead, I snap into lawyer mode.
“Asher, if Ben was having a baby, I’d already be in the car, and I certainly wouldn’t care about a little extra time on the road. Get in the shower. I’ll pack for both of us. We’re leaving in twenty and I’m driving. We’ll stop for coffee once we get on the road.”
“But…are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. There’s no way you’re missing this. Come on, Uncle Ash. You’ve got a baby to meet.”