Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Savannah
I’m up in the stands, watching the game with Lexi, when Asher goes down on the field in a crumple.
“Is he—” I’m on my feet before I can say the word hurt.
Clearly, he’s hurt. I glance over at Lexi.
She must know something’s going on. She has to know.
It’s not like she isn’t right to be suspicious.
But she’s looking at the game, lips tense and white.
Out on the field, Brayden sprints over to where Asher is lying, waving for the team medical staff. I don’t need the camera to zoom in on his face to know what he’s feeling. A desperate clawing panic that I also can’t show.
“Do you think he’s okay?” I ask Lexi.
“Maybe.” Said like a no.
The trainers come out. I wait, breath held, as they do their checks. Please be okay. Please be okay. Asher is at least responding. If I squint hard enough, I think I can just make out his facial expression—he’s talking. Laughing even. Then he gets up and sinks right back down.
Oh no.
Brayden is still beside him. He reaches for Asher, offers a hand. Pulls him to standing and doesn’t immediately let go of his palm.
“Huh,” Lexi says. “Didn’t realize they were friends.”
“I’m not sure they are.” I’m not sure there’s a word for what they are—what we are—that feels adequate.
Two of the trainers wind their arms around Asher and help him slowly back to the dugout.
I flex and release my hands a few times, feeling entirely useless.
You have no claim to Asher. We’re not family.
There’s nothing to bind us together but a few hot encounters, the complication of Brayden and marriage and whatever happened last night.
It occurs to me that, in case of a real emergency, I wouldn’t know who to call on his behalf.
Me, the realization hits. I want that person to be me.
Somehow. Some way. A feeling as impossible as reaching up and grabbing a handful of clouds. And yet…
“I gotta go,” I tell Lexi. She might think something’s up. She might know something’s up. At this moment, I really don’t care.
So I hustle down through the ballpark, heart in my throat, scared of what I’m going to find—or worse, that Asher might turn me away.
I have to flash my team-issued badge at four security guards before they finally let me into the clubhouse. “I’m Brayden Forsyth’s wife,” I say, over and over. “Asher—Adler, I mean—got hurt and I want to make sure his family knows he’s okay.”
The last security guard seems unpersuaded. She stands between me and the clubhouse entrance, hand on her hip, expression skeptical.
“Please,” I say. “He doesn’t have anyone.” A lie. Because he does, judging from Brayden’s hand in his on the field, from the way my heart won’t stop hammering.
The guard takes my ID, examining it closely.
It’s real, I want to say, but sometimes, the best thing to do in a negotiation is to shut the hell up.
“Okay,” she says, finally. “You can go in.”
I enter the clubhouse, follow the signs to the medical suite, a series of rooms that look more like doctor’s offices than baseball facilities. Asher’s lying in on one of the padded tables, eyes closed, a cold pack across his forehead. The lights are dimmed.
“Hey,” I whisper. I don’t want to wake him if he’s asleep.
But he winks an eye open at me. “Hey, princess.” His voice comes out as a croak. “You came all this way to see me?”
“I needed to know if you were—” I bite off okay, because he’s clearly not. “Concussed.”
“Yeah, I feel pretty concussed.” He shuts his eyes again as if that amount of light is too much.
“Sorry,” I say, “I can let you sleep.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. With the way Brayden and I left last night, it’s possible I’m the last person he wants to see right now. Then he shakes his head slowly from side to side. “You don’t need to go.”
Not quite a stay, but I set my purse on one of the chairs. Pace for a minute, taking in Asher in details: pale and tense in the half dark, hand draping limply off one side of the table.
I look around—the medical staff are somewhere else—then take his hand in mine. The edge of his lips curves up in a slight smile. “First concussion?” I ask.
“No.” But he doesn’t elaborate.
“They give you something for the pain?” I ask.
He nods. “Two whole Tylenol. I can have more in six to eight hours.”
“Unfortunately, the only thing to do is really get some rest,” I say. “Avoid bright lights and sounds. Minimize screen time.”
“So stare at the ceiling until I get better?” He squeezes my hand briefly, before letting go.
“Should I call someone?” I ask.
He nods, then looks like he regrets moving his head even that much. “Here, take my phone.” He pats his pocket, pulls it out, winces at the sudden glare of the screen before handing it to me unlocked. “Can you text my mom?”
I scroll through his contacts. Find the one labeled Mom that’s a few entries above the one labeled Princess that has my number.
Go to his text thread with his mom, which is mostly them just sending each other their Wordle scores every day.
My heart is doing that thing again, the one that makes me want to crawl onto that bed beside him, even if common sense tells me I should stay put. “What should I say?”
“Tell her I’m fine and not to worry.” He sighs.
I type that, hit send, get a paragraph-long response back a minute later. “She says she knows you’re lying,” I say. “And she asked if you have someone to take care of you.”
Asher doesn’t smile, but the lines around his eyes relax slightly. “What should I tell her?”
I take his hand back, threading our fingers together, answering without words. This time, I don’t let go.