Chapter 7 Jaden #2
I groan as my head falls back. Meanwhile, Bryson hops up onto the training table next to me and begins swinging his legs back and forth with his palms flat at his sides.
I roll my head to my right, checking the activity in the front room and hoping Aaron shows up to interrupt us.
When I hear him deep in a conversation with another athlete, though, I relent and let out a deep sigh.
“Wow, am I back to a ten on the hate scale?”
I can’t help the soft laugh that slips out at Bryson’s humility. It’s charming. He’s charming. Except when he’s not. And no matter how hard I try, have tried, I can’t seem to erase the first time we met.
“Aaron knows, right?” I pull my brow in and hold his stare, my pulse racing from my boldness. Of course Aaron knows. I told him.
It takes Bryson a beat to follow, but eventually he blinks away and shakes his head, letting out a snarky laugh.
“Does the head trainer know that I muted the pain of a year-old injury by taking my best friend’s old oxy? No. I didn’t exactly put that on the medical forms,” he says, abruptly exhaling before shifting his focus back to me.
I knew it! Aaron took care of the injury, but the rest got swept under the rug, and that rug probably turned into an NIL deal somehow.
I’m saving every penny I get just to make tuition and rent, meanwhile, a football player blinks and earns sponsorship money, which his oxy-stealing ass doesn’t deserve.
Bryson’s head tilts to the side as we lock stares and hold fast to the lengthening silence.
I ruminate on his words, drilling down to that little bit about his injury being a year old.
It feels like an excuse. I’m sure he’s trying to evoke empathy, that I should feel bad he played through an injury longer than I thought he did.
Eventually, he blinks rapidly and shrugs while sighing.
“Go on. Get it off your chest. You’ve been carrying this weight around for a long time, so give it to me.”
I glance over my shoulder to check the door again. Aaron is still deep in a conversation.
“It’s the hero worship,” I let slip, my eyes still pointed away from him.
“Hero worship?” He snorts out a laugh.
I snap my attention back to him, my gaze landing on his thousand-plus-dollar watch a second before his face. He must notice, because he glances down and twists the band around his wrist.
“Oh, I get it. You’re mad about the NIL inequity. And you know what? You should be.” He unclasps the watch and holds it out to me, as if that’s the point. It feels like a bribe.
“Ha!” My sharp laugh pierces the quiet room, and Bryson shifts to look out the door to see if it drew anyone’s attention.
“I was trying to be nice,” he grumbles, refastening the band and bringing his stare back to me while running a hand through his damp hair.
I shake my head and silently laugh.
“You just don’t get it, do you? Bryson .
. . I don’t want your watch. I don’t want your NIL money.
I mean, sure, I would like to have even a fraction of it.
It would help. And you’re not wrong, the disparity between women’s deals and men’s is—” I hold my hands in front of me to illustrate the massive gap.
“Then what is it? What am I not getting? You say hero worship. What does that mean? Tell me. I can take it.” His frustrated tone feels authentic, and I don’t think the tight pull of his mouth into his cheeks is an act.
Maybe I’m being too harsh, and maybe he’s right—letting go of this resentment could be good for me.
“Everyone around here sees you as a hero, not a druggie.” The words tumble out, and I probably should have polished them a bit, but my bitter side got the best of me. And now there’s an invisible vise made of guilt cranking tighter by the second around my diaphragm.
“Ah.” Bryson’s gaze drops to the floor, his swinging feet suddenly still. His lashes kiss his cheeks.
“I didn’t mean—”
“No, you did,” he cuts me off. His gaze flits up for a second, and the vivid green of his eyes suddenly seems dim and muddy.
“I didn’t want Ashton to get in trouble.
He was trying to help, be a friend. And yeah, I’m sure giving your roommate your old opioids doesn’t rank high on your pious list of solids a friend can do for you, but at the time . . . for me? He did me a solid.”
I bristle at his choice of words. I know from experience nothing about pain pills is simple.
One car crash and a pinched nerve turned my father into the kind of man who bought drugs from a stranger in the dark corners of a downtown park.
One accident and a prescription from the family doctor almost cost my parents everything.
I don’t think that Bryson’s experience was quite to the same depths of addiction, but I also know how good people are at hiding things.
I clear my throat first, then finally utter, “If you didn’t want him to get in trouble, you shouldn’t have taken them. ”
He laughs, finally pushing off from the table and gripping his towel tightly against his abdomen.
“Probably not, Crash. But I did. And I got hurt anyway and busted my ass to make it back.” When his gaze hits mine, there’s a new resolve behind his eyes.
“Okay, let’s get at that pesky muscle, shall we?” Aaron’s singsong tone breaks the stillness left in the wake of Bryson’s and my exchange. I turn my attention to our trainer, and Bryson leaves without a word.
Aaron holds my arm out in front of me, instructing me to keep it there as his palm presses along my bicep and into my shoulder.
I’m studying his face, trying to muster up the courage to ask him about our conversation three years ago and the fallout, or lack thereof, when his gaze flits up to meet mine unexpectedly.
I gasp, like I’ve been caught stealing, but I don’t look away.
“You know, there are always layers to a story, Jaden. The entire plot isn’t summed up in the first chapter.
” He doesn’t blink as I study his eyes, feeling my own dim with skepticism.
I get what he’s insinuating, but I’m not completely sold that he read all the chapters of Bryson Moss’s story either.
In fact, I think he plucked one out of the middle.
Aaron’s thumb presses into my bicep tendon and hits a raw spot that triggers the nerve pain. I flinch.
“That’s it,” I confirm.
He guides my arm upward, coaxing my elbow straight and stretching what feels like the culprit of my pain.
I shift my focus to the wall straight ahead.
It’s covered in muscle charts and last year’s media day posters for Cordon’s various teams. I zero in on the one featuring the tall quarterback with light-brown hair tossing a football at his side and eventually decide to swallow my curiosity for the time being.
Aaron’s right in some regards. I don’t know Bryson Moss’s full story.
In fact, like most people at Cordon U, I’ve barely cracked the cover.