Chapter 41
ROMAN
The team is celebrating amongst themselves in the clubhouse when I disappear into my office.
My first move is to text Brielle and tell her that I’ll be home as soon as I can.
The game tape can wait until I’ve seen her and touched her and just existed beside her.
I don’t want to spend another night trapped away in this dark, quiet office watching the game when I could be doing that at home with my laptop perched on my knees and a woman tucked into my chest or hunched over on the mattress beside me, sketching a design.
My life has changed so swiftly that I didn’t have the time to drag my feet, and I’ve never been so grateful for anything.
Fingers flying over my phone screen, I type a message for her, letting her know I’m heading home, and shoot it off a beat before there’s a soft, almost nervous knock on my door.
I narrowly avoid showing my surprise when I see Asher standing in the doorway, his arms crossed. He looks me dead in the eyes and pulls his shoulders back before speaking.
“Got a minute?”
“Sure. Take a seat,” I offer, leaning back against my desk.
He glances at the empty chair before disregarding it, taking a step inside the office and then stopping. With a tense arm, he shuts the door behind him.
“I’ll be quick.”
“Alright. Go ahead.”
His brown eyes seem to pale in colour. My gut pinches with nerves, expecting news that may very well throw a wrench into my evening plans.
“I need to be home for a few days.”
“Did something happen?” I ask maybe a bit too quickly, my concern too obvious.
He shifts on his feet. “My mom is—I need to stay.”
I’m already nodding my approval, not needing to debate it or hear the details he clearly doesn’t want to share. The same ones that he’s kept to himself since the moment he showed up here.
Asher seems to relax a bit at my reaction, his shoulders slumping forward just enough to betray his relief. He still stares at me with that cool, unreadable expression, but those pale eyes warm half a shade.
“Take the time you need, Asher.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you need anything else from me? The team?”
His eyes flick away to a corner of the office. “No. They don’t know . . . I don’t want questions. I shouldn’t need more than this week.”
“If you need more time, take it. Don’t tell me the details if you don’t wish to, but if this is bad, then you stay with her, Asher. Do you understand me? The team will be fine.”
“A week,” he bites back, already turning away from me, toward the door.
I stare at his back, at his shoulders and the way the tenses through his jersey, pulling the fabric taut. My eyes shut for a moment before I force them open and take one step in his direction.
“My phone is always on. For you, the team, it is always on.”
The strained fingers at his side curl into a fist. I watch the movement, unable to look away.
“She’s sick.” He offers the information with a voice so haunted it chills my skin. I hold my breath. “Again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Everyone’s sorry. What good does an apology do?”
I lower a hand to my desk, needing the stability. “You’re not alone.”
“It’s easier if I am. That’s why the team won’t know. Tell them I’m sick and unable to play.”
There’s no point in telling him that they won’t buy it. Nobody will.
“If that’s what you need.”
“It is.”
“Then consider it done.”
He nods once, his face hidden as he stares at the door, then reaches for it. “They’re too afraid to ask you to celebrate with them tonight. You should.”
It wasn’t meant to be a jab, but the opposite, I’m sure. From the pain in my chest, his intentions don’t matter.
“Your reasons for staying away from them outside of this place may be different than mine, but they may be more similar than either of us thought,” I say, almost to myself.
He turns his head, and that oftentimes unreadable mask he wears slips. The heartbreak that overtakes him forms a fist around me and squeezes savagely. I almost choke.
“Does she help?”
“Who?”
We both know exactly who, even if I hadn’t noticed just how closely he was watching.
“Does she? With the pain?”
“Yes. It’s like . . . putting a warm compress on a strained muscle.”
“So it comes back.”
“Less and less over time. But yes, it does. It will never heal completely. You just learn to live with the ache.”
He sniffs, looking forward again, this time wrapping his fingers tightly around the door handle. “More pain might kill me.”
“It won’t. You’ll think you’re dying, but you’re not. You won’t. You’ve got baseball and an entire clubhouse full of people worth living for already, Asher.”
His swallow is so thick I heard it before he pushes on the handle and opens the door. The words he speaks a beat later make me flinch.
“For now.”
The moment he’s gone, I remind myself of that promise I made to myself in this office only a few hours ago.
That I’m going to eliminate the line in the sand that I’ve stood behind like a coward since the moment I joined this organization and make this team my family.
She’s already here.
Without answering a single one of my calls or texts, Brielle’s here, at her brother’s house. If it hadn’t been for the location she hasn’t stopped sharing with me, I wouldn’t have even known that.
As badly as I wish my instincts were wrong, I know they’re right. Somehow, sometime between this morning and the end of our game, I’ve fucked up. I’ve done something bad enough that it’s caused her to ignore me and, according to Evie, leave me on Read.
I’m on edge as I work my way through Wesley’s house and scan the second living room with a gaze that borders on desperate. The array of random chairs and the television that’s nearly the size of the entire wall is a bit of a shock, but I ignore all of it, too busy searching for Brielle.
Beck’s voice catches my attention, coming from somewhere in this room. I move between a group of bench bats as they sip beers and offer me polite nods. Their blatant surprise to see me here isn’t anything I hadn’t already prepared myself for on the drive over.
Despite all of my mental preparation, this is not what I was expecting when Jett tossed the invitation to me earlier.
After Asher slipped away, he was the only one who dared confirm what had been mentioned in my office.
They truly were too scared to ask me, yet somehow managed to find the one person with the nerve to do it anyway.
I was surprised to learn that Jett himself wasn’t coming, considering he made it his mission to get me to attend.
“Coach! You’re actually here,” Beck shouts.
Lounging on a hot pink, inflatable couch in an abandoned corner of the room, he’s got his legs spread wide and arms flapping in the air above his head.
His eyes are fixated on me as he grins wildly and drops a hand to the small, empty space beside him.
There’s no real difference in the way he’s behaving now from the way he does in the clubhouse.
Whether he’s in his uniform or the shorts he’s wearing now that expose more thigh than I’d personally like and a shirt cropped a bit higher than normal, he’s the same guy.
I admire that about him, even if I still want to throttle him for getting to have his name on Brielle’s back on multiple occasions.
“Have you seen Brielle?” I ask, skipping the roundabout.
“Straight to business, huh? And here I thought you came to see me.”
“I need to find her, Beckett.”
He sobers up a bit at my use of his full name and pushes into a proper sitting position. “Is she okay?”
“That depends on what you mean by okay.”
“Ah, she’s pissed at you,” he says, an arrogant smirk curving his lips as he relaxes. “What did you do?”
I slide my hands into my jacket pockets. “Have you seen her?”
“Is she the only reason you’re here, Rome, or have you decided that we’re acceptable to be around?”
My skin tightens over my tense muscles. Reluctantly, I perch on the edge of the seat beside him. “You’ve never been unacceptable to be around.”
“Nobody wants to ask what keeps you so . . . guarded. Maybe we’re all scared you’ll put us on the bench or fight for a trade for digging into your business. But tonight is your lucky night, Coach, ’cause I’m drunk enough not to care what the fuck you do with me.”
I force my brows to stay in place when they twitch, begging to rise. “At least you aren’t playing tomorrow.”
“Tell me what keeps you from caring about us. Or hell, from letting us care about you, I guess.”
“You don’t want to spend your night here talking to me about this, Beck.”
“I do now. My plans hit the shitter an hour ago, and this actually sounds like a great fucking replacement. Very distracting.”
A throb grows in my temple, either from the loud music or his pestering. “I don’t get close to people who could disappear whenever they so choose. They either choose to leave, or that decision is made for them by some other force I have no desire to learn about.”
“Sounds lonely.”
“It was.”
“My dad used to tell me that our lives were planned out long before we were born. Every word we’d speak, choice we’d make, person we’d fall in love with.
I always shrugged him off because it pissed me off to think that I had no real say over anything I did or would do.
” He reaches up to tug at the hair that’s gotten so long it curls behind his ears and neck.
There’s a tattoo just under his left ear that I’d never noticed.
A coffee bean. “I still refuse to believe it. Leaving your life up to fate is pathetic.”
“You don’t believe in it?”
“Fate is nothing more than an ideal you can use as an excuse when things go wrong so you don’t have to bear the weight of the disappointment or regret.
If you want to avoid building a family around yourself because you’re convinced they’ll just leave one day, like that’s already been decided by some magic power, then you’ll die alone and hate yourself for it. ”
“You’re a somber drunk, Beck,” I mutter, needing time to get over the pain his words have caused in the deepest parts of me.
He drops his head against the plastic couch and barks a laugh. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“That doesn’t make what you’ve said any less true.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
I don’t reply, my mind still lost, wandering somewhere I’ve refused it entrance too so many times.
It’s a hard reality, knowing that you’ve risked so many friendships and a life all alone because the future was too uncertain.
That you’ve spent years creating walls around yourself, reinforcing them with your pain and guilt and anger, so now, it’s nearly impossible to tear them down.
Brielle didn’t wait for me to build a door and allow her entrance. She stormed them like the beautiful, exquisite woman she is and found her own way in. There’s a crack now, and all I need to do is let it spread.
“She’s in the backyard,” Beck says, tearing me past those thoughts. “I haven’t heard any shouting, which means Wes hasn’t found her yet.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank me by doing this more often.”
“You just like hearing yourself talk,” I muse, my voice tight with unspoken emotion. Gratefulness.
He winks. “I hear that’s one of my best qualities.”
I stand with a low laugh. He watches me move, his eyes a bit too seeing despite the alcohol-induced glaze in them.
“Keep your jerseys to yourself, and I’ll take you up on the offer.”
His snort is loud, unapologetic. “Give her one with your name, and she won’t need to wear mine.”
I don’t bother telling him that I’ve already got that taken care of.